Sources of income from HTR areas in Boalemo: no single policy for improving welfare of the communities

Abstract

Under social forestry programme, community plantation forest (HTR) scheme aims to increase welfare of farmers and provide timber supply for industry, while at the same time also improve the environment. HTR permit has been granted to forest farmer groups in Boalemo District since 2012. This research tries to explore how farmers make use of both their HTR and private land, contribution of these land into household income and how the land-use systems applied would determine environment condition. Results reveals that agriculture and estate crops contributes for about 56% and 38% respectively into total income of households. In addition, when most farmers manage their private land, contribution of the private land provides almost twice to total income compared with income contribution from HTR land. Meanwhile, floods has been hit Boalemo District every year with more people suffering from the floods. Learnt from research results and findings, opportunities to combine various policies are available to utilize the HTR land for growing trees for future income, and the farmers can continue their current land-use system in their private land for short- and medium-term income. Considering the HTR land are located in hilly contour, the trees could potentially reduce erosion and flood incidents.