Wil de Jong, Forest Products and Local Forest Management in West Kalimantan, Indonesia: Implications for Conservation and Development.

Wil de Jong, Forest Products and Local Forest Management in West Kalimantan, Indonesia: Implications for Conservation and Development. Leiden: Tropenbos--Kalimantan Series 6, 2002, ISBN 90-5113-056-2, 120 pp.

In this sixth volume of the Tropenbos Kalimantan Series, de Jong addresses two assumptions that are often central in debates on forest management and conservation. The first concerns the importance of natural resources among rural dwellers, and the impact that logging and expansion of agriculture may have on people dependent on these resources. The second concerns providing stewardship of natural resources to people dependent on them, as a strategy for preventing the decline of these resources. Both assumptions have tended to become "doctrine"--at least in certain circles--often without being backed by a sufficient body of evidence. De Jong also addresses the related role of forest products (often referred to as "non-timber forest products") in boosting local livelihoods and promoting conservation of forests from which these products are harvested.

After providing background information in an introduction and a chapter on forest management and swidden agriculture, de Jong addresses these issues in six chapters based on his extensive fieldwork in West Kalimantan.

Chapter One focuses on the conservation through commercialization proposition, which is an assumption often held in conservation circles. In a nutshell, this proposition assumes that by handing over forest stewardship to local communities, they will be able to derive (sustainable) livelihoods from the forest, usually in the form of forest products (FPs) other than timber. This proposition has been hotly debated by various authors, and de Jong adds to this foray with his experiences from West Kalimantan. FPs are not uniformly important in rural communities, but are usually disproportionately more important to those in the lowest income group, although the richer segment may actually consume more of these FPs. Important to the conservation through FP development debate is the control and ownership of resources, and it is easy to understand that powerful entrepreneurs tend to control more attractive forest resources. These entrepreneurs focus on timber, but also on other FPs for which important markets develop, and from which they accrue the largest portion of the profit. The FPs that are left to the control of the poor are those that are economically much less attractive.

Information suggests that there may be an evolution in FP-derived incomes, whereby forest use will eventually just concentrate on higher value outputs (i.e. FPs from which higher incomes are derived), to the detriment of other FPs. A boom in marketable FPs may lead to decline in resource availability, and alteration of the forests from which these are derived. There is little evidence from Kalimantan, however, that local species will be planted in mono-specific stands as predicted by some, although there will be (sometimes intensive) forest management. The biodiversity value, however, appears to be directly and inversely related to the amount of clearing that a managed forest receives. Following from de Jong's analysis, it is clear that FP commercialization will have an impact on conservation. However, successful FP producers will most likely start a process of intensification that for a long time will remain in a forest management state rather than an agroforestry or plantation kind of stage. These "indigenous managed forests" often have a structure and composition that compares favorably with those of natural forests. Evolution of traditional forest management systems may be hindered by unfavorable circumstances, like rent-seeking activities by outside parties, inadequate policies, or corruption of government officials. Under such conditions, traditional forest management is likely to be replaced by other kinds of agricultural production.

Chapter Two on Forest Management and Swidden Agriculture: Background and Setting of the Studies provides background information on de Jong's long-term study sites in West Kalimantan: the Dayak villages Ngira, Teriang and Koli, near Sanggau. The chapter covers geography, geology, climate, forests and people, before dealing with swidden-agriculture and forest products and highlighting the main sources of livelihood for these three villages. Conspicuous are the differences in resource use and sources of livelihood between villages, and the variation within one village from year to year. In Ngira, for example, about half of all households engage in off-farm employment, while none do so in Koli and only a handful in Teriang. Within Ngira, the only forest product harvested (other than rubber) in 1992 was hill mynah birds providing about 9% of household income, while in 1994 forest products had expanded to include tengkawang nuts, shingles, ironwood beams and "trees" that altogether provided about 44% of household incomes. The year-to-year variation is largely due to an opportunistic response by local communities to new markets for a particular product (e.g., ironwood), or to a particular product becoming more abundant (e.g., tengkawang nuts). Anecdotal evidence suggests that the rice production from swidden agriculture is declining, perhaps because of an increase in swidden frequency, and most families are not self-sufficient in rice production.

Chapter Three on A History of Forest Products Trade in Borneo deals mainly with trade in Indonesian Borneo, and in particular it focuses on "rent-seeking" activities, whereby rent is seen as "surplus profit beyond normal market return to labour and capital" as a result of scarcity, regulations, or monopoly. A historical account is provided about trade by sultanates and "petty" kingdoms, and the role of the Bugis, Chinese, and the Dutch. After independence the era of kings and sultans was over and all forest resources were declared the property of the state, to be used to maximize benefits to the people. During the first decades after independence, benefits from forest products were more equitably distributed, but since the 1980s increasingly coercive measures were used to take these benefits away. De Jong describes the case of rattan products being monopolized by ASMINDO (Association for Indonesian Furniture & Handicraft Industry), which led to a dramatic decline in production and profits, as the conditions set by ASMINDO led to a third party (Chinese producers of bamboo mats) taking over the trade (with Japan). The chapter further describes the use of coercion for the gathering of gaharu incense wood, and (in the post-Suharto era) for converting swidden land and rattan gardens to industrial oil palm and timber estates.

Chapter Four on the Transformation of Forest Products Production covers the use and management of three of the main forest products harvested: game, honey, and rattan, and deals with the six main types of managed forests in West Kalimantan: communally protected forests, mature natural forest islands, honey tree forest islands, fruit forest gardens, rubber gardens, and swidden fallow secondary forest. Returns from hunting trips (of which one third are successful) are dwindling, but are still carried out by half the households in Teriang, Koli and Ngira, resulting in an average of less than one kilogram of meat per household per month. Honey is a much-appreciated forest resource, but amounts obtained from wild bees vary significantly from year to year. De Jong recorded 630 forest plant species (all listed in an Appendix) being utilized in managed forests, of which a large amount (2/3) consist of naturally occurring species rather than domesticated or planted species. Most (268) species had a single known use, but some (3 species) had as many as six known uses, varying from medicinal to food and handicraft. Unsurprisingly, the fruit forest gardens or tembawang have the greatest number of useful species and are visited most often for obtaining produce.

Management of Swidden Fallow Secondary Forest (Chapter Five) describes the types of swidden fallow secondary forests and how these are managed in Kalimantan. Noteworthy is that when such forests are in danger of developing into unproductive Imperata cylindrica grassland, they are taken out of the rice growing cycle and planted with tree crops (usually rubber). Since the 1980s, the transformation towards tree crops has also been intensified by government programs, policies, and projects promoting smallholder tree crop estates.

Certainly one of the most interesting chapters is the next one on the Impact of Rubber on the Forest Landscape of Borneo, which challenges the claim that rubber has greatly contributed to the conversion of mature tropical forests. According to de Jong, rubber was incorporated into the fallow component of the production systems and did not affect the broader forest landscape, comprised of primary forest, secondary forest and forest gardens. Instead of affecting primary forests, de Jong argues that the expansion of rubber affected the amount of fallow secondary forest.

Chapter 7 on Structure and Floristics of Managed Forests compares structure and diversity of managed forests with that of mature primary forests and concludes that the studied tembawang managed forests are almost on an equal footing with mature natural forests. However, de Jong points out that these tembawang forests were located close to mature natural forest, which would have been a source of seeds as most species appeared spontaneously and were not planted. One may also add that de Jong evaluated on the basis of total number tree species only, and tembawang may include a lot of weedy, ubiquitous species not found in mature natural forest.

The last chapter deals with the Management of Honey Trees in West Kalimantan, specifically among Bidayuh Dayaks in Ngira and Koli, and among Malays in the Danau Sentarum lake area in West Kalimantan. The Bidayuh tend emergent trees that attract bees and are known as sompuat, while the Malay of Danau Sentarum attract bees to smaller trees by placing special wooden boards at strategic places. In both cases, the bee trees and surrounding forests are managed and conserved, and the honey (plus wax and bee) resources themselves are managed by complex rules. The differences between these two approaches demonstrate that local resource management can be very site specific, and that options in one area may not hold in another, because of the different socio-cultural context. (Wim Giesen, ARCADIS Euroconsult, PO Box 441, 6800 AK Arnhem, The Netherlands, [e-mail])