Suchergebnisse

Local communities, especially those living in forested areas, are generally presented as innocent victims of global economic policies that benefit the private and public sectors. This paper discusses local stakeholders' perception of the government policies and actions, people's rights, and people's participation in decision-making, with a focus on land and forest uses. It is based on a perception survey conducted in 2009 in 12 villages of the Bungo district, (Jambi province, Sumatra, Indonesia), and semi-directed interviews of representatives of the regional government. The surveys conclude to a good agreement between local people and the different levels of government. Besides, villagers consider that their voice is well taken into account in decision-making processes. And over all, there is a broad consensus among all stakeholders to favour economic development at the expense of forest conservation.

We examine five forested landscapes in Africa (Cameroon, Madagascar, and Tanzania) and Asia (Indonesia and Laos) at different stages of landscape change. In all five areas, forest cover (outside of protected areas) continues to decrease despite local people's recognition of the importance of forest products and services. After forest conversion, agroforestry systems and fallows provide multiple functions and valued products, and retain significant biodiversity. But there are indications that such land use is transitory, with gradual simplification and loss of complex agroforests and fallows as land use becomes increasingly individualistic and profit driven. In Indonesia and Tanzania, farmers favor monocultures (rubber and oil palm, and sugarcane, respectively) for their high financial returns, with these systems replacing existing complex agroforests. In the study sites in Madagascar and Laos, investments in agroforests and new crops remain rare, despite government attempts to eradicate swidden systems and their multifunctional fallows. We discuss approaches to assessing local values related to landscape cover and associated goods and services. We highlight discrepancies between individual and collective responses in characterizing land use tendencies, and discuss the effects of accessibility on land management. We conclude that a combination of social, economic, and spatially explicit assessment methods is necessary to inform land use planning. Furthermore, any efforts to modify current trends will require clear incentives, such as through carbon finance. We speculate on the nature of such incentive schemes and the possibility of rewarding the provision of ecosystem services at a landscape scale and in a socially equitable manner.