Archive for the ‘Local Communities’ Category
Sheryl raised two interesting points in her comment on the illegal farming: 1) “I’m sure the farmers knew they were on reserve land” We are pretty sure they did too as, in this part of the world, the Reserve is where the trees are! However, this is almost impossible to prove and, even knowing it is a conservation area, won’t necessarily stop the villagers from laying a claim to the land.
Slash and burn is commonly used to clear the forest.
Illegal settlement in cleared forest. Secondly, Sheryl wrote “don’t people have to own the land or have permits from landowners to burn forest and start a farm? I mean, here I couldn’t just drive out to the country and start farming!” Bizarrely, Indonesian laws concerning community use of forest lands still end up promoting forest clearance. If you clear the land it is deemed an improvement. Anyone who improves the land has de-facto usage rights to it. And those rights are passed down from generation to generation. I have been in some very old secondary forest only to be told this is “Mr so and so’s land…” In the case of the illegal farms, our only weapon is that the farm was clearly established after the Reserve was gazetted. It is illegal. Kind regards, Stephen
Following on from my last post “Busy, busy, busy”, here’s some more detail about the illegal farming. The farm was obviously productive and well-maintained. It had a fence around it to keep out wild pigs and deer. Inside, bananas, rice, cassava and a number of vegetables were all growing well. Indeed, if our agricultural demonstration plots looked that good we could be justifiably proud.
But there was one big problem with this farm – it is inside the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve. It is obvious from the surrounding forest the farmers were not making use of fallow land, as we try to do with the demonstration farms. No, here, they had cleared the forest and then burnt it to boost soil fertility.
Note the surrounding tree-line. This situation gives us a problem, as there is no real alternative to evicting them. We do not wish to have a confrontation with the surrounding villages; one of our aims is to establish harmonious relations between the neighbouring communities and conservation areas. However, if there is a flagrant violation of the law, as in this case, there is little that can be done. The farmers can not be allowed to continue. They are clearly damaging the forest, increasing the risk of forest fires and would almost certainly persecute any wildlife that took to crop raiding.
Once forest, now farm land. Technically, the farmers could be arrested, but pragmatically this would only inflame local sensibilities and even the police would be reluctant to arrest someone for (as they will see it) “just growing food”. The balancing act facing us, therefore, is to get the people out of the Reserve without turning their whole village against us but, at the same time, creating a strong enough front to deter anyone else from attempting to farm there. The Forestry Department officials, under whose auspices we work, have suggested giving the farmers six months to complete the current harvest after which they must leave. This seems reasonable. We can easily monitor them to make sure there is no further expansion or burning. We can also make use of this time to erect a signboard/ block on the river the farmers are using for access to prevent anyone else from saying “I did not know it was a Conservation Area”. It is worrying that people still do not respect Lamandau’s borders but it is encouraging that our patrols clearly have good enough ground coverage that they were able to detect the farm and, secondly, that the Forestry Department has the resolve to deal with it. A strong display now will go along way to reducing such incidents in the future. - P.S. Brigitta, thank you for the comment. It is a pity about the video question and answer session, but it will still be good to meet up. As I said, I will be at Pondok Ambung or Camp Leakey on the 10th, so we’ll meet up then. Safe travels!
This morning we attended a meeting organised by the local forestry department. They are creating “An Inventory of the Potential for Non-timber Forest Products” in the local government district. Non-timber forest products, or NTFP, as they are referred to in conservation jargon, are an often used argument for the protection of forests. Local people for millennia have exploited NTFP and although their impact on the local environment and wildlife may be debated, in comparison to bulldozers their impact on the forests was negligible. Therefore, we consider NTFP a valuable tool in protecting the forests and we are pleased that the local government is taking this initiative (see the photos below showing various examples of NTFPs).
Fruit picking
Making rattan baskets
Rattan Baskets
Other craft products This week I’ll have my own opportunity to assess the sustainability of NTFP. I’m off into the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve until Friday. A pleasant round of investigating reports of farming inside the reserve, plantation expansion on its border, and an assessment of activities on the western edge. Hopefully, I’ll see an orangutan or two. I’ll write again when I get back on Friday or Saturday.
My every sense says the forests on the northern border of the Lamandau Wildlife Reserve are in trouble. Already split into thin fingers of forest, separated by degraded areas, it seems these forests are retreating not expanding. However, with the support of local communities, we have chosen this area as a reforestation site. A few days ago I went there with Rene Dommain, the visiting German peat researcher, and we stayed at the very northern point of the Reserve, where we have a guard post, Post Prapat (see map).
Behind the post is one of the fingers of forest. Here there are tall trees, including those species found in deep forest, but they are only 20 metres away from sand. Clearly this is remnant primary forest and the thinner it gets, the more vulnerable it becomes.
Aerial view of Post Prapat with the remnant forest behind. Rene helped to explain the process and no surprises here – the villain was fire. Whilst he described it as an “anthropogenic impact”, you and I can hear “man made”. The southern part of Borneo is a relatively “young” landscape. The base material is sand, deposited either from erosion of the high interior mountains or during the periods when the area was an ancestral seabed. Over thousands of years, grasses, shrubs, and then trees gradually covered the sand and forests grew. Fires have had a major impact on this ecosystem. The first fires burning through the shallow humus layer, killing the trees’ roots. With the trees fallen the next fires to occur were even more destructive with subsequent fires encouraging scrub growth. Ultimately this left an exposed layer of sand with the original nutrient rich humus having been destroyed. Presently, these remaining forests are just waiting for the next dry year, the next fire. The aim of the reforestation programme is not ambitious – even in our wildest dreams we cannot envisage the day when this will be thick forest. What we are trying to do is broaden the forested fingers, reduce the gaps and push the balance in favour of the trees not the scrub. It is a tall order to regenerate this area, but you know us, we like a challenge! We have established a tree nursery at Post Prapat. The people from the surrounding communities have been enthusiastic in finding wildings (seedlings harvested from wild seed-fall) to stock it. We will keep the trees in the nursery until their rooting systems are well established.
Nursery The whole process is hugely resource-intensive and the return may be as little as 50ha (1/2 km2 or 123 acres). But that is hardly the point. The real points are:
In the case of Lamandau, the forest core is still rich in biodiversity. I led Rene on the 7 km walk southwards from Post Prapat to Camp Rasak. On the way, we saw a few birds and a snake. At Camp Rasak, I was hoping to catch of glimpse of Boni who we are told is seen most days and neither did we see Andi and Sawit, who seem to have gone off together (see post ‘More orangutans back in the wild‘). However we were fortunate to see Lady Di and her baby.
Lady Di was released into Lamandau in Febuary 2006 and this is her first baby. It is hard to believe our reforestation programme site is only 7 km away, but without this added protection, this forest and these orangutans would seem a lot more vulnerable. - PS, Sheryl, you’ll be pleased to know once the eagle, snake and monkeys were out of the traps, I also set the fish free We are participating in WildlifeDirect’s business strategy. Please help us by taking this user survey, thank you.
Dear All A few quick replies before the weekend to comments received during the week. Firstly, the thorny issue of “sustainable palm oil”. Cathy, at the Foundation office in London writes: “So far there is no sustainable palm oil from Indonesia or Malaysia. The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) has said they hope to have some sustainable palm oil on the market at the end of this year. As far as we are aware most products that are “palm oil safe” or “Orangutan Friendly” are products that actively avoid palm oil. For example, the companies Paterson Arran and Little Satsuma, both supporters of the Foundation, avoid or have stopped using palm oil because of its associated problems. They are not products that “contain sustainable palm oil’, rather they are palm-oil free. However, there is palm oil that has been certified organic and is apparently grown in a sustainable way from Columbia. It is probably worth asking companies, that declare their palm oil is sustainable or “Orangutan Safe”, where it is sourced.” Chris asked about the attitudes of local people. It is a huge question that most conservation organisations must deal with. What is clear, in order to be successful, you have to have the local people on your side. The reality is people will generally be motivated by self-interest. Employment is one way of marrying our and local people’s interests and has the added benefit of, over time, generating a heartfelt commitment to conservation. Many, if not all, of our staff have internalised respect for the forest and being “Orangutan Foundation” is part of their identity.
Mutual attachment! It also has a trickle-down effect that spreads to their families and outwards to the communities in which they live. It is much harder for someone to take up illegal logging when they know their next-door neighbour will be out patrolling against them. In my blog I have also mentioned our programmes in Lamandau and Belantikan. Here we are actively working alongside local village communities to create and generate alternative and sustainable ways of earning an income from the forests. You were all way too kind about my sun bear photos. Have you seen on Wildlife Direct there is actually a new blog about sun bears http://sunbears.wildlifedirect.org/ This group is based in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Also in the week there were a few comments about Banteng. One of the little known facts about Banteng is that the largest population anywhere in the world is in Northern Australia, where they were introduced over a hundred and fifty years ago. Lastly, thank you very much to the person who made an anonymous donation last week – your support of our work is much appreciated. Have a good weekend. |
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