The initial assessment of the impacts of Covid-19 pandemic on forest resilience and forest-dependent community resilience in East Kalimantan

Abstract

Many groups of people living in and around forests in Kalimantan are confronted with particularly acute and simultaneous challenges during the covid-19 pandemic. These challenges include forest security, food security, nutrition, and basic livelihoods, declining incomes due to social restrictions, vulnerable land and resource rights that are critical, access to health care, lack of access to government social protection measures, and information mainly through digital mode. This paper seeks to build an understanding of the sustainability of the communities most dependent on forest resources for the vulnerable members of society’s livelihood and an understanding of the importance of secure land and forest rights to adapt and cope with livelihood difficulties in times of pandemics and other difficult circumstances. We combined social scientific methods including review of relevant published literature, participatory observation, and semi-structured interviews. This paper identified factors influencing community resilience to include population size, autonomy, community leadership, economic diversity, and infrastructure base. The covid-19 experience shows that resilient communities (e.g. with secure land and forest rights, ability to govern forests, and having incomes from forest products) were able to invest in health care, livelihoods, and employment generation activities during the pandemic. They were also able to prevent the spread of disease by using customary practices to enforce self-isolation and protective measures.