Integrated Rural Development in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia


Book Description

These proceedings report on an international workshop held in Kupang, in April 2006, to identify opportunities and constraints to improving livelihoods in East Nusa Tenggara using an integrated rural development approach, and to discuss directions for future activities.




Culture, Ecology and Economy of Fire Management in North Australian Savannas


Book Description

This engaging volume explores the management of fire in one of the world’s most flammable landscapes: Australia’s tropical savannas, where on average 18% of the landscape is burned annually. Impacts have been particularly severe in the Arnhem Land Plateau, a centre of plant and animal diversity on Indigenous land. Culture, Ecology and Economy of Fire Management in North Australian Savannas documents a remarkable collaboration between Arnhem Land’s traditional landowners and the scientific community to arrest a potentially catastrophic fire-driven decline in the natural and cultural assets of the region – not by excluding fire, but by using it better through restoration of Indigenous control over burning. This multi-disciplinary treatment encompasses the history of fire use in the savannas, the post-settlement changes that altered fire patterns, the personal histories of a small number of people who lived most of their lives on the plateau and, critically, their deep knowledge of fire and how to apply it to care for country. Uniquely, it shows how such knowledge and commitment can be deployed in conjunction with rigorous formal scientific analysis, advanced technology, new cross-cultural institutions and the emerging carbon economy to build partnerships for controlling fire at scales that were, until this demonstration, thought beyond effective intervention.




A Review of Fire Projects in Indonesia, 1982-1998


Book Description

Fire in the wet tropical climate of Indonesia is not a new phenomenon. The ‘Great Fire of Borneo’ in 1982-83 was one of the worst fire events in recent decades. Small holders clearing land for cultivation were primarily blamed for starting fires that rapidly spread out of control. Subsequent fires linked to El Nino-Southern Oscilation occurred in 1987, 1991 1994 and most recently in 1997-98. The impact of the latest fire event is immense; estimates of the area burnt in 1997 vary between two and five million hectares (forest and non-forest), the number of people affected by smoke haze and fire at 75 million and the total economic costs in the region at as much as US$4.5 billion. The 1982-83 fires brought the issue to world attention. After 1992 three long-term projects were initiated with the objectives of management and monitoring of fires. These were the EU-Forest Fire Prevention and Control Project in Southern Sumatra (1995-1998), GTZ’s Integrated Forest Fire Management Project in East Kalimantan (1994-2000), and JICA’s Forest Fire Prevention and Management Project in Bogor, Jambi and West Kalimantan (1996-2001). In addition, the Indonesia-UK Tropical Forest Management Programme started in 1992 and comprised a number of components related to fires as part of its overall improved forest management objective. After the 1997 fires numerous short- and long-term fire projects were proposed and started. Others, such as the first phase of the WWF project and the ADB’s regional (RETA) and national (ADTA) projects, within a short time frame try to cover many aspects of fire problem such as socio-economic assessments, fire-fighting, area estimates, economic and policy assessments and ecological assessments. Representing a longer-term approach, CIFOR-ICRAF-UNESCO propose an in-depth study of the underlying causes and effects of fires. In addition to the international response Indonesia has several government agencies charged with the task of preventing, monitoring and controlling land and forest fires. Following the forest and land fires of 1994, the National Coordination Team for Land and Forest Fire Control was established in 1995. Interest in fire is only short-lived after a major fire event. Before the 1994 fires little attention was paid to the fire problem and missions mainly focussed on control and prevention of fires. Most of the new generation of fire projects established in 1997-98 address both issues.




Carbon Accounting and Savanna Fire Management


Book Description

In the context of Australia’s developing carbon economy, fire management helps to abate emissions of greenhouse gases and is an important means of generating carbon credits. The vast high-rainfall savannas of northern Australia are one of the world’s most flammable landscapes. Management of fires in this region has the potential to assist with meeting emissions reduction targets, as well as conserving biodiversity and providing employment for Indigenous people in remote parts of Australia’s north. This comprehensive volume brings together recent research from northern Australian savannas to provide an internationally relevant case study for applying greenhouse gas accounting methodologies to the practice of fire management. It provides scientific arguments for enlarging the area of fire-prone land managed for emissions abatement. The book also charts the progress towards development of a savanna fire bio-sequestration methodology. The future of integrated approaches to emissions abatement and bio-sequestration is also discussed.




Disaster Risk Reduction in Indonesia


Book Description

Indonesia's history of disasters, and particularly the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004, triggered numerous changes not only to Indonesian disaster management and its associated legislative frameworks, but also to its community-based initiatives. The citizens face many challenges from diverse, complex and evolving hazards, emanating from geological, terrestrial, hydro-meteorological hazards, and climate change. This book discusses several ways in which strategies utilizing environmental, livelihood, social, and cultural resources can be used to develop effective disaster risk reduction designed to sustain social, cultural and economic life in Indonesia. A key focus is understanding the capabilities, processes and relationships of everyday life, and developing them to ensure that disaster reduction strategies can be incorporated into mainstream community life in urban, rural, and island settings. The following topics are featured: disaster reduction and developing an Indonesian perspective; the adaptation by farmers in dealing with climate change; promoting adaptive capacity of coastal communities to climate change; community resilience to the Mount Merapi volcanic disaster; community vulnerability to health and water hazards in Semarang; the mobility and livelihood of small islands; the national climate change perspective into flood management practice; food security, carbon management and climate risk reduction; water management strategy for resilience; cultural heritage to increase community resilience; local wisdom and community resilience; cultural drivers of disaster risk reduction behavior and the case of Pulau Simeulue; rethinking resilience, culture and disasters; community disaster recovery after the 2010 Mount Merapi eruption; seizing opportunities for change towards sustainability during disaster recovery and the case of Aceh, Indonesia; and the overall disaster reduction in Indonesia and moving forward. The purpose of this text is to highlight the importance of strategies that encompass the local, regional, and national levels of analysis which seeks to ensure all stakeholders play important roles in the development and implementation of disaster risk reduction strategies. This book will serve as an outstanding resource for practitioners and academics to adopt an integrative approach to develop the functional beliefs, knowledge, relationships and actions that Indonesia and its citizens need to thrive and prosper in increasingly hazardous times.




Ecology of Indonesian Papua Part Two


Book Description

The Ecology of Papua provides a comprehensive review of current scientific knowledge on all aspects of the natural history of western (Indonesian) New Guinea. Designed for students of conservation, environmental workers, and academic researchers, it is a richly detailed text, dense with biogeographical data, historical reference, and fresh insight on this complicated and marvelous region. We hope it will serve to raise awareness of Papua on a global as well as local scale, and to catalyze effective conservation of its most precious natural assets. New Guinea is the largest and highest tropical island, and one of the last great wilderness areas remaining on Earth. Papua, the western half of New Guinea, is noteworthy for its equatorial glaciers, its vast forested floodplains, its imposing central mountain range, its Raja Ampat Archipelago, and its several hundred traditional forest-dwelling societies. One of the wildest places left in the world, Papua possesses extraordinary biological and cultural diversity. Today, Papua’s environment is under threat from growing outside pressures to exploit its expansive forests and to develop large plantations of oil palm and biofuels. It is important that Papua’s leadership balance economic development with good resource management, to ensure the long-term well-being of its culturally diverse populace.




Land and Life in Timor-Leste


Book Description

Following the historic 1999 popular referendum, East Timor emerged as the first independent sovereign nation of the 21st Century. The years since these momentous events have seen an efflorescence of social research across the country drawn by shared interests in the aftermath of the resistance struggle, the processes of social recovery and the historic opportunity to pursue field-based ethnography following the hiatus of research during 24 years of Indonesian rule (1975-99). This volume brings together a collection of papers from a diverse field of international scholars exploring the multiple ways that East Timorese communities are making and remaking their connections to land and places of ancestral significance. The work is explicitly comparative and highlights the different ways Timorese language communities negotiate access and transactions in land, disputes and inheritance especially in areas subject to historical displacement and resettlement. Consideration is extended to the role of ritual performance and social alliance for inscribing connection and entitlement. Emerging through analysis is an appreciation of how relations to land, articulated in origin discourses, are implicated in the construction of national culture and differential contributions to the struggle for independence. The volume is informed by a range of Austronesian cultural themes and highlights the continuing vitality of customary governance and landed attachment in Timor-Leste.