Persepsi masyarakat lokal terhadap pentingnya hutan dan lahan-lahan lain di lansekap hutan tropis, Kabupaten Malinau, Kalimantan Timur

This study emphasis on local people perception of the importance of forest and lands, including related attributes, which underlie variations in the type and degree of locally perceived importance. A participatory approach using scoring exercises was completed with seven forest dwelling communities in the tropical landscape of Malinau, East Kalimantan. We also assessed the consistency of this method. The findings suggest that un-logged forest was the most important land category for local people. It provides their livelihoods and well-being both directly and indirectly. 'Forest' has heritage values and contained abundance of valuable and significant plants and animals. In the future, 'forest' is predicted to remain important for local people mainly for timber. Forests are exceptional in comparison with other land types. In addition, the value of forest cases apparently decreases less with distances. However, logged forest is rated as much less important, allowing us to suggest improvements in forest management that better protect local values. Using limited set of scoring exercises, it demonstrates that their consistency can be examined quantitatively as well as qualitatively. This allows it to access new explanations, which give new insights. Logical consistent results are more likely if question are narrowly defined, and if respondents have some education, but even uneducated respondents can provide apparently meaningful and consistent number if care is taken

Biodiversity in a Batak village of Palawan (Philippines): a multidisciplinary assessment of local perceptions and priorities

This report identifies which resources and landscapes are important to the Batak people. It also documents their perceptions and priorities regarding forest management. By playing close attention to the Bataks’ perspectives, the “Levelling the Playing Field” project (LPF) is able to better understand their opinions and hopes for the present and future use of their natural resources. Further, by understating local perceptions, greater insight is gained into the complex relations between the Bataks and coastal migrants living in the district capital (barangay), and their political and economic marginalization on Palawan Island

Scoring the importance of tropical forest landscapes with local people: patterns and insights

Good natural resource management is scarce in many remote tropical regions. Improved management requires better local consultation, but accessing and understanding the preferences and concerns of stakeholders can be difficult. Scoring, where items are numerically rated in relation to each other, is simple and seems applicable even in situations where capacity and funds are limited, but managers rarely use such methods. Here we investigate scoring with seven indigenous communities threatened by forest loss in Kalimantan, Indonesia. The authors aimed to clarify the forest’s multifaceted importance, using replication, cross-check exercises, and interviews. Results are sometimes surprising, but generally explained by additional investigation that sometimes provides new insights. The consistency of scoring results increases in line with community literacy and wealth. Various benefits and pitfalls are identified and examined. Aside from revealing and clarifying local preferences, scoring has unexplored potential as a quantitative technique. Scoring is an underappreciated management tool with wide potential

Assessing biodiversity at landscape level in northern Thailand and Sumatra (Indonesia): the importance of environmental context

Most biodiversity assessment methods tend to sample isolated areas of land cover such as closed forest or local land use mosaics. Contemporary methods of assessing biodiversity are briefly reviewed and focus on the relative roles of the Linnean species and plant functional types (PFTs). Recent case studies from central Sumatra and northern Thailand indicate how the range distributions of many plant and animal species and functional types frequently extend along regional gradients of light, water and nutrient availability and corresponding land use intensity. We show that extending the sampling context to include a broader array of environmental determinants of biodiversity results in a more interpretable pattern of biodiversity. Our results indicate sampling within a limited environmental context has the potential to generate highly truncated range distributions and thus misleading information for land managers and for conservation. In an intensive, multi-taxa survey in lowland Sumatra, vegetational data were collected along a land use intensity gradient using a proforma specifically designed for rapid survey. Each vegetation sample plot was a focal point for faunal survey. Whereas biodiversity pattern from samples within closed canopy rain forest was difficult to interpret, extending the sample base to include a wider variety of land cover and land use greatly improved interpretation of plant and animal distribution. Apart from providing an improved theoretical and practical basis for forecasting land use impact on biodiversity, results illustrate how specific combinations of plant-based variables might be used to predict impacts on specific animal taxa, functional types and above-ground carbon. Implications for regional assessment and monitoring of biodiversity and in improving understanding of the landscape dynamics are briefly discussed

Rapid ecological assessment Kerinci Seblat National Park buffer zone: report on plant ecology.

A Rapid Ecological Assessment (REA) was undertaken in two logging concessions bounding the Kerinci Seblat National Park in Central Sumatra. The REA was implemented by WWF Indonesia and funded by the World Bank. CIFOR together with LIPI advised on survey method as part of a wider study involving biodiversity assessment in the Jambi Province. An international team investigated biodiversity pattern in vascular plant species and plant functional groups, insects (mainly butterflies, moths, dung beetles and carabids), herpetofauna (amphibians and reptiles), bats, rodents, large mammals and birds. Unusually restrictive logistics reduced the number of sites to approximately half that needed for a statistical analysis. Results indicate that while plant species and functional richness vary directly with elevation, fauna show a reverse trend. The paper comments on ways of improving logging practices to conserve biodiversity. New global levels of species and functional richness were recorded for several sites. Any future baseline study will require a wider sample of land cover types