Regional Land Cover Monitoring System for Hindu Kush Himalaya

The land cover across the HKH region is changing at an accelerated rate due to the rapid economic growth and population pressures that are impacting the long-term sustainability of ecosystems.

Optimizing Household Economic Resource to Lessen Population Pressures on Villages around Kerinci Seblat National Park Bengkulu Province

Villages around Kerinci Seblat National Park (Taman Nasional Kerinci Seblat, TNKS) have experienced population pressure. This condition which if not addressed immediately will encourage the community around the TNKS to enter and encroach the forest to meet their household needs. This is getting worse along with the finding that the community around TNKS also does not have many alternative sources of income. For this reason, designing strategies for optimizing household economic to lessen population pressures are noteworthy. Focus group discussion (FGD) and analysis hierarchy process (AHP) was applied to design and to determine development strategy for household economic empowerment and twenty-five key informants including fifteen farmer households were interviewed. The AHP results conclude that the production aspect is the most important that needs to be given priority in the development of plantation production. This conclusion is based on its highest relative priorities (weights), i.e., 0.298. Of the three programs identified and using weight result of AHP, community seed assistance is the most important program in the development of plantation production (weight of 0.494). The seed assistance program is the most important compared to providing soft loans (weight of 0.29) and expanding to production inputs accessibility (weight of 0.216). Meanwhile, human resource development aspects are the most attractive strategy for food crop production development, especially rice, with a weight of 0.325. Aspects of human resource development are more focused on improving farmer knowledge in cultivation than marketing and post-harvest handling aspects. Optimization of pekarangan resources is directed to the development of the chicken farm (weight = 0.274) focused on improving the production aspect (weight = 0.328). Among three priority programs, day-old chicken assistance (weight = 0.512) is more needed than access to soft loans (weight = 0.242) and feed programs (weight = 0.246).

A scalped peatscape on Nólsoy, Faroe Islands / Uppskornar torvheiðar í Nólsoy

<p><strong>Úrtak</strong></p><p>Økið sunnan fyri bøgarðin í Nólsoy, „Uppi í Heiðunum“, er uppskorið, har er eingin mógvur eftir og lítið og einki jørðildi. Slík uppskorin heiðalendi eru væl kend í skotsku oyggjunum og vísa á, at tørvurin á mógvi var so stórur í hesum oyggjunum, at heiðarnar vórðu uppskornar og gjørdist oyður. Í greinini verða hesi viðurskifti viðgjørd saman við fornfrøðiligu leivdunum, sum síggjast í økinum, møguliga komin undan í sambandi við, at torvheiðarnar vórðu uppskornar.</p><p> </p><p><strong>A</strong><strong>bstract</strong></p>An area of land south of the village of Nólsoy, Faroe Islands, has been stripped of its peat and turf capping. Such ‘scalping’ of the land surface is a recognised feature of peatland landscapes in the Northern Isles of Scotland and reflects the need for past human populations to obtain peat, even if population pressures result in the total loss of a valuable resource. Such aspects are discussed together with a consideration of the archaeological features which have been revealed from beneath the peat by scalping on Nólsoy.