How about integrating tree crops into your oil palm plantation?

Abstract

The synergy between forest and plantation is much sought after to maintain the complex role of forest areas. Forest should be managed for its socio-economic and ecological position while land-use change tends towards maximizing economic role. Indonesia is struggling to rehabilitate most of her production forests. Many cases show that the forestlands have been converted into monoculture oil palm or rubber plantation that caused severe ecological degradation and declined forest role in ecosystem maintenance. The government of Indonesia is seeking synergy between these two conflicting land uses types. Forest Management Unit (FMU) has been chosen as a model to carry out day to day management at field level beginning in 2010. Unfortunately, majority FMUs have not been in operation due to limited information at the field level, especially about the willingness of landowners to cooperate in the restoration of the production forest. In Dharmasraya District, West Sumatra, a 33,000 hectare of remaining production forest areas is undergoing deforestation due to forest conversion into oil palm and rubber carried out both by smallholder and large scale oil plantation companies. Based on a household survey among smallholders plantation in Dharmasraya District, West Sumatera Indonesia, the paper presents farmers’ willingness to integrate timber and non-timber plants into their oil palm plantation and discusses its implication for forest management especially in forest restoration management for FMU. The study found that at this time, it is hard for the landowner to integrate a timber tree into their smallholder oil palm and rubber plantation. They value land higher for the farm than for forest. Landowners feel secure with the customary land right than statutory land rights. Hence, the study suggests FMU Dharmasraya intensify forest extension service on forest function and persuade landowners to seek a balance between the ecological and economic role of forestland. More importantly, forest ecosystem service needs a proportional monetary valuation.