This paper examines the conversion of Indonesia’s natural forests to timber and tree crop plantations, notably oil palm. The principal aims are to understand the impact of this process on natural forest and on forest-dwelling people, and to establish whether past and present policies governing this process are meeting their objectives. The key findings of the study are: (1) timber plantation development policies legitimate the degradation of natural forests; (2) subsidies are ultimately unnecessary for the development of timber plantations; (3) tree crop plantation developers request more land than they need to obtain added profits from the timber on lands to be cleared; (4) overlapping and chaotic forest land use classification systems work to the benefit of private plantation developers at the expense of the rights and livelihoods of forest-dwelling people; and (5) resolution of these problems is hampered by the persistence of the government’s top-down approach and non-recognition of traditional land use rights. It is recommend that: remaining natural forests on conversion forest lands be reclassified as permanent forests; plantation development take place only on unproductive production forest lands; and forest land use redistribution be devolved to the local level.
Tag: conflict
Gliricidia Sepium Factsheet: Establishment, management and benefits
Redressing forestry hegemony when a forestry regulatory framework is best replaced by an agrarian one
The authors examine some of the social and economic impacts of the forestry bias in state land classification. The maintenance of forest production and environmental services has been the justification from the state for forestland classification, but forest land delineation and gazetting has, at times, significantly restricted smallholder land use and land ownership. This paper explores some of the historical background to the creation of”Permanent Forest Estates” in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. The experience with forest area classification and subsequent encroachments suggests that, in many cases, such areas are domains better placed within a less regulated agrarian framework.
From conflict to collaboration through inclusive landscape governance: Evidence from a contested landscape in Ghana
The Western Wildlife Corridor (WWC) in Ghana’s Northern Savannah ecological zone is a contested landscape where efforts to reverse widespread environmental degradation often conflict with local livelihood concerns and broader development objectives. Despite policy measures to devolve natural resource decision-making authority, poor environmental management, persistent socioeconomic challenges, and increasingly limited livelihood opportunities for people living within the corridor prevail. This study investigates environmental degradation in the WWC and natural resource governance using information on stakeholder perceptions from stakeholder workshops, focus group discussions, and key informant interviews. We also explore how natural resource management might be strengthened to better deliver social, economic, and environmental goals. We found that despite a history of contestation, stakeholders were able to agree upon specific issues of common concern and generate a collaborative vision for the WWC landscape. Transitioning toward such a vision requires significant investment in strengthening current governance structures and building natural resource management capacity within the corridor and beyond. Furthermore, persistent challenges of conflicting stakeholder objectives and issues related to coordination, corruption, and non-inclusion in decision-making about natural resources must be addressed to advance progress. Stakeholders were able to formulate specific recommendations and a participatory theory of change to inform the development of a sustainable landscape management plan and future evidence-based policy that could steer the WWC toward a more resilient and multifunctional system that equitably supports livelihoods, biodiversity, and wider economic development. The methods for inclusive engagement in environmental decision-making are extrapolatable to other contexts facing similar social-environmental challenges.
National REDD+ policy networks
Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+) is a financial mechanism aimed at providing incentives to reduce carbon emissions from forests and enhance carbon stocks. In most forest-rich developing countries, policy actors, i.e., state and nonstate as well as international and national, are designing national REDD+ policies. Actors’ interests and beliefs shape patterns of interactions, ranging from cooperation to conflict, and these interactions influence a country’s direction and progress in REDD+ policy formulation and implementation. We used a comparative policy network approach to analyze the power structures in national REDD+ policy domains in seven countries. We drew on the typology of power structures defined by two dimensions, namely the distribution of power in the policy arena and the dominant type of interaction, cooperative or conflictual, among actors, and we mapped the progress of national REDD+ decision-making processes against these power structures. We tested three hypotheses and found that (1) national ownership over the policy process is a prerequisite for progress. In addition, (2) the level of concentration of power in an actor group can facilitate progress in REDD+; however, particularly when concentration of power is high, progress will be possible only if the interests of the most powerful are aligned with the objectives of REDD+ and address the drivers of deforestation and forest degradation. Furthermore, (3) although cooperation is perceived as ideal in any collective decision-making setting, a certain level of conflict is necessary for progress in REDD+ decision making. This applies particularly in more advanced national REDD+ domains, where, following a honeymoon phase during which most policy actors embrace the broad idea of REDD+, policy decisions must deal with difficult realities associated with negotiating established business-as-usual interests, which entails high political costs.
Revisiting Baru Pelepat
This chapter by Yuliani et al. begins with a brief description of the Adaptive Collaborative Management process that occurred in the early 2000s in the village of Baru Pelepat in Jambi province, Indonesia – a process facilitated by these authors. After a brief introduction to the community itself, Yuliani et al. launch into a description of the bottom-up process that resulted in local communities getting legal rights to manage a special forest area near their community, an area that had been part of Indonesia’s forest estate. After explaining their methods, they provide the results of a land use land cover change study, which clarifies the condition of that forest, as well as the surrounding countryside, as it has changed over the previous two decades. Building on their long-term involvement in the community, they examine decision-making, inclusivity and conflict management in the community; and then show how important decisions were made, based on ongoing community monitoring. The roles of gender, economics, biodiversity and collective action are further discussed. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the critical role of learning, in both the successes the community experienced and the skills that remain.
Exchange relations in rice contract farming schemes in Tanzania
Rice is a vital food crop in Tanzania, both for household consumption and commercial retail. Contract farming is an important agricultural tool through which farmers and larger investors are linked to increase production and quality of crops, benefiting both the farmers and investors. This chapter uses the relational model to look at the relationships in two rice contract farming schemes in Tanzania: Kapunga Rice Plantation Limited and Mtenda Kyela Rice Supply. The empirical data is from household surveys and interviews from the Mbeya region in 2015. Agricultural inputs, extension services and land are all types of exchanges that occur in these two cases, though land was only exchanged in the Kapunga case. For the majority of farmers in both cases, the relationship between farmers and investors is characterized by positive outcomes and reciprocal exchanges, which drives the participants to continue in rice contract farming.
Farmer-Fulani pastoralist conflicts in Northern Ghana: are integrated landscape approaches the way forward?
Over the past 20 years, recurrent and violent conflicts between farmers and Fulani pastoralists have persisted in Northern Ghana. These conflicts mainly revolve around access to and utilisation of natural resources such as land and water. Conflicts of interest have led to the social marginalisation of the Fulani community, leading to their exclusion from formal landscape governance processes. This paper explores the prospects for better management of these conflicts and the potential for including Fulani pastoralists in landscape governance through the implementation of integrated landscape approaches. Based on a semi-systematic literature review and key informant interviews, we propose a categorisation of conflicts and potential causes and solutions. The experience of Burkina Faso in managing farmer-herder conflicts is presented to inform lessons for Ghana. We argue that adopting more inclusive landscape approaches, with a particular emphaisis on key principles, could contribute to reconciling diverging interests between farming and herding communities and help mitigate conflicts. This requires that constraints such as the negative and pervasive perceptions towards the Fulani, the neglect of pastoral activity in broader development processes, and the lack of inclusion of Fulani pastoralists in multi-stakeholder platforms and decision-making need to be urgently addressed.
Stressors and Resilience within the Cassava Value Chain in Nigeria: Preferred Cassava Variety Traits and Response Strategies of Men and Women to Inform Breeding
This study investigated the trait preferences for cassava in the context of climate change and conflict stressors among value-chain actors in Nigeria to strengthen social inclusion and the community-resilience outcomes from breeding programs. Multi-stage sampling procedures were used to select and interview male and female value-chain participants in the Osun, Benue and Abia States. The results indicated that farmers preferred cassava traits such as drought tolerance, early bulking, multiple-product use and in-ground storability to strengthen resilience. Climate change and challenges related to social change shaped the response strategies from both genders, and influenced trait preferences, including the early re-emergence of cassava leaves, stems that had ratooning potential, and especially the root milking that was important among female respondents. The major response strategies employed by men included frequent farm visits to prevent theft and engaging in non-agricultural livelihoods. Those employed by women included backyard farming, early harvesting, having preferences for food with fewer processing steps, and depending on remittances. The resilience capacity was higher for men than for women due to their better access to assets, as well as their abilities to relocate their farms and out-migrate in search of other livelihoods. Considering gendered cassava traits, and enhancing their resilience and response strategies, can complement efforts to make breeding more socially inclusive, resilient, and anticipatory to future challenges created by climate and related social changes.
Structuring the complexity of integrated landscape approaches into selectable, scalable, and measurable attributes
Integrated landscape approaches (ILA) aim to reconcile multiple, often competing, interests across agriculture, nature conservation, and other land uses. Recognized ILA design principles provide guidance for implementation, yet application remains challenging, and a strong performance evidence-base is yet to be formed. Through a critical literature review and focus group discussions with practitioners, we identified considerable diversity of ILA in actors, temporal, and spatial scales, inter alia. This diversity hampers learning from and steering ILA because of the intractable nature of the concept. Therefore, we developed a tool—an ‘ILA mixing board’—to structure the complexity of ILA into selectable and scalable attributes in a replicable way to allow planning, diagnosing, and comparing ILA. The ILA mixing board tool presents seven qualifiers, each representing a key attribute of ILA design and performance (for example, project flexibility, inclusiveness of the dialogue, and the centrality of the power distribution). Each qualifier has five (non-normative) outcome indicators that can be registered as present or absent. This process in turn guides planners, evaluators and other participating stakeholders involved in landscape management to diagnose the ILA type, or its performance. We apply the ILA mixing board to three ILA cases in Nicaragua, Madagascar, and the Congo Basin to show some of the many possible configurations of qualifiers on the mixing board. Further application of the tool would allow comparative analysis of the complexity of ILA in a structured and manageable way thereby enhancing the understanding of ILA performance and informing the development of evidence-based land use policy.