Landscapes worldwide are increasingly shaped through global trade, market development, and resource exploitation. The central question motivating this dissertation is “how do concessions shape local livelihoods, land use practices, and utilization of valuable resources”. This dissertation presents a study of forest reliance, land use, and resource utilization of indigenous and non-indigenous communities residing within and around Hutan Harapan, the first forest restoration concession in Sumatra-Indonesia. The overall aim of this dissertation is to advance the understanding of communities’ social and economic conditions and their utilization of - and reliance on - forest products in a changing landscape. The study is grounded in the discipline of local people’s interaction with the environment in which they live and work. The specific objectives of the thesis are: 1) To assess the economic contribution of forest restoration to the different ethnic communities, namely indigenous Batin Sembilan, Malays, and Immigrant (Paper I); 2) To understand how agricultural concessions shape the livelihoods and land use practice of indigenous and non-indigenous households residing in the margins of the forest restoration (Paper II); and 3) To investigate the commercialisation of the most economically attractive NTFP from Hutan Harapan (Paper III). The study used simplified PEN questionnaire and qualitative methods including Group Discussion and Key Informant to assess economic contribution of forest restoration and to analyse the association of agricultural expansion with rural livelihoods and land use practice. Data collection took place from the beginning of January 2014 up to the end of January 2015. An additional fieldwork was run on May and October 2016 to collect data on value chain and contribution of Jernang commercialization to rural’s economy. Paper I documents variations in forest reliance between different ethnic groups. The Indigenous households had a highest natural forest income that is also affirmed by Paper II. Natural forests’ contribution to Malays and Immigrant households’ income was limited. For Malays groups, rubber was the most important income source while non-forest wage was the most important income source within Immigrant households. Paper II shows that Malays and Immigrant households residing within timber plantation concessions had a higher forest income and converted less forest than those residing in oil palm concessions. Different ethnic groups were associated with different concession types and the concession type in the households’ residential area is the main determinant of households’ land use. However, many households irrespective of their ethnicity have started to cultivate oil palm recently. Industrial-scale agriculture was associated with a change in land-use towards forest conversion, intensive agriculture, and mono-cropping. Paper III shows that income from Jernang (Daemonorops draco Blume) allowed households to spread risk and to balance seasonal labor requirements. Collectors had a substantially lower Jernang income than households cultivating Jernang as a crop. Nevertheless, since Jernang is available as an open-access resource, the majority of the households preferred Jernang collection to the establishment of small-scale agroforestry. The growing number of immigrant collectors is likely to compete with the indigenous Batin Sembilan and local Malays collectors and put pressure on the populations of wild Jernang. The PhD thesis contributes to the methodological development of the PEN household survey. It shows that PEN can be adjusted to local context and availability of resources and yet remain an excellent tool to capture rural socio-economic conditions. The simplified PEN was useful to study the semi-nomadic indigenous group and fitted a large and heterogenous geographical area with many smaller homogenous ethnic and land use areas nested within. The PhD thesis demonstrates that restoring remaining rainforests need broader law enforcement and require stronger efforts, including regulation of migration to forested rural areas including extending Indonesia’s moratorium on conversion of forest to forest restoration concessions. National policies to increase oil palm production and the supply for pulp and paper industries means that national and commercial interests will likely continue to overrule indigenous and environmental concerns.