Conflict transformation and collaboration in developing social forestry in Flores, Indonesia

Social movements to realize forest tenure reforms have been ongoing since the 1970s, particularly through policies under the broad umbrella of social forestry. In Indonesia, social forestry programs are initiated by the government, communities, NGOs, academics, companies, and donors, and are based on specific socio-economic and ecological interests. Weak synergies, however between programmatic implementation and stakeholder interests, triggers various forest tenure conflicts. The research examines the complexity of these conflicts, namely focusing around the approaches to conflict transformation that can lead to collaboration in realizing forest sustainability that also support interests of people living in and around forests. I employed a qualitative approach by collecting data through in-depth interviews and participatory observations in Flores in 2017 and 2020. The results show that forest tenure conflicts have occurred since the 1970s due to state forest territorialization. Conflicts culminated in the determination of state forest area boundaries through the 1984 state program entitled the “consensus-based forest land use planning” initiative. Until 2008, efforts to resolve conflicts by offering the community access rights through community forestry programs initiated by the government were rejected by NGOs and the local community. NGOs facilitated communities to demand the return of state forest land as customary forest. This conflict presented the opportunity to facilitate multi-stakeholder forestry programs through a conflict transformation approach by building long-term stakeholder collaboration. Since 2010, the collaboration between stakeholders took place through the community forest program. This study shows the need for more direct attention to studying conflict resolution under an integrated and long-term approach to conflict transformation and collaboration. Pragmatically, this study shows the importance of integrated social forestry policies that synergize various schemes initiated by stakeholders to realize forest sustainability and support local community interests.

SPATIAL ASSESSMENT OF BUILT-UP AND RECREATION EXPANSION USING GEO-INFORMATIC TECHNIQUE IN KOH CHANG ISLAND, THAILAND

Land-use change for examining the expansion of built-up and recreation, required effective techniques of spatial assessment, especially in areas with limited space such as Koh Chang island in Thailand which needed to be emphasized. The research objectives were to study land-use patterns in Koh Chang area in Trat province from 2000-2020, and study land-use change, especially the expansion of buildings and recreation area during that period, using geo-informatic technique. The study found that most of Koh Chang is forest land, up to 80% of the island, but the trend is declining. On the other hand, the area that has increased in number is built-up and recreation, which has increased from 7.22 km2 to 18.28 km2 and up to 253.19% in the past 20 years. The efficiency of geo-informatic technology can extract useful information, especially spatial data on land-use change. Therefore, it is known from which areas built-up and recreation areas are transformed in order to bring such information into a spatial database system for supporting decision-making in directing, monitoring and controlling areas for further expansion of tourism business in order not to create an impact on the environment.

KEMITRAAN KONSERVASI PEMULIHAN EKOSISTEM SEBAGAI ALTERNATIF SOLUSI KONFLIK TENURIAL DI TAMAN NASIONAL GUNUNG HALIMUN SALAK

The ecosystem restoration conservation partnership program is a new policy from the Ministry of Environment and Forestry which aims to reduce conflicts due to forest land use in conservation areas. Gunung Halimun Salak National Park (GHSNP) is one of the conservation areas facing tenure conflicts, particularly in the Gunung Botol Resort area, where there are people who have lived and cultivated the land for decades, long before the Decree of the Designation of the GHSNP was issued. In an effort to address tenurial conflicts in Malasari Village, which is one of the villages within the management area of Gunung Botol Resort, the community took the initiative to collaborate with the GHSNP manager through a scheme called ecosystem restoration conservation partnership. This study aims to formulate a strategy for developing an ecosystem restoration conservation partnership in GHSNP by using a qualitative approach which is presented in a descriptive form. Data were analyzed using SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) technique. The results of the study indicate that the ecosystem restoration conservation partnership program is recommended to be implemented by utilizing existing strengths and opportunities, as well as developed through synergy and collaboration that involves multi-stakeholders.

Editorial for Special Issue “Socio-Economic Impacts of Carbon Sequestration on Livelihoods and Future Climate”

In the modern era of industrial revolution, urbanization, and deforestation of forest land, carbon (C) sequestration through well-known activities called “land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF)” could establish a win–win situation from a climate change and sustainable development perspective [...]

KARAKTERISTIK PENGELOLAAN HUTAN RAKYAT DALAM PERSPEKTIF SISTEM (Studi di Desa Semoyo Kabupaten Gunung Kidul)

. Community smallholder forests in various places in Indonesia have different characteristics that depend on many factors that cause the development of community smallholder forests. This study aims to determine the characteristics of community smallholder forest management, the components and the interrelationships between the components that constructed the community smallholder forest system. The study was conducted at Semoyo Village, Gunungkidul Regency. Data were collected by interviewing seventy-two respondents who were purposively chosen, then tabulated and analyzed in a descriptive qualitative manner. Diameter of tree measurements on the respondent's forest land are carried out by census. In the next stage, the construction of the community smallholder forest system is carried out in a causal loop diagram based on the management characteristics found. The results show that the community smallholder forest system is composed of the main components of cultivated land, plant resources, human resources, management activities, and the purpose of managing forests. The component of land resources and human resources determines the agroforestry planting patterns chosen. The activity components, which are planting, maintaining, and cutting, have a positive loop and form different stand structures in different agroforestry planting patterns

CONSEQUENCES OF LOSS OF COMMON PROPERTY RESOURCES IN THE SELECTED BLOCK, DINDIGUL DISTRICT OF TAMILNADU

Common property land resources include grazing ground, community pasture, village forests and woodlots, and village sites, on which the villagers have legal usufructuary rights; these land resources also include all another land formally held by the panchayat or a community of the villages (NSS 54th round). For a collection of data of common land resources de jure and e facto approaches were considered. Forest land resources which are under the jurisdiction of the forest department was also considered as poor dependent rural communities are directly or indirectly dependent on the forest for livelihoods. From the report of NSS 54th round, it is observed that 15% of India’s total geographical area substantially forms a part of common land resources. Consequences of loss of common property resources and depletion of common property resources resulted largely because there was no private cost for using these resources. Privatization of common property resources in the arid zone has invariably meant the conversion of common property resources land into cropland.

A Comparison of Antibacterial Potential of Different Soil Actinomycetes from Pokhara

Actinomycetes are widely distributed in the environment and used for the production of several important secondary metabolites like antibiotics, immunosuppressive agents, enzymes and antitumor agents. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to isolate and assess antibacterial potential of different actinomycetes obtained from different soil samples. This study was conducted in the microbiology laboratories of Prithvi Narayan Campus and Lambda Food Lab Pvt Ltd, Pokhara. A total of nine soil samples were collected from different places of Pokhara (forest land, agriculture land and lake bank) and processed. Isolated actinomycetes were screened by primary and secondary screening for antibiotic producers against test organisms like Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25923), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 27853) and Bacillus spp, E coli (ATCC 25922). This study isolated 27 actinomycetes in total, using the soil samples through spread plating on Starch Casein Agar (SCA) and by serial dilution. After incubation, actinomycetes colonies (rough, chalky) were selected for gram staining to observe thin thread-like mycelial and hyphal structures. The highest number of actinomycetes isolates were obtained from agricultural land’s soil samples (14 out of 27 isolates i.e. 51.85%) whereas only 3 isolates were obtained from the lake soil. Primary screening was performed on Nutrient agar where test bacteria were streaked perpendicular to the isolated actinomycetes to observe antagonism. This showed 12 actinomycetes as active isolates inhibiting at least one test bacteria. The antibacterial compounds were extracted by ethyl acetate method and used in secondary screening. Secondary screening in Mueller Hinton agar (MHA) further revealed five isolates showed promising inhibitory capacity. In both screening methods higher sensitivity was observed towards Gram-positive bacteria especially S aureus (ATCC 25923), and the least sensitivity towards Gram-negative bacteria especially Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 27853). Agricultural land was shown to harbor more actinomycetes than forest land and lake bank soil. Though variations were observed in primary and secondary screening, actinomycetes obtained from agricultural land demonstrated an inhibitory action against the Gram-positive and Gram-negative test organisms. As compared to Gram-negative bacteria, the Gram-positive had higher effects. These findings showed that soil of different locations of Pokhara valley found many actinomycetes strains, preventing the growth of pathogenic bacteria of certain kinds. The study suggested that further investigations need to be done that helped obtain new antimicrobial agents from actinomycetes, using various other sources.

The Influence of Land Use Evolution on the Visitor Economy in Wuhan from the Perspective of Ecological Service Value

This research used transfer matrix, dynamic attitude, and a linear regression model to investigate the characteristics of land-use change and evolution of ecological service values and their impacts on Wuhan’s visitor economy. The results showed that: (1) the land-use scale in the Wuhan metropolitan area changed significantly from 1990 to 2018. The area of arable land, forest land, and grassland decreased at a faster rate, whereas that of water and construction land continued to increase; (2) there were differences in the dynamic attitudes of land-use at different stages. The dynamic attitude of construction land-use changed the most with cultivated land, water area, forest land, unused land, and grassland. From 1990 to 2005, land-use change exhibited a relatively gentle trend, whereas from 2005 to 2020, it accelerated; (3) although land-use regulation service, support service, and cultural service values positively responded to tourism economic growth, their influences were dissimilar. This study clarifies the effects of urban land-use on tourism economic development and provides a reference for its effective control.