Local Forest Management Research Articles

Assessment of daleh swidden agriculture as an innovative alternative to conventional swidden under conditions of external pressure on local forest management in Kalimantan, Indonesia

Imang N, Rujehan, Duakaju NN. 2018. Assessment of daleh swidden agriculture as an innovative alternative to conventional swidden under conditions of external pressure on local forest management in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Biodiversitas 19: 840-848. Swidden agriculture is still an important livelihood for millions of people in the tropics. In Kalimantan Island of Indonesia, swidden agriculture is currently facing many external pressures such as massive expansion of oil palm plantations, concession for industrial plantations, and non-availability of financial and political support from the government. The above external pressures which ignore local wisdom in forest and land management have reduced the land available for swidden agriculture. The external pressures, in turn, have shortened the cycle of swidden agriculture and decreased the productivity of swidden agriculture. The objectives of the present study are to assess socio-cultural and economic aspects of the innovative daleh agriculture as an alternative to conventional swidden agriculture under these conditions. The study was conducted in an indigenous Bahau Dayak community of East Kalimantan, Indonesia. Twenty swiddeners and 6 other key informants were interviewed for data collection. Research findings confirm that the expansion of oil palm plantations has ignored the wisdom in forest and land management, in general, and caused pressure on swidden agriculture, in particular. Under such pressures, daleh swidden agriculture may be effectively practiced because it can increase land productivity and is also culturally acceptable. Further, financial and facilitation support from district government is needed to improve the practice of swidden agriculture in the study area.

Measuring from Space the Efficiency of Local Forest Management: The Successful Case of the Indigenous Community of Cherán, Mexico

Remote sensing-based forest cover change maps are usually elaborated for national level baseline information towards environmental conservation schemes. Community forest management is acknowledged as a key component of sustainable use of natural resources. In this research, we provide a means of technological appropriation for the community of Cherán, state of Michoacán, Mexico, to complement their local forest management initiative since 2012, after severe illegal logging occurred all along the previous decade. Participatory mapping, collaborative online cartography and global forest cover products were shared with the Community Council of the Commons. The environmental effect of the governance change occurred in 2012 was assessed using the Global Forest Cover Change (GFCC) product from 2000 to 2016. We find a significant reduction of deforestation in Cherán, due to local empowerment, which contrasts with overall trend in the region. We discuss the potential benefits of an alliance between communities and the academy through the construction of decentralized spatial data infrastructures in Mexico.

Transforming forest landscape conflicts: the promises and perils of global forest management initiatives such as REDD+

Implementation of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is designed to relieve pressure on tropical forests, however, many are concerned that it is a threat to the rights of forest communities. These potential risks need serious attention as earlier studies have shown that the Asia-Pacific region is a forest conflict hotspot, with many economic, environmental and social implications at global (e.g. climate change) to local levels (e.g. poverty). Drawing on an analysis of nine case studies from four countries (Cambodia, Myanmar, Nepal and Vietnam) this paper examines why and how REDD+ can be a driver for forest conflict and how it also has the potential to simultaneously transform these conflicts. The analytical framework, “sources of impairment”, applied in the study was developed to increase understanding and facilitate the resolution of forest landscape conflicts in a sustainable manner (i.e. transformation). The main findings are that REDD+ can be a source of conflict in the study sites, but also had transformative potential when good practices were followed. For example, in some sites, the REDD+ projects were sources of impairment for forest communities by restricting access to forest resources. However, the research also identified REDD+ projects that enabled the participation of traditionally marginalized groups and built local forest management capacities, leading to strengthened tenure for some forest communities. Similarly, in some countries REDD+ has served as a mechanism to pilot Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), which will likely have significant impacts in mitigating conflicts by addressing the sources at local to national levels. Based on these findings, there are many reasons to be optimistic that REDD+ can address the underlying causes of forest landscape conflicts, especially when linked with other governance initiatives such as Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade – Voluntary Participation Agreements (FLEGT-VPA).

The use of NDVI and CORINE Land Cover databases for forest management in Serbia

A normalized difference vegetation index provides local forest managers with much essential annual information about the forest inventory. This article evaluates the possible use of NDVI and CORINE Land Cover databases for better forest management in the municipalities of Kursumlija and Topola in Serbia. The forest areas obtained using CLC were up to 11.5% larger than the official forest area estimates, whereas NDVI gave more precise results. This is of a crucial importance for preventing illegal logging, which is very prevalent in southern Serbian municipalities, which have substantial forested territory. NDVI is very promising for Serbia and also for countries that rarely carry out national forest inventories. This method can also easily be applied to other Balkan countries with a similar situation regarding local forest management.

Social Capital of Parak and Rimbo Management in West Sumatra

The topic of social capital has been gaining many concerns from social researchers throughout the world, especially in collective action perspective. This study aimed to describe the organizational activities of the local forest management practices ( parak and rimbo ) as a social capital in collective action perspective. The research method is a case study of Koto Malintang and Simancuang people in West Sumatra. Collecting data was conducted by unstructured interviews, field observations, and document studies. Data analysis uses categorization and coding, document analysis, and historical analysis. Our findings were described in the context of decision-making, resources management and mobilization, communication, and conflict resolution. Collective action for decision-making involved the acquisition, allocation, and distribution mechanisms to divide land and forest product among local people. In the context of resources management and mobilization, they applied kinship relations among families, sub-clans, and clans to manage their resources. They then communicated their needs in any formal and informal meetings. When a conflict occurred in related to forest utilization, they applied an adat court to make a win-win solution. Nevertheless, the challenges of collective action are still about the resources availability, benefit equity, and external supports

Regional environmental conditions shape microbial community structure stronger than local forest management intensity

Abstract Microorganisms in forest soils provide essential ecosystem services, such as decomposition of organic matter and nutrient mineralization. However, microbial community structure and function can be affected by environmental conditions, such as regional climate and soil properties and, moreover, by human activity through forest management. We examined the biomass and composition of microbial assemblages in 150 forest stands in the organic layer (Oi, Oe, Oa) and upper mineral soil (0–10 cm) in three regions across Germany (Schwabische Alb, Hainich-Dun, Schorfheide-Chorin) by phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analysis. Different explanatory environmental variables (total C, N, S, P, organic C, inorganic C, pH, water content) were identified. The intensity of land use was characterized with the Forest Management Intensity Index (ForMI). The total amount of PLFAs, as measure for microbial biomass, was different among the three regions both in the organic layer and mineral soil. In the organic layer, total PLFAs decreased from Schwabische Alb over Hainich-Dun to Schorfheide-Chorin, with the latter comprising a fourfold and twofold lower amount in fungal and bacterial PLFAs, respectively. In contrast, in the mineral soil the forests in the Hainich-Dun showed the highest microbial biomass. Discriminant function analysis of PLFA pattern indicated that Gram-positive bacteria and fungi accounted mainly for the regional differences in the organic layer, whereas in the mineral soil additionally Gram-negative and actinobacteria were important. Redundancy analysis showed that PLFA profiles were predominantly affected by sampling site and environmental variables, with the water content in the organic layer and the soil texture in the mineral soil explaining most of the variability in microbial communities between the three regions. Additionally, forest stands were classified into four management groups (conifer; deciduous with low, medium, and high intensity) based on the ForMI. In the mineral soil, forest management accounted for a small proportion of the observed regional differences. Within regions, fungal biomass in the organic layer decreased with management intensity at the Schwabische Alb and increased in the mineral soils of Hainich-Dun region. Microbial community structure discriminated coniferous and deciduous forests in all three regions, and moreover showed a separation based on forest management intensity in the Schorfheide-Chorin. In conclusion, microbial biomass and community composition in forest organic layer and mineral soil were more influenced by regional conditions, including environmental properties such as moisture, soil texture, C/N ratio and pH, than by forest management intensity. However, within given environments, microbial assemblages can be influenced by forest management, in particular through changes in the tree species composition.

Factors influencing households’ participation in forest management in the northern region of Ghana

This study assessed the factors influencing households’ participation in forest management. The specific objective was to identify the determinants of households’ participation in forest management in the Northern Region of Ghana. The study used the purposive sampling to sample respondents from six (6) communities within the Tamale forest districts and the sample size was three hundred and seventy (370). The logistic regression result showed that, sex, age, household size, education, marital status, benefit and location of the forest influenced households’ participation in forest management. The results showed that, all the sociodemographic characteristics of the respondents were significant in determining participation in forest management. The study recommended that, the government of Ghana should intensify awareness creation and public education on the need for collaborative forest management between local communities and forest management staff.

Does forest management and researchers’ presence reduce hunting and forest exploitation by local communities in Tsitongambarika, south-east Madagascar?

AbstractHunting of wildlife is one of the major threats to biodiversity. For effective conservation programmes in countries where hunting and shifting agriculture are the main sources of subsistence, forest management should aim to reduce hunting pressure and forest exploitation. The presence of researchers has been promoted as one of the main ways to mitigate anthropogenic pressures on wildlife populations. Our aim was to test whether local management and the establishment of a research station had a role in decreasing forest exploitation by local people living adjacent to a recently protected area in south-east Madagascar. We interviewed local people from nine villages at various distances from the recently established research station of Ampasy, in the northernmost portion of the Tsitongambarika Protected Area, to explore how people use the forest, with a particular focus on hunting. We also performed transect surveys to estimate snare and lemur encounter rates before local forest management began, at the establishment of the research station, and 1 year after. The impact of local communities on the forest seems to have decreased since the beginning of forest management, with a further decrease since the establishment of the research station. Participants from villages not involved in the local management were more reluctant to declare their illegal activities. We conclude that a combination of local management and related activities (e.g. installation of a research station) can assist in temporarily reducing forest exploitation by local communities; however, community needs and conservation plans should be integrated to maintain long-term benefits.

Using soundscapes to detect variable degrees of human influence on tropical forests in Papua New Guinea.

There is global concern about tropical forest degradation, in part, because of the associated loss of biodiversity. Communities and indigenous people play a fundamental role in tropical forest management and are often efficient at preventing forest degradation. However, monitoring changes in biodiversity due to degradation, especially at a scale appropriate to local tropical forest management, is plagued by difficulties, including the need for expert training, inconsistencies across observers, and lack of baseline or reference data. We used a new biodiversity remote-sensing technology, the recording of soundscapes, to test whether the acoustic saturation of a tropical forest in Papua New Guinea decreases as land-use intensity by the communities that manage the forest increases. We sampled soundscapes continuously for 24 hours at 34 sites in different land-use zones of 3 communities. Land-use zones where forest cover was fully retained had significantly higher soundscape saturation during peak acoustic activity times (i.e., dawn and dusk chorus) compared with land-use types with fragmented forest cover. We conclude that, in Papua New Guinea, the relatively simple measure of soundscape saturation may provide a cheap, objective, reproducible, and effective tool for monitoring tropical forest deviation from an intact state, particularly if it is used to detect the presence of intact dawn and dusk choruses.

Diversidad y estructura genética de Quercus crassifolia en sitios de manejo forestal y uso local en Sierra Juárez, Oaxaca

Los encinos desempeñan un importante papel ecológico, social y económico, no obstante, son escasos los estudios que evalúan el efecto de las actividades humanas sobre las poblaciones de especies del género Quercus. El objetivo de este trabajo fue evaluar la diversidad genética en poblaciones en sitios con aprovechamiento de leña para uso local y sitios de manejo forestal de Quercus crassifolia en Sierra Juárez, Oaxaca, para brindar información básica para la conservación y manejo de la especie. Se emplearon ocho microsatélites nucleares en 12 poblaciones (seis de aprovechamiento para uso local y seis sometidas a manejo forestal). Los resultados obtenidos indican que la especie presenta en promedio una moderada diversidad genética (He = 0.764 ± 0.014), sin diferencias significativa entre los sitios con uso local y manejo. Se encontró una baja diferenciación genética entre poblaciones (FST = 0.025 ± 0.047 y RST = 0.157 ± 0.135) debido a un flujo génico moderado (Nem = 6.7) que favorece la ausencia de loci bajo selección direccional. El aprovechamiento excesivo de individuos afecta la retención y regeneración de la especie, que a futuro puede incidir negativamente en la variación genética y en los procesos de diferenciación entre poblaciones. Este estudio aporta información esencial que será útil para la toma de decisiones en actividades de conservación y planes de manejo para Q. crassifolia en Sierra Juárez, Oaxaca.

Selective and traditional forest management options for black pine forests in Central Italy: effects on ecosystem services

Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) should be able to produce an optimal level of bundle of Ecosystem Services (ES), thus ensuring more resilient forest ecosystems also creating benefits for local population and human well-being. Yet, choosing between alternative forest management practices is not straightforward as it necessarily involves ES trade-offs. Forest management decisions have to reconcile the socio-economic and ecological contributions of forest ecosystems by fostering a synergistic relation between multiple ES while lowering ES trade-offs. The aim of the study is to analyze different forest management practices (selective and traditional thinning) in black pine peri-urban forest in Central Italy, by investigating their contribution in terms of provisioning (wood production), cultural (recreational benefits), regulating (climate change mitigation) ES. For each management option was performed: (1) the biophysical assessment of selected ES by using primary data and calculating indicators for wood production with special regard to biomass for energy use (living trees and deadwood volume harvested), recreational benefits (tourists’ preferences for each forest management practice), climate change mitigation (carbon sequestration in above-ground and below-ground biomass), and (2) the economic valuation of wood production, recreational benefits and climate change mitigation ES using direct and indirect methods (environmental evaluation techniques). The results show that the effects of the selective thinning on ES is higher that the effects of the traditional thinning. The economic value of the three ES provided by traditional and selective thinning are respectively: bioenergy production 154.2 € ha -1 yr -1 and 223.3 € ha -1 yr -1 ; recreational benefits 193.2 € ha -1 yr -1 and 231.9 € ha -1 yr -1 ; carbon sequestration 29.0 € ha -1 yr -1 and 36.2 € ha -1 yr -1 . The integrated (biophysical and economic) assessment of ES in addition to the trade-off analysis can provide multi-perspective insights for forest policy makers and can be included as a part of the local forest management plans.

地方自治体と森林管理(統一テーマ:国際化・分権化時代の森林管理問題,1997年秋季大会論文)

地方自治体と森林管理(統一テーマ:国際化・分権化時代の森林管理問題,1997年秋季大会論文)

森林・林業政策の改革方向と地域森林管理(テーマ:地域森林管理の主体形成と林業・山村問題,2010年春季大会)

森林・林業政策の改革方向と地域森林管理(テーマ:地域森林管理の主体形成と林業・山村問題,2010年春季大会)

Vertical distribution of soil extractable organic C and N contents and total C and N stocks in 78-year-old tree plantations in subtropical Australia.

Few studies have focused on the effects of long-term forest plantations on the soil profile of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) stocks. In this study, we selected 78-year-old tree plantations that included three coniferous tree species (i.e., slash pine, hoop pine and kauri pine) and a Eucalyptus species in subtropical Australia. We measured soil extractable organic C (EOC) and N (EON) contents and total C and N stocks under different tree species on the forest floor and along a soil profile to 100cm depth. The results showed that Eucalyptus had significantly higher soil EOC contents (3.3Mgha-1) than the other tree species (EOC of 1.9-2.3Mgha-1) and had significantly higher EON (156kgha-1) contents than slash pine (107kgha-1). Eucalyptus had significantly higher soil C (58.9Mgha-1) and N (2.03Mgha-1) stocks than the other tree species (22.3-27.6MgCha-1 and 0.71-1.23MgNha-1) at 0-100cm depth. There were no differences in soil C stocks at the 0-100cm depth among the coniferous tree species. Forest floor C stocks had stronger effects on mineral soil total N stocks than fine root biomass, whereas fine root biomass exerted stronger effects on soil total C stocks at the 0-100cm depth than forest floor C and N stocks. Our results addressed large differences in soil C and N stocks under different tree species, which can provide useful information for local forest management practices in this region.

Wall-to-Wall Tree Type Mapping from Countrywide Airborne Remote Sensing Surveys

Although wall-to-wall, accurate, and up-to-date forest composition maps at the stand level are a fundamental input for many applications, ranging from global environmental issues to local forest management planning, countrywide mapping approaches on the tree type level remain rare. This paper presents and validates an innovative remote sensing based approach for a countrywide mapping of broadleaved and coniferous trees in Switzerland with a spatial resolution of 3 m. The classification approach incorporates a random forest classifier, explanatory variables from multispectral aerial imagery and a Digital Terrain Model (DTM) from Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) data, digitized training polygons and independent validation data from the National Forest Inventory (NFI). The methodological workflow was optimized for an area of 41,285 km2 that is characterized by temperate forests within a complex topography. Whereas high model overall accuracies (0.99) and kappa (0.98) were achieved, the comparison of the tree type map with independent NFI data revealed significant deviations that are related to underestimations of broadleaved trees (median of −3.17%). Constraints of the tree type mapping approach are mostly related to the acquisition date and time of the imagery and the topographic (negative) effects on the prediction. A comparison with the most recent High Resolution Layers (HRL) forest 2012 from the European Environmental Agency revealed that the tree type map is superior regarding spatial resolution, level of detail and accuracy. The high-quality map achieved with the approach presented here is of great value for optimizing forest management and planning activities and is also an important information source for applications outside the forestry sector.

Spatio-temporal variations in plantation forests’ disturbance and recovery of northern Guangdong Province using yearly Landsat time series observations (1986–2015)

Forest disturbance plays a vital role in modulating carbon storage, biodiversity and climate change. Yearly Landsat imagery from 1986 to 2015 of a typical plantation region in the northern Guangdong province of southern China was used as a case study. A Landsat time series stack (LTSS) was fed to the vegetation change tracker model (VCT) to map long-term changes in plantation forests’ disturbance and recovery, followed by an intensive validation and a continuous 27-yr change analysis on disturbance locations, magnitudes and rates of plantations’ disturbance and recovery. And the validation results of the disturbance year maps derived from five randomly identified sample plots with 25 km2 located at the four corners and the center of the scene showed the majority of the spatial agreement measures ranged from 60% to 83%. A confusion matrix summary of the accuracy measures for all four validation sites in Fogang County showed that the disturbance year maps had an overall accuracy estimate of 71.70%. Forest disturbance rates’ change trend was characterized by a decline first, followed by an increase, then giving way to a decline again. An undulated and gentle decreasing trend of disturbance rates from the highest value of 3.95% to the lowest value of 0.76% occurred between 1988 and 2001, disturbance rate of 4.51% in 1994 was a notable anomaly, while after 2001 there was a sharp ascending change, forest disturbance rate spiked in 2007 (5.84%). After that, there was a significant decreasing trend up to the lowest value of 1.96% in 2011 and a slight ascending trend from 2011 to 2015 (2.59%). Two obvious spikes in post-disturbance recovery rates occurred in 1995 (0.26%) and 2008 (0.41%). Overall, forest recovery rates were lower than forest disturbance rates. Moreover, forest disturbance and recovery detection based on VCT and the Landsat-based detections of trends in disturbance and recovery (LandTrendr) algorithms in Fogang County have been conducted, with LandTrendr finding mostly much more disturbance than VCT. Overall, disturbances and recoveries in northern Guangdong were triggered mostly by timber needs, policies and decisions of the local governments. This study highlights that a better understanding about plantations’ changes would provide a critical foundation for local forest management decisions in the southern China.

Gender mainstreaming in forest governance: analysing 25 years of research and policy in South Asia Partage du rôle des sexes dans la gestion forestière: une analyse de 25 ans de recherche et de politique en Asie du sud Transversalización del género en la gobernanza forestal: análisis de 25 años de investigación y políticas en Asia del Sur

SUMMARY Notwithstanding a strong theoretical background along with a burgeoning stock of literature in Gender Research, the result of all efforts put towards gender mainstreaming in Forest Policy and Practice has been far from desirable. Research and policy predominantly overlooks the historical perspectives and social basis of gender roles. The assumption that the status of women and forests can be improved by simply increasing the number of women in decision-making is problematic and incomplete. It does not address the struggle women face in joining the existing male-dominated institutions. This paper seeks to enhance the understanding of Gender as an analytical dimension in assessing local forest management and governance regimes by systematically tracing the lineage of related discussions, thereby deriving insights from the last 25 years of forest research and policy.

Using nonparametric modeling approaches and remote sensing imagery to estimate ecological welfare forest biomass

The spatial distribution of forest biomass is closely related with carbon cycle, climate change, forest productivity, and biodiversity. Efficient quantification of biomass provides important information about forest quality and health. With the rising awareness of sustainable development, the ecological benefits of forest biomass attract more attention compared to traditional wood supply function. In this study, two nonparametric modeling approaches, random forest (RF) and support vector machine were adopted to estimate above ground biomass (AGB) using widely used Landsat imagery in the region, especially within the ecological forest of Fuyang District in Zhejiang Province, China. Correlation analysis was accomplished and model parameters were optimized during the modeling process. As a result, the best performance modeling method RF was implemented to produce an AGB estimation map. The predicted map of AGB in the study area showed obvious spatial variability and demonstrated that within the current ecological forest zone, as well as the protected areas, the average of AGB were higher than the ordinary forest. The quantification of AGB was proven to have a close relationship with the local forest policy and management pattern, which indicated that combining remote-sensing imagery and forest biophysical property would provide considerable guidance for making beneficial decisions.

Local forest and rangeland management system in the hills of Nepal

Abstract available on the PDFBanko Janakari Vol.12(1) 2002: 54-61

Development and analysis of an opportunity cost simulation accounting for the spatial distributions of local forest management

We describe the development of a simulation based on neighbor relationships between small stands forming many sub compartments in a forested area. We used a Geographic Information System (GIS) to simulate local forest management plans. The distribution and intensity of different silvicultural practices were visualized. We also determined whether, at specified rates, the implementation of forestry operations was optimum for the desired outcomes in specific compartments. Based on the results, we discuss the tradeoff between two silvicultural strategies. First, the rational economic strategy, which generally focuses on implementing silvicultural prescriptions in some compartments. Second, the environmental strategy, which generally focuses on implementing silvicultural prescriptions in all compartments, taking account of environmental forestry practices. The difference between profits under the two strategies at the study site was approximately 20 %, and this economic difference could be considered to represent “opportunity costs” of a commitment to environmentally conscious management. We created the simulation to map the strategies based on the location of existing forest roads and any special constraints. In addition, the model could be used as a decision-making tool for considering the tradeoff between environmental and economic strategies.