As diversity of fauna and flora in the landscape is disappearing with natural forests around the world, efforts to save biodiversity have increased over the years. Many man-managed systems (e.g. jungle rubber) are becoming increasingly important as biodiversity reservoirs. Different mechanisms of’payment for environmental services’ or PES are being developed that aim to’reward’ local people for their contribution to conservation practice. The Rapid Agro-Biodiversity Appraisal or RABA (Kuncoro et al. 2006) approach was developed as an analytical framework to identify the information necessary for providers and beneficiaries of biodiversity protection in order to engage in environmental service agreements. While the approach deals well with the perspectives of both the sellers and the potential buyers of conservation services, the approach does not include a’rapid’ assessment of existing biodiversity in the target are. The assumption that biodiversity data for potential sites are available is not always correct and even when data is available, these tend to be outdates. As time, resources and expertise required for comprehensive inventory of flora and fauna are often limited; one often has to resort to short-cut checks, using selected indicators of biodiversity, for reasonably good indication of existing biodiversity. The Quick Biodiversity Survey (QBS), under development, is a combination of quick inventories of plants, birds, beetles, bats, primates and mammals adapted for rapid checking of these’visible’ biodiversity. The plants and animal groups are surveyed in sample points, at every 100 metres along 1-2 km transects. Some biophysical measurements such as temperature of soil and air, soil pH, humidity, seasonal rainfall, distance from village and human population are also recorded. Generally, the field work takes about two weeks, followed by another two weeks of analysis and interpretation. The QBS method is currently under test in a range of agro-ecosystems in Indonesia. Further refinement and fine-tuning should be possible based on context and need.
Tag: biodiversity
A simple model of light interception by trees in multi-species, multi-strata forests
A simple model of light interception was designed to represent light resource variability in multi-strata multi-species agroforests. Dealing with many different species makes it unpractical to develop a detailed model of light interception taking into account structural characteristics of each species (foliage lay-out, distribution of leaf orientation, radiation characteristics of leaves, etc.) as it has been done in other cases (Cescatti 1997; Bartelink 1998). The hypothesis to be tested was that a simple 3D description of trees inside a plot with average crown “density” estimated by photographs would allow a reasonably precise description of light received at any point. The model was tested against hemispherical photographs taken at ground level
Agroforests: examples from Indonesia
An Assessment of the Socio-Economic and Ecological Impacts of Environmental Changes on Rural Livelihood: A Study Across Addado, Buhodle and Northern Galkaayo of Central and Northern Somalia
The international community has long recognized desertification as a significant global social, economic and environmental problem of concern with detrimental effects on the livelihoods of people in many countries world-wide. To explore this critique, this study examined local people’s views on the causes, effect and socio-economic impact of desertification and degradation to the community. The study involved a cross-sectional survey conducted with four community categories, namely nomadic pastoralist, agro-pastoralists, villagers and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), from Addado, Buhodle and northern Galkaayo of central and northern part of Somalia; through questionnaire-based interviews. Descriptive statistics attribute environmental changes to negative implications of human activities on the environment: the menace of which led to a decline in forage, current loss of biodiversity and the related changes in the environment, permanent migration, increased poverty and health problems. The startling results of this study conclusively demonstrate that the challenges involve proper interventions for tree planting against desertification as well as for community empowerment through public education and formation of community based environmental associations to coordinate the overall environmental management activities and to raise public awareness.
Agricultural development with rainforest conservation: methods for seeking best bet alternatives to slash-and-burn, with applications to Brazil and Indonesia
Forests continue to fall for agricultural purposes throughout the humid tropics, with immediate and potentially large consequences for climate change and biodiversity loss–issues of key interest to the international community. Some of the actors directly responsible for forest conversion fell trees to meet food security needs and alleviate poverty – issues of urgent interest to them and also to national policymakers. This multiplicity of groups with differing (often conflicting) interests in the multifarious goods and services produced by tropical forests complicates the search for alternative agricultural activities for forest margins since these alternatives must satisfy such divergent objectives. This paper sets out a conceptual framework for comparing the impacts of different land use systems and agricultural practices at the margins of tropical rainforests in terms of the concerns and objectives of two key interest groups: small-scale farmers seeking livelihoods at the forest margins and the ‘international’ interests in the global public goods and services supplied by tropicalrainforests. This framework should be useful to a third key group, the national and regional policymakers who must consider these and other policy objectives and then decide on courses of action. The paper identifies data needs and analytical methods capable of supplying an empirical base for this conceptual framework, based on quantifiable indicators. It then presents preliminary results of the application of this conceptual framework in Indonesia and Brazil in association with a global, collaborative, multidisciplinary research program. Even using preliminary order-of-magnitude estimates (to be replaced by more precisemeasurements as they become available), this conceptual framework presents results in ways that allow researchers and policymakers to select clear ‘best bets’ for development, when they exist, and to assess tradeoffs and options for complementary policy action and research efforts, when they do not. 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Belowground biodiversity and sustainability of complex agroecosystems
Diversity of components and interactions distinguishes complex agro-ecosystems from the simple agroecosystems which have replaced them in most of the temperate zone. In the tropics farmer decisions on agro-ecosystems have retained more similarity with natural ecosystems, but a strong trend toward specialization exists. As part of a re-appreciation of agro-ecosystem complexity, functional aspects of belowground diversity deserve more attention.
Alternatives to slash-and burn: above ground biodiversity assessment working group summary report 1996-1999 – impact of different land uses on biodiversity, annex i-v
This report covers the contractual requirement of ASB to the Global Environment Facility (GEF) to meet Goal 2 “Assessment of the impact on biodiversiry of d4fferenr land uses” as outlined in the aims and objectives of Phase 112. It also meets the broader goals of the ASB consortium to explore the dynamic linkages among biodiversity, carbon sequestration and productivity for human needs. The approach has been to establish a series of ecoregional biophysicai baselines to first identify and then to evaluate, via intensive field studies, some of the key predictive relationships among plant and animal species and functional types and the physical environment. The size of this task required that it be tackled at two levels: first, to identify broad distributional patterns of key plant groups along gradients of land use at the ecoregiona] scale, as these are usually closely associated with both plant and animal performance overall; and second, to explore finer scale patterns of both plant and animal performance along an intensive land-use gradient within a specified ecoregion. The assumption has been that the information derived from the intensive study could reveal indicators of biodiversity response to land use that could be extrapolated and subsequently tested within the broader spatial ecoregional framework. Once identified, such indicators would be examined to assess their potential use by managers and planners in ongoing assessment and monitoring of biodiversity and as an aid to decision support for adaptive management. While this report deals mainly with above-ground biodiversity according to the TOR of the GEF contract, close attention has been given as well to below-ground elements in the intensive study in order to better understand the dynamic between biodiversity and land use. Funding for additional survey work in Cameroon and Indonesia was supplied by DANIDA and more recent, ongoing work exploring linkages between biodiversity and profitability in Thailand and Indonesia has been funded by ACIAR.
Biodiversity and climate change in dynamic landscapes of Indonesia
Indonesia had been identified as the third largest GHG emitter w orld-wide. More than 50% of the emission w as rooted from LULUCF , and a large part of it w as related with peat burning, draining and conv ersion. As the second biodiv ersity rich country with largest tropical peat land in the w orld, but at the same time experiencing unprecedented forest extraction and forest conv ersion, Indonesia has a v ery important role in deliv ering some ecosystem services to the global community . Forest extraction and conv ersion are integral parts of land transformation that is often complex and non-linear , and more ov er , v ery v ariable across Indonesia. At the national lev el, landscape transformation is driv en by international market, global/regional climate, such as El Nino that leads to forest fire, and is an aggregated manifestation of local driv ers and activities. Integrated assessment of the impacts of LULUCF on emissions and habitat fragmentation within sev eral global priority ecoregion in Indonesia is necessary to find spaces for harmonizing efforts on climate change mitigation, biodiv ersity maintenance and sustainable dev elopment.
Biodiversity and ecosystem services
Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given species, an ecosystem, a biome or the planet. Human societies depend on the supporting services offered by biodiversity because they underpin the supply of provisioning, regulating, cultural and other services. Or as phrased in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [201], “it’s the diversity of biota across the world that underpins the capacity of the world’s ecosystem in providing most of its goods and services.” Drylands are endowed with a rich biodiversity including charismatic wildlife species such as the lion ( Panthera leo ), African elephant ( Loxodonta africana ), leopard ( Pan – thera pardus ) and buffalo ( Syncerus caffer ). While these species attract millions of 79 tourists annually, it is commonly overlooked that drylands host a vast number of trees and shrub species such as acacia and baobab and many of the world’s grasses. Over – all, 10,000 mammals, birds and amphibian species occur in the world’s drylands and the drylands of SSA provide a habitat for 60% of mammal, bird and amphibian species found in that region [202] .
Biodiversity: issues relevant to integrated natural resource management in humid tropics
Humanity stands at a defining moment in history. We are confronted with a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being. However, integration of environment and development concerns and greater attention to them will lead to the fulfillment of basic needs, improved living standards for all, better protected and managed ecosystems and a safer, more prosperous future.