The orang-utan Pongo spp. is protected by national and international legislation, yet populations continue to decline. Many reports implicate local people in the poaching and illegal trade in orang-utans, yet community participation has been promoted as an alternative conservation strategy. To explore how community-based orang-utan conservation could be developed, we conducted a study to understand informal institutions, particularly local people’s perceptions, traditional beliefs, taboos, norms and knowledge, related to orang-utan conservation within and around the wetlands of Danau Sentarum. The majority of Dayak communities interviewed practised traditional taboos, which supported the protection of orang-utans and their habitat. Statistical analysis using generalized linear modelling indicated that more orang-utan nests were found in areas with both good habitat condition and strong informal institutions. Despite applying traditional systems that are similar to conservation, local people have negative perceptions about the term ‘conservation’. We describe the underlying causes of these negative perceptions and highlight their implications for conservation programmes and policies. We conclude that conservation of orang-utans and other species should not focus on single species but on maintaining social and natural capital, cultural diversity and ecological functions at various institutional levels and across geographical scales.
Tag: local communities
Using Forests to Enhance Resilience to Climate Change: Case Study of the role of forests in Adaptation strategies of Agricultural Households living in Savannakhet Province in Lao PDR
This study covers three villages in Savannakhet province: (a) a“PSFM village”, where no concessions occurred, and communal forest land covers 3.74 ha/capita; (b) a“Eucalyptus village”, where 45% of village forest land was converted to Eucalyptus plantations, and remaining communal forest covers 0.73 ha/capita; and (c) a “Sugarcane village”, where 75% of village forest land was converted to Sugarcane plantations, and where there is no remaining communal forest. This study assessed impacts of different land-uses on livelihoods and provides a quantification of ecosystem service values for each. The methodology combined secondary data collection with: national, provincial, district stakeholder consultations, village stakeholder PRAs, and an illustrative sampling of households were surveyed about household demographics, sources of income, expenditures, and food self-sufficiency. This study highlights the critical contributions from forests to provisioning and regulatory ecosystem services that reduce exposure and sensitivity of rural households to climate variability and increase adaptive capacity.
This document is an output of a CIFOR-led entitled: “Using Forests to Enhance Resilience to Climate Change” (ForCC). This project included studies in three countries (Burkina Faso, Honduras, and Lao PDR) and a state of knowledge report. This project was commissioned by the Program on Forest (PROFOR) Grant No. 099755, and the Trust Fund for Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development (TFESSD) Grant No. TF099755, and was implemented in collaboration with CIRAD (Burkina Faso case study), CATIE (Honduras Case Study), and the Forestry Research Center and the Department of Forestry (Lao PDR Case Study). Additional project information and publications are found on the project manager’s staff page, Aaron J.M. Russell.
Models for formalizing customary and community forest lands: The need to integrate livelihoods into rights and forest conservation goals
Key messages
- A comparison of community perceptions across the two main forest tenure reform regimes – forestland designated for community use versus land owned by communities – does not show, on the ground, that one has consistently better outcomes than the other. This is likely due to multiple weaknesses in both types of reforms and the need to better integrate rights, conservation and livelihoods goals.
- Survey results from Indonesia, Peru and Uganda show a disturbing level of food insecurity across almost all sites and, with prioritization of rights and/or conservation, a failure to pay sufficient attention to livelihoods concerns.
- Greater attention to livelihoods requires: (a) increased awareness of food security and livelihoods needs in rural communities; (b) specific livelihoods goals as an objective of reforms; and (c) greater multisectoral and multilevel coordination in order to bring this about.
- Livelihoods concerns should be incorporated as a clear goal in forest tenure reforms and as a measurable indicator in efforts to evaluate reforms.
Domestic forests: a new paradigm for integrating local communities’ forestry into tropical forest science
Despite a long history of confrontation between forest agencies and forest people, “indigenous” or “local” practices are increasingly considered as a viable alternative of forest management. This paper is a synthesis derived from various long-term research programs carried out by the authors in Southeast Asia and Africa on forests managed by farmers. These researches looked at local practices and underlying science, including their social, political, and symbolic dimensions. They also addressed evolutionary trends and driving forces, as well as potential and limits for forest conservation and development, mitigation of deforestation, biodiversity conservation, and poverty alleviation in a context of global environmental, political, and social change. We discuss how forest management by local communities, contrary to the unified models of professional forest management, exhibits a high historical and geographical diversity. The analysis we draw from the various examples we studied reveals several invariants, which allows proposing the unifying paradigm of “domestic forest.” The first universal feature concerns the local managers themselves, who are, in their vast majority, farmers. Management practices range from local interventions in the forest ecosystem, to more intensive types of forest culture, and ultimately to permanent forest plantation. But in all cases, forest management is closely integrated with agriculture. The second universal feature concerns the conceptual continuity of planted forests with the natural forest, in matters of vegetation’s structure and composition as well as economic traits and ecosystem services. The resulting forest is uneven-aged, composed of several strata, harboring a large diversity of species, and producing a wide range of products, with timber seldom being the dominant one. The term “domestic forest” aims at highlighting the close relationship the domestication process establishes between a specific human group, including its elementary units, the “domestic units,” and the forest, transformed and managed to fulfill the needs of that group. The domestic forest paradigm calls for the integration into forest science of a new concept of land management in which production and conservation are compatible, and in which there is no choice to be made between people and nature. It does not aim at contesting the value of conventional forest science, but it proposes domestic forests as a new scientific domain, for the combined benefit of forest science and of forest people. It does not contest the value of conventional forest management models, but pushes towards more equitable relations between forest agencies and farmers managing forest resources on their own lands.
To climb or to fell? Identification of social-ecological conditions that promote sustainable fruit harvesting in Lowland Amazon palm swamps
A well-documented environmental threat in the Amazonian region of Loreto, Peru involves harvesting the fruit from the dominant palm Mauritia flexuosa by chopping fruit-bearing females growing in carbon-dense peat swamps. Numerous conservation interventions have been proposed to protect the swamps, such as encouraging harvest of fruits by climbing the palms to preserve the resource instead of cutting them. These efforts have produced mixed success; some communities have embraced sustainable harvest methods, while others have not, despite the obvious benefits of climbing and the simple technology required. In this study, we aim to understand why some communities opt to harvest fruit sustainably while others do not, and to assess whether the experience of communities sustainably harvesting offers broader lessons for ecosystem management. Nine communities were visited in Loreto, where in-depth interviews were performed to identify economic, institutional, and cultural elements linked to fruit extraction practices. Field measurements were produced to evaluate ecological characteristics in harvested swamps nearby communities that mostly climb or mostly chop. The five communities that mostly climb placed high importance on the fruit, had resource management rules, and derived significant material benefit from the fruit. In contrast, the four communities that mostly chop derived only a marginal economic benefit from the fruit and tended to face obstacles to building systems of sustainable management of common property, such as poverty and problems associated with pollution from the oil industry. One community embraced climbing 30 years ago and observed remarkable social, economic, and environmental benefits. Through sustained support from NGOs and the regional government, this community was empowered to build a system of sustainable resource management on its own terms. Its capacity to develop and enforce its rules of harvest, ensured through robust communal trust, was key to its success.
IPBES Transformative Change Assessment: Chapter 2. Visions of a sustainable world – for nature and people
Chapter 2 explores visions and vision development processes for transformative changes in society. Visions are desirable future states of nature and people shaped by values and worldviews. They include defined purposes, goals and intentional efforts to attain such future states. Actors and groups of actors, shaped by contexts that determine their thinking and practices, develop visions and pathways through multiple processes. Diverse visions illuminate the interdependence of humans-in-nature for a just and sustainable world and help guide policy and decision makers in transformations to address biodiversity loss and nature’s decline. Visions assessed in Chapter 2 come from multiple sources: peer-reviewed and grey literature, civil society initiatives and social movements, alternative economic perspectives, spiritual and religious traditions, fiction, arts, urban and rural coalitions and Indigenous Peoples and local communities. These visions address themes such as oceans, land, economy, ecosystems, technologies and rights for nature.
What impacts does FSC certification have on the well-being of forest workers, local communities and Indigenous Peoples?
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is an international membership organization that serves as a platform for forest owners, timber industries, social groups and environmental organizations, and is aimed at identifying solutions for improving forest management practices around the globe. Launched in 1993, FSC certification is now the world’s leading private and voluntary forest management certification scheme. As a result, a large amount of research has focused on assessing the impacts of FSC certification on the ground across a wide range of topics. However, given the nature of local adaptability and dynamic updating of FSC standards, there is still a great need for impact evaluations to inform current decision making.
Toward Resilient Rivers: Insights from the Kafue, Magdalena and Atrato River Basins in Zambia and Colombia
Key messages
- Forests and fisheries are interconnected, and both are impacted by changes in land use within watersheds.
- Watershed functions are affected by climate, land-use change, overfishing, deforestation and forest degradation.
- Riparian communities value watersheds but lack political structures for effective integrated management.
- Community-based governance of natural resources within watersheds can protect ecosystem services and support livelihoods of riparian communities.
- Even where there is little data now, actions can be taken to enhance monitoring and management of watersheds.
Analyse comparative des cadres juridiques régissant la gestion de la faune par les collectivités locales en Afrique centrale: diversités et limites
From promises to practice: Persistent challenges in safeguarding local rights in forest carbon market initiatives
In recent years, a strong push has been underway to expand the scope and number of forest carbon market initiatives (FCMIs) to meet climate change mitigation goals set by the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Cancun Safeguards of 2010 established an international policy commitment to assure that FCMIs would align with social safeguards (among other goals) to protect the rights and well-being of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IP&LCs). Despite the rapid growth of FCMIs in recent years, several studies have raised concerns about their implementation and the rights and well-being of local communities. In response to anecdotal reports of rights violations, we conducted a literature review, drawing on 94 sources, to understand the reality on the ground. An eight-principle framework was proposed for evaluating FCMIs’ impacts on the rights and well-being of IP&LCs, providing a structured approach to assess equity and effectiveness. There are two main findings. First, there have been significant violations of the rights of IP&LCs in recent years. Second, there is a widespread lack of empirical evidence on the implementation of safeguards to protect local rights. Measures are necessary to strengthen protections and transparent monitoring, reporting, and verification of the implementation of safeguarding the rights of IP&LCs. This review contributes actionable insights and a framework to inform the design and implementation of more effective and equitable FCMIs.