v Traditional Life-styles, Conservation and Rural Development

Proceedings of a Symposium organised by the Institute of Ecology, of Padjadjaran University, Bandung, and the IUCN Commission on Ecology held in Bandung, Indonesia, on the 4th and 5th of October 1982

Commission on Ecology Papers Number 7 p International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources 1984 Reprinted from The Environmentalist, Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7, ISSN 0251-1088.

IUCN Commission on Ecology The Commission on Ecology of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) is a scientific commis• sion of an independent, international, non-governmental organization. IUCN was founded in 1948 at a conference convened by Unesco and the French Government. The Union comprises today 58 governments as state members, 119 government agencies, and 316 non• governmental national and international organizations. This membership represents 114 countries. The Commission on Ecology was established in 1954 and reconstituted in 1979. At present it has 160 members from 46 countries in all the continents, carefully selected for their national and international scientific status and expertise. IUCN's Commission on Ecology provides scientific information and advice to ensure that action directed towards the sustainable use and conservation of natural resources, i.e. the implementation of the World Conservation Strategy, makes the best use of current ecological knowledge. The World Conservation Strategy, launched in 1980, provides an overall plan for action in this direction. Through its Working Groups, the Commission gives particular attention to: ecological problems of the open oceans, continental seas, coastal areas, mangrove ecosystems, coral reefs, inland waters, arid lands, tropical rainforests. It is concerned with problems relating to: oil pollution, environmental pollutants, ecological assessment, (re)introduction, animal migrations, mountain and river basin management. The Commission is also active in the field of human ecology, particularly in rural development and traditional life styles. For further information please contact: Executive Officer, IUCN Commission on Ecology, Av. du Mont Blanc, 1196 Gland, Switzerland.

© IUCN Printed in Switzerland

Cover design: M. Bijleveld and P. Virolle. Cover photos: P. Virolle and M. Depraz. Traditional Life-styles, Conservation and Rural Development

Proceedings of a Symposium organised by the Institute of Ecology of Padjadjaran University Bandung, and the IUCN Commission on Ecology held in Bandung, Indonesia, on the 4th and 5th of October 1982

Commission on Ecology Papers Number 7

Edited by J. Hanks

With the support of The World Wildlife Fund The United Nations Environment Programme The Netherlands Government The Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service The French Government Norwegian Agency for International Development

International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources 1984

Contents Page Page 1. The Role of Governments and International Agencies in Conservation and Rural Develop• 10. Eco-Ethics as the Foundation of Conservation 45 ment 8 Raymond F. Dasmann Henryk Skolimowski 11. Conservation: Not by Skill Alone. The Impor• tance of a Workable Concept in the Conserva• 2. Natural Biological Compounds Traditionally tion of Nature 52 Used as Pesticides and Medicines 11 Herman D. Rijksen Sasongko S. Adisewojo, Sidik Tjokronegoro and Rukmiati Tjokronegoro 12. Conservation and Rural Development: Towards an Integrated Approach 60 3. Pranatamangsa. The Javanese Agricultural Cal• J. Hanks endar—Its Bioclimatological and Sociocultural Function in Developing Rural Life 15 13. The Role of Tropical Forestry in Conservation N. Daldjoeni and Rural Development 68 Gerardo Budowski 4. Traditional Classification of Plants 19 Gembong Tjitrosoepomo 14. The Study of Non-Timber Forest Products. ... 77 Marius Jacobs 5. Traditional Conservation and Utilization of 22 Wildlife in Papua New Guinea Navu Kwapena 15. Watersheds and Rural Development Planning 80 Lawrence S. Hamilton and Peter N. King 6. A House is a Tiny World 27 16. The Impact of Development on Interactions Aminuddin Ponulele between People and Forests in East Kaliman• tan: A Comparison of Two Areas of Kenyan 7. Marine Conservation in Relation to Tradi• Dayak Settlement 87 tional Life-Styles of Tropical Artisanal Fisher• K. Kartawinata, H. Soedjito, T. Jessup, A. P. men 30 Vayda and C. J. P. Colfer R. E. Johannes 17. The Talun-Kebun System, A Modified Shifting Cultivation, in West Java 96 8. Aboriginal People—Guardians of a Heritage 36 Otto Soemarwoto J. D. Ovington 18. Ecological Guidelines and Traditional Empir• 9. The Role of Religion in Conservation 40 icism in Rural Development 99 L. J. Webb and D. M. Smyth J. M. Boyd

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 3

Introduction The essential message of the World Conserva• to threatened species or ecosystems. A pro• tion Strategy (WCS) is that conservation is con• gramme of sustainable rural development should cerned with human survival and sustainable devel• have as its target the breaking of the circle of opment. The goal of the WCS is the positive link• poverty, for unless this happens, population ing of conservation and development so that the growth rates are unlikely to decline, and the poor people of the world may all have a way of life and rapidly growing populations will continue to that is sustainable (IUCN, 1980). This new deplete their resource bases, and may encroach philosophy is a brave attempt to resolve conflicts into and even absorb adjacent wildlife sanctuaries. between conservation and development, and it What then, should be the role of traditional represents a significant departure from the com• life-styles in this new integrated approach? Are paratively rigid 'preservationist' attitude of the they an anachronism that should be swallowed traditionalists. up, phased out, or simply ignored in the interest As we move into the 1980s, the over-exploita• of a new philosophy for conservation? It was tion of certain natural resources is resulting more these and other issues related to the role of than ever before in a complex of environmental traditional life-styles in conservation and rural and population stresses that are becoming partic• development that were discussed at the Bandung ularly acute in rural areas in Third World coun• Symposium, and these Proceedings are an edited tries. Here, a vicious circle of poverty is develop• version of eighteen of the papers that were pre• ing which is characterized not only by degrada• sented. A relatively unstructured Symposium of tion of natural resources, but also by stagnating such a short duration cannot do full justice to agricultural production, low productivity, low such a complex and wide-ranging topic, but incomes, malnutrition, high birth and death rates, nevertheless the participants produced some and accelerating rural-to-urban migration. With• fascinating and highly relevant information that out doubt, this circle of poverty is one of the will be of great use to IUCN and other conserva• most difficult challenges facing conservation and tion planning agencies. The overall message development agencies, and more importantly to from the Symposium was quite clear—traditional members of the IUCN, it represents a real test of life-styles have an extremely important role to the efficacy of the WCS—is it realistic to talk of play in both conservation and rural development linking conservation and development in a situa• activities, and they should never be overlooked or tion of accelerating social, economic and environ• ignored. For example, Johannes described how mental stress? artisanal fishermen in the oceanic islands of the Such concerns have been exacerbated by the tropical Pacific have evolved traditional fishing dramatic changes in human population growth practices that deliberately or inadvertently func• and numbers that have occurred in the last 150 tion as conservation measures, these activities in• years, a period which experienced an increase in cluding the observation of fishing rights, a self- human numbers from one billion to over 4.7 bil• imposed closed season, closed areas, and gear lion in 1984 (United Nations, 1982). Recent restrictions. He made the very important point United Nations projections estimate that the pop• that management laws and conservation laws ulation is expected to increase still further to over which are compatible with such customs are more 6.1 billion in the year 2000 before becoming likely to achieve public acceptance than those stationary at 10.2 billion people in 2095 (United that are perceived as alien. Nations Secretariat, 1983). Ninety-five per cent Several participants stressed that traditional of the world's growth will probably occur in the life-styles may well have a much more significant currently less developed regions between 1980 role to play in sustainable conservation and and 2050, when their share of the total popula• development activities than has been acknowl• tion is expected to increase from 75 to 85 per edged in the past. Kartawinata et al.'s account cent. of the traditional shifting cultivators in the forests Against such a background, it should be self- of East Kalimantan emphasized that the Dayak evident that it is in the interest of conservation people are not reckless destroyers of the forest, organizations to promote programmes of sustain• but have evolved patterns of land use that are able rural development, especially in those cases sustainable. The authors noted that generaliza• where degraded environments contain or are close tions on the destructive nature of shifting culti-

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 5 vation are bound to be wrong some of the time be of considerable value to conservation and because shifting cultivation includes a great resource managers, and topics covered include variety of actual practices, and they stressed that information on fish migrations, timing and loca• development plans which recognize this diversity tion of spawning of various species, and the and take account of local felt needs and aspira- location of important fishing sites which should rations are more likely to be successful in both be protected from deleterious human activities benefitting people and protecting their environ• such as dredging and pollution. Johannes also ment. called attention to the fact that little serious Soemarwoto was another participant who also effort has been made to collect and record such described the viability of traditional shifting agri• knowledge, and also how important it is for culture as practised in many parts of Indonesia, biologists to avail themselves of social scientists but he had no hesitation in pointing out that in their attempts to extract traditional informa• such a life-style has little long term future in the tion. A word of caution on this subject was presence of rapid human population growth. introduced by Webb and Smyth, who noted Similarly, although Kwapena acknowledged that that traditional knowledge may be distorted by the traditional life-styles that have evolved over magical beliefs or corrupted by recent European hundreds of years in Papua New Guinea have contact, but they nevertheless ended their paper developed practices which deliberately set out to by appealing to the Symposium for a fresh and conserve wildlife resources, such practices can urgent approach to the integration of modern become very destructive to wildlife as human and traditional science. populations grow. The philosophy of conservation in relation to An interesting new development is the active traditional life-styles and rural development participation of unsophisticated people in more figured prominently in several papers. In a wide- formal conservation developments, a move high• ranging review of eco-ethics as the foundation of lighted in the contribution from Ovington, who conservation, Skolimowski emphasized the im• described how the traditional Aboriginal owners portance of ecological ethics based on intrinsic of land in a part of Australia gave a lease of 100 values which spell out the relationships between years over an area of some 6000 km2 to the man and nature, an important aspect of conser• Director of National Parks and Wildlife. The vation philosophy which has been sadly neglected Kakadu National Park was subsequently pro• in the past. In a similar vein, Boyd discussed the claimed on the understanding that the area would role of religion in conservation, and noted that be managed as a National Park on behalf of all although the WCS is recognized and generally Australians, a remarkable gesture without prece• accepted as a key document in the field of con• dent in Australia and possibly in the world. Whilst servation, no attempt seems to have been made to the involvement of local people did at times add have it widely adopted by the world's religious an additional and complicating dimension to park movements. Boyd also pointed out that the WCS management, Ovington concluded that the ex• neglects the problem of human population perience gained at Kakadu has shown that consi• control with inter alia its immense religious sig• derable mutual benefits derived from such invol• nificance. Another criticism of the WCS came vement, and conflict situations can be avoided. from Rijksen, who stated that its utilitarian Similarly, Kwapena's account of the formation emphasis often causes confusion in the minds of Wildlife Management Areas in Papua New of Third World citizens. Rijksen's primary con• Guinea which are set aside at the request of land• cern was that the apparently ambiguous emphasis owners for the conservation and controlled utili• on utilization could well result in accelerated zation of wildlife, is a most encouraging move• destruction of conservation areas. Similarly, ment which has the potential to retain traditional Webb and Smyth questioned the relevance of practices of wildlife conservation, at the same existing philosophies of conservation and asso• time preventing further habitat destruction. ciated ecological guidelines which are derived Those who went to the Symposium believing from developed countries and then applied to that traditional life-styles have little to teach or Third World situations. offer to the scientific community were given As might be expected in such a Symposium, many examples to the contrary, and one of the several papers dealt with traditional uses of natur• best accounts of this came from Johannes, who al resources. Ponulele gave a delightful account of pointed out that the artisanal fishermen of the the way in which the people of Central Sulawesi Pacific oceanic islands know much more about view their houses as a tiny world, to the extent local marine resources than do most biologists. that the house and its occupants become one He explained that this traditional knowledge can unit, and a spiritual relationship is established

6 The Environmentalist between the house and the people who live there. of the influence the calendar has on traditional Consequently, every effort is made to create a life-styles and beliefs, and rather than push these unity between man and his environment when aside and reject them, the developers should build building a new house. Thus great care is taken to on them and help the rural people to undergo select housing materials to fit local environmental a smoother transition to modern farming. conditions, and particular emphasis is given to the Perhaps one of the most important reasons for retention of profitable customs and traditions. the failure of conservation and development plans Another paper dealt with the economic and tra• in the Third World has been that they were done ditional role of some of the natural biological for the people rather than with the people. Such compounds found in plants which are used as an approach overlooks the felt needs and aspira• medicines and pesticides. This aspect was re• tions of the recipients, and places very little em• viewed by Adisewojo et al., who concluded that phasis on identifying cultural and social norms, traditional medicines are a real challenge to and the sensitivities and perceptions of the com• scientists who still do not understand all aspects munities concerned. Two contributors to the of their pharmacological activities. Another Symposium considered planning issues in relation important use of plants was described in a paper to traditional life-styles, Hamilton and King in by Jacobs, which gave an account of the aston• connection with the use of drainage basins, and ishing variety of tropical rainforest plants that Dasmann in the context of the role of govern• are used by man for timber, food, industrial ments and international agencies. The former products, spices and medicines. Of equal sig• authors described how drainage basins can be nificance in some countries is the use of non- used as suitable development planning units, and timber products, the species concerned having the form a useful integrating unit for understanding advantage that their regular collection is much the structure and function of social and natural less disruptive ecologically. systems. These considerations were taken one A rigid 'preservationist' attitude towards plants stage further by Dasmann, who emphasized the and animals is unlikely to gain much acceptance importance of governments giving encouragement with impoverished rural communities, as was to any efforts coming from local people and rural intimated in Budowski's contribution on the role communities that appear to lead towards sus• of tropical forestry in conservation and rural tainable systems of land use. The overriding development. He made the point that foresters message from these two contributions, and from who are solely concerned with timber production other Symposium participants, was that there is and ignore the plight of nearby poor rural people at last a growing awareness among planning will find little support for forest conservation. agencies that conservation and development Budowski believes that a much greater effort is cannot succeed without the total support of the required to conserve the last remnants of tropical people the activities intend to help. forests, and a major contribution could be made The Bandung Symposium was a milestone in towards this end if local people were involved the history of IUCN's Commission on Ecology, more in such activities as agroforestry, planting for it emphasized that ecologists have much to trees to relieve pressure on the natural forests, learn from traditional life-styles. Far from being and the introduction of social forestry practices destructive, primitive and irrelevant, traditional that are designed to help rural populations. In life-styles can almost be regarded as the Cinderella addition, further pressure on the remaining forest of conservation and rural development pro• would be reduced if they were surrounded by grammes—they have been neglected for far too buffer zones. long. The Symposium succeeded in drawing atten• tion to some unexpected traditions that cannot afford to be overlooked by planning agencies. For example, Daldjoeni gave an account of Prana- References tamangsa, the traditional Javanese calendar which IUCN (1980) World Conservation Strategy. IUCN, Gland, Switzer• land. has guided the activities of rural people for hun• United Nations (1982) Demographic Yearbook. 1982. Thirty dreds of years, and has linked them to their envi• Fourth Issue. Development of International Economic and ronment. Daldjoeni suggested that the introduc• Social Affairs, United Nations, New York. United Nations Secretariat (1983) Long range global population tion of modern farming techniques in parts of projections, as assessed in 1980. In Population Bulletin of the Java would benefit enormously from taking note United Nations, No. 14,1982, United Nations, New York.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 7 1. The Role of Governments and International Agencies in Conservation and Rural Development

RAYMOND F. DASMANN Department of Environmental Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA

truly popular support. In its absence, National Summary Parks and nature reserves will not be enough to The role of intergovernmental and nongovernmental protect the array of wild species—many of which international agencies in conservation and rural develop• are far ranging, or depend for their continued ment is contrasted with the role of governments. The inseparable relationship between conservation and existence on mobile species. development provides the only basis for the long-term success of either activity. Governments are advised to pay attention to the concept of ecodevelopment, in which International Organization provision is made for meeting basic needs, and achieving self-reliance within a context of ecological sustainability. The role of international organizations should be re-examined in view of the statement above. In particular they have the responsibility to get Introduction together for the purpose of discerning and providing truthful information about the world Conservation and rural development cannot be environmental crisis to governments and private separated, and any idea that conservation of organizations within countries. I do not imply natural resources can go on in one place while that international organizations have not told the development goes on somewhere else must be truth, but only that it is common for them to abandoned. Conservation of nature cannot provide segmented and sectorial information succeed unless it is an integral part of activities that is often misleading and contradictory, since intended to promote development. Development it does not take into account the ecological without attention to conservation will be a realities of the biosphere or its constituent eco• failure. These statements are sufficiently well systems. Nothing short of an ecosystem-orien• backed up by scientific research that there is no tated-, holistic approach to conservation, land use, need to belabour them in this paper. Those who and development will be adequate in today's wish to be convinced further are directed toward world. such reference as Dasmann et al., (1973) or Soule Intergovernmental organizations have only and Wilcox (1980). such authority and capability as has been Protected areas in the usual sense of nature re• provided to them by their member governments. serves and National Parks have never been ade• In themselves they are rarely in a position to ac• quate to protect wild species or the natural envi• complish anything in the way of management, ronment in the absence of an overall commitment development, or conservation. All of their recom• to sound land-use principles and conservation mendations must be carried out either by govern• everywhere. Every area must be a protected area, ments or by private organizations within to some extent. This includes large cities and urban countries. Nevertheless, intergovernmental orga• industrial areas which can provide habitat for nizations are by their nature placed in a position many wild species, and intensively used agri• of moral authority and have in most instances cultural lands, which under proper management been given responsibility for discerning the facts, and care can provide suitable sanctuaries for a for finding out what is going on in the world. still larger variety of wildlife (Fig. 1.1). For Anyone who has worked with them for long nature conservation to be effective, a general knows that they are competitive—seeking greater commitment—enforced by laws and regula• status in the international heirarchy. This compe• tions—must be in effect everywhere and have titiveness is in the long run self-destructive and

8 The Environmentalist Fig. 1.1. Every area must be a protected area, to some extent. This includes large cities and urban industrial areas. (Photo credit: WWF/ CampbeU/BCL.) leads to efforts to please constituencies. Far greater gains would be made by true cooperation Governmental Responsibilities in place of the pseudo-cooperation provided by In this world of nation states, governments various 'coordinating committees' and other ultimately have the authority to decide what will groups intended to provide linkage between or will not happen within their national territo• agencies with apparently conflicting missions. ries. They do not exist independent of both Their missions must not be in conflict, since we external and internal pressures. Recognizing that are all concerned with the use and conservation one multi-national corporation may have of one small planet, and can no longer afford economic power one hundred fold greater than mistakes based on narrow, sectorial view• many governments or nations, and that large and points. wealthy nations can exert enormous pressure on It is possible for one to find many real, in a small, poor countries, the ultimate authority still political sense, reasons for the hesitancy and con• rests with governments. That governments often fusion expressed by intergovernmental agencies. cannot act for fear of political repercussions It is more difficult to find excuses for nongovern• within their own countries does not change their mental agencies. These have nothing but moral legal authority and responsibility. Those who authority, and a capability for persuasion based attempt to institute changes in land-use or on their willingness to tell the whole truth, all of development practices within a country, without the time. To the extent that they are influenced the support of government, commonly find that by the global elite, the power of multi-national they can only proceed within the limits of corporations, or the pressure of governments to tolerance that governments permit. I will not give conceal the truth, or to be less than straight• examples since they would only stir controver• forward in their statements, they lose the reason sy—but all of you can think of your own. for their existence. This is regardless of how much Just as is true for intergovernmental organiza• money they receive from the wealthy or the tions, governments cannot succeed in the long run powerful. If they lose credibility, they have in the absence of complete and truthful informa• become of little value to humankind. tion about what is transpiring within their own Vol. 4 ((1984) Supplement No. 7 9 countries and in the outside world. It is possible both satisfy the needs and aspirations of their to ignore or conceal unpleasant truths for a time, people, while accomplishing the objectives of the but they must be faced ultimately. For example government, than that they impose from above a the knowledge of the risks and terrible long-run decision with which the local community is costs inherent in the continued destruction of expected to agree. This is equally true of a major tropical rainforests is no longer any secret. development scheme requiring alteration of tradi• Enough information is now available for every tional patterns of activity, as it is with the government to see the need to reconsider past creation of a National Park or nature reserve that policies and to look for new, and sustainable requires abandonment by local people of the use forms of land use to replace the past exploitative of the resources of an area on which they have practices. Governments that fail to do so are depended. It is vital to consider the objective to failing to take into account the information that be attained, the ways in which it can be attained, is now available, or they are listening to experts and the means by which local people can be who represent only one, restricted or sectorial involved that do not disrupt their culture or viewpoint—for example, economists, political economy. Innovative thinking is often necessary, scientists and foresters. Since governments have but it is far better to put in the time and effort the responsibility for all of the land and life, and to accomplish such innovations than to proceed all human cultures and societies within their in directions that will ultimately fail, regardless countries, they must always seek the broadest, of what short-term benefits they will produce. total-systems-based information. Unlike the situation that prevailed even a few decades ago, there is no longer sufficient slack in the global economy or the resources of the bio• sphere to allow for continuance of any country in non-sustainable directions. It is vital therefore Conservation and Rural Development that any government pay attention to the concept The attention of both intergovernmental, non• of ecodevelopment—ecologically sustainable governmental, international organizations and of development by giving attention to the following. national governmental agencies, must be directed First, direct attention to meeting basic needs, toward the broad spectrum of conservation and of all the people and particularly the poorest development if there is to be any future for the people, before paying attention to the luxury human race beyond a mere fight for survival. It is requirements of the wealthy. essential that governments, in particular, give Second, encourage the development of local their attention to providing the legal framework self-reliance—in food first of all, but also in for sustainable land use and conservation. In this providing themselves with other necessities— effort, they should be supported by international drawing on local knowledge and building from organizations in whatever ways seem most appro• locally known technologies. priate. It is also vital that governments give Third, do nothing that is not sustainable, in the encouragement to any efforts coming from local long run, taking into account the ecological limi• people and rural communities that appear to lead tations of local ecosystems, and protecting toward sustainable systems of land use based on biological and cultural diversity. the use and conservation of renewable resources. Ultimately it is the people on the ground, in rural communities, who will have the responsibility for carrying out any plans for improved land use and References development. Without their support, any such Dasmann, R. F., Milton, J. P. and Freeman, P. H. (1973) Ecologi• plans are likely to collapse or to be carried out in cal Principles for Economic Development, Wiley-Interscience, such ways that their ultimate failure is assured. It New York, USA. is far better that governments work with local Soule, M. E. and Wilcox, B. A. (eds.) (1980) Conservation Biolo• gy: An Evolutionary—Ecological Perspective, Sinauer Asso• communities to arrive at development plans that ciates, Sunderland, Massachusetts, USA.

10 The Environmentalist 2. Natural Biological Compounds Traditionally Used as Pesticides and Medicines

SASONGKO S. ADISEWOJO, SIDIK TJOKRONEGORO and RUKMIATI TJOKRONEGORO Faculty of Science, Padjadjaran University, Bandung, Indonesia

The Role of Traditional Medicine in National Summary Development Although a knowledge of bioactive substances found in plants and used traditionally as pesticides and medicines Traditional medicines have two main roles in is important, the value of these traditions is difficult to national development, firstly in national health assess without having further information on the prepara• care, and secondly in the economy of the rural tion and production of the active ingredients. An overview is presented on the role of traditional medicines in areas. national development, and the present status of these Ninety percent (or even more) of the raw medicines. In addition, information is presented on the materials used and nearly all active ingredients plants that are traditionally used in pest control, together of our modern medicines are still imported. To with a review of the main bioactive compounds in plants provide (modern) medicines to about 148 million used traditionally as pesticides and medicines. people who inhabit the hundreds of islands of Indonesia, needs a big budget, not only for the importation of the raw materials and the manu• Introduction facturing into the compounded dose forms, but also for the distribution of the medicines. There• Most people in Indonesia live in villages in the fore the Government supports the use of tradi• rural areas, but traditional medicine is still widely tional medicines, as long as there is no evidence used by people in the urban areas. A survey of toxicity or other dangerous side effects. carried out by the Department of Health in 1976 Another advantage is that the production of tradi• revealed that of 4211 respondents from a variety tional medicines uses mainly traditional tech• of areas, 47.9% used traditional medicines for niques most of which are non-mechanized oi their self-medication (Dzulkarnain, 1980). There semi-mechanized, and this produces many job are three sources of these medicines. opportunities. With the growth of the National (1) Large-scale commercial preparation and Programme of transmigration, the Department distribution. of Health has been encouraging new settlers tc (2) Home-industries, small holders, or family plant medicinal plants for family use in their new businesses, distributed by free-lance sales girls as gardens, the so-called Toga. Toga is an abbrevia• street-vendors carrying the bottles of medicines tion of Tanaman Obat Keluarga which means (nearly all watery extracts) in a basket on their 'family medicinal plants'. In transmigration areas, backs, vending door to door. developing the Toga gardens has the following (3) Instant preparation from fresh plant advantages (Bambang Sutrisno, 1981). materials. (1) Better health care. In addition to their use as medicines, certain (2) Suppression of community diseases. plant materials are also used as cosmetics, (3) Improvement of nutrition. pesticides or pest repellents, and most of these (4) Conservation of nature. traditional uses are closely related to traditional (5) Replanting medicinal plants. life-styles and beliefs. The objective of this study (6) Distribution of profit. is to assess the extent to which modernization has (7) Growth and development of cooperatives. influenced these traditional uses, and to deter• It is an old tradition of the Javanese people mine how these uses should be conserved as part that as a part of the wedding ceremony the of traditional culture. mother of the bride presents to the newly-

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 1) married couple a box of several kinds of seeds, between the three main forces of nature (in• rhizomes, and dried cuttings of traditional cluding the human body), the so called Tri dhatu. medicinal plants and spiceries. These are to be These three forces are related to the dogma Ang, used in their first day of marriage, and, what is Ung and Mang or Brahma, Wisnu and Iswara. This more important, to be planted in the garden of Tri dhatu are also elements of the macro-micro- their new residence. It is a pity that this tradition cosmos (Mantra, 1964). The Javanese believe in is disappearing or is being interpreted as the last four main forces as elements of the macro-micro- symbolic effort of a mother to provide a healthy cosmos. Indeed, supra-naturalism is still a strong life for her daughter. backbone in the compounding of our traditional medicines. Several people preparing their tradi• tional medicines (either through industrial manu• facturing, house-industry or fresh preparation) confessed that before they start to work they The Present Status of Traditional Medicine always have to pray to God and their ancestors In several Asian countries such as China, Japan, for their blessings, and they believe very strongly Taiwan, Vietnam, and Campuchea, traditional that without praying the prepared medicines will medicines are still commonly prescribed by be inactive. medical doctors, but this is not the case in Another point of interest is the way in which Indonesia, where these medicines are used purely certain compounds are added to medicines for for self-medication. However, Indonesian doctors symbolic reasons. For example, pregnant women will use traditional medicines if the bioactive have charcoaled mouse-nests and powdered egg• compounds have been identified and quantified, shells from a newly-hatched healthy chicken and if full details are available on possible toxici• added to their medicines. Pharmacologically, the ty, side-effects and contra-indications. Such con• mother is receiving carbon and calcium. Carbon, cern is not shown elsewhere in Asia, where an adsorbent, may reduce toxins circulating in doctors believe that if these traditional medicines the body, and calcium is beneficial to both have been used by millions of people for decades mother and foetus. The traditional healer believed with no reports of fatalities, then it should be safe that by using the mouse-nest the birth of the to prescribe them. baby would be as easy as the mouse. The use of At present, the industrial manufacture of tra• the egg-shell is symbolic of a healthy newly- ditional medicines is strictly controlled, and the hatched chicken and the hope is that the baby medicines are subject to normal drug registra• would be equally as healthy (Soeparto, 1980). tions. However, there is still surprisingly little In general, the quantities of the various com• understanding by scientists of the composition pounds and components that are used in tradi• of the active ingredients in most of the medicines. tional medicine are measured very crudely, in One of the prominent figures in traditional terms of spoons, vessels, cups or even by counting medicines and cosmetics in Jakarta said the (seeds and leaves). It is said that exact measure• following to a Health Seminar on Traditional ments are not necessary because traditional medi• Medicines sponsored by the Department of cine is rather like cooking, an 'art' that puts Health: "Principally traditional healing is the emphasis on judging what is likely to taste good. effort to keep the equilibrium between man and the law of nature. The men should therefore be treated as a whole and never partially (their teeth, eyes, hearts etc.) as it is done by our medical doctors. Therefore commonly it is said that tradi• The Traditional Use of Plants in Pest Control tional medicines have multi-effects. This is be• To our knowledge, no inventory has been made cause the aim of compounding traditional of the traditional use of plant materials in pest medicines is not merely to combat a particular control. The use of Derris elliptica in fish catching disease but to restore the equilibrium through and lice control and of Chrysanthemum cinera- self-resistance of the human body" (Soeparto, riaefolium (Fig. 2.1) to repel mosquitoes (by 1980). burning the dried flowers) are well known. The Chinese seem to have the same approach Watery extract of tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) to traditional healing (Fujitaira, 1976). They is traditionally used to release leeches from the believe that there are two principal natural forces, human body and also for spraying ornamental the Ying and Yang that influence health. Among plants to control pests. the old Balinese people, illness and ill-feelings are This study has shown that in several areas in caused by some disturbances in the equilibrium West Java Tephrosia vogelii, Pachyrhizus erosus 12 The Environmentalist stance in Acorus calamus acting as a pest repellent seems to be phenylpropanoids (Gunther and Jeppson, 1960). In this short presentation, it is not possible to list all the active chemical compounds found in the hundreds of plants used in traditional medi• cine. However, it is interesting to note that there are some marked discrepancies between the recognized pharmacological activity of a com• pound and its traditional use as a medicine.

Scientific Dispute on Traditional Medicines For many years now, scientists have questioned the value and effectiveness of traditional medi• cines, and there are those who believe that the use of these medicines falls more within the realm of homoeopathy than within the realm of accepted Western medical practices. There is also consi• derable disagreement on the extent to which the production and preparation of traditional medicines should be modernized, one of the main problems being that so much of the preparation is closely related to traditional life-styles, and in a more urbanized, commercialized environment, Fig. 2.1. Pyrethrum (Chrysanthemum cinerariaefolium)—it is well known that burning of the dried flowers repels mosquitoes. such relationships are not present. Furthermore, (Photo credit: Heather Angel.) there is considerable resistance from the tradi• tionalists to the proper handling and selection of materials, powdering, measurements, extraction, and Croton tiglium are also used by some people filtration, etc. Finally, there are inevitable to catch fish. Disozylon aliaceum is used to con• disputes between scientists and traditionalists trol mice and insects on rice fields. Litsea cubeba when it comes to interpretating pharmacological is used as a walking stick by wood-cutters going activity, and these disagreements are almost im• into the forest to repel poisonous pests (like the possible to resolve. millepedes, scorpions and snakes). Although the rhizomes of Acorus calamus are used by village people 'to protect their new born babies from the Some Alternatives in Further Research and devil', there is no doubt that the rhizomes also act Development as an insect repellent, possibly because of their bad smell. In recent years, the dosages used in traditional medicine have undergone some changes, especial• ly those manufactured by industry. For example, powder formulations which previously required The Main Chemical Compounds in Plants Used extraction by hot or boiling water are now being in Traditional Pest Control and Medicines presented in the form of tablets, pills and capsules. In these cases, where the active com• Phytochemical studies showed that rotenone is ponents are taken orally, the acidic gastric fluids the active compound in Denis elliptica, Pachy- extract the active components where in the past rhizus erosus and Tephrosia vogelii, (all of the this was done with boiling water. The extent to family Leguminosae) which are used in traditional which these two different routes of administra• fish catching. The active compounds in tion have similar pharmacological end-results have Pyrethrum cinerariaefolium are pyrethrin and still to be determined. cinerin, while nicotine is the alkaloid that has Scientists are devoting an increasing amount of insecticidal properties in tobacco (leaves from time to the search for new bioactive compounds Nicotiana tabacum). The very bad-smelling sub• and new medicines. Two lines of investigation are

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 13 being followed. In the chemical approach, step- stand all aspects of their pharmacological activi• by-step experimentation is followed from extrac• ties. Finally, as so many of the traditional medi• tion, separation, isolation and purification, cines are influenced by, and related to, traditional through to structural elucidation, theoretical life-styles and beliefs, these life-styles should be deduction of bioactivity and eventual pharmaco• maintained where possible so that traditional logical testing. In the second line of investigation, medicines can be investigated as thoroughly as bioactive screening of the crude and fractioned possible. extracts is followed by the chemical approach involving only the active components. In developing countries, pharmacological and toxico- logical screenings of traditional medicines should References Bambang Sutrisno, R. (1981) Tanaman Obat Keluarga (TOGA), be the first priority in traditional medicinal Penyuluhan Obat Tradisional di Bandung, 9-11 Februari, research and development. However, there are 1981. two main constraints. Firstly, there are many Dzulkarnian, B. (1980) Penelitian dan Pengembangan Tanaman Obat Keluarga, Rapat Konsultasi Pemanfaatan Tanaman problems associated with obtaining standard Obat, Direktorat Jenderal Pengawasan Obat dan Makanan, formulations for research purposes, and secondly, Dept. Kesehatan RI, lakarta 6-8 Mei 1980. it is difficult to know what to market when in the Fujitaira, K. (1976) The concept of Chinese medicine and its methods of diagnosis and therapy. Bulletin of Oriental past traditional medicines have been so variable Healing, Vol. 1, No. 2, Arts Institute of USA. and apparently so successful. Gunther, F. A. and Jeppson, L. R. (1960) Modern Insecticides and World Food Production, J. Wiley and Sons, New York. In conclusion, there is no doubt that tradi• Mantra, S. (1964) Latar belakang Asuadha Bali kuno dalam tional medicines deserve further attention by the hubungannya dengan pandangan hidup, Seminar Penggalian scientific community, and that they play a signifi• Sumber Alam Indonesia untuk Farmasi, Yogyakarta, 30 nov-4 Des 1964. cant role in national development, national health Soeparto, S. (1980) Meracik Jamu, Rapat Konsultasi Pemanfaatan care and in rural economies. They also present a Tanaman Obat, Direktorat Jenderal Pengawasan Obat dan real challenge to scientists who still do not under• Makanan Dept. Kesehatan Rl.6-8 Mei, 1980.

14 The Environmentalist 3. Pranatamangsa, the Javanese Agricultural Calendar - Its Bioclimatological and Sociocultural Function in Developing Rural Life N. DALDJOENI Satyawacana University, Salatiga, Indonesia

Summary Pranatamangsa, the traditional Javanese calendar, has not been studied in depth until comparatively recently. The calendar functions as a practical guide for agricultural activities for the rural peasants, and was in use in Java before the arrival of the Hindus. Its use can be traced back to the welfare and prosperity of the old agricultural kingdoms in Central Java, such as Old-Mataram, Pajang and Islam-Mataram. The calendar reflects a significant cor• relation of cosmographical, bioclimatological and socio• logical aspects of agricultural activities in rural areas, «m* i •iMrtili^aMllrr^f^™ resulting in a living dialogue between man and his natural environment. Pranatamangsa, which means the arrangement of seasons, is very suitable for the region around the Merapi- Merbabu mountain complex in Central Java, where the wet and dry seasons are of equal length. A bioclimatologi• cal view of each season provides information on such things as the behavioural patterns of plants, animals, man, and information on non-living natural resources, enabling the peasant farmer to forecast likely seasonal deviations. The rural people are very aware of seasonal rhythms, which they believe influence physical health, additional Fig. 3.1. Javanese peasants are agrarian people with two thousand jobs, plant varieties and land-use patterns. With the years of tradition in irrigation agriculture. (Photo credit: WWF/ growth of modern technology in many rural areas, natural John Seidensticker.) rhythms have been severely modified, and consequently farmers have tended to neglect the value of Pranatamang• The region most suited to the Pranatamangsa sa. This paper suggests that a scientific study of the tradi• year is that around the Merapi—Merbabu tional calendar might lead to the derivation of new mountain complex, which, according to Koppen's guidelines for farming activities throughout the year. classification, has an Am climatic type (Daldjoeni, 1982). The old kingdoms of Old-Mataram, Pajang Historical Background and Islam-Mataram in Central Java would have used the Pranatamangsa as a guide for agricul• The Javanese peasants are agrarian people (Fig. tural, economic, administrative and military 3.1) with two thousand years of tradition in activities. irrigation agriculture (van Aartsen, 1953), and In developing the rural communities in Java, those that live in the former Javanese kingdoms development agencies have to face a number of follow an agricultural calendar called Pranata• economic and environmental problems. The mangsa. This calendar has a year of 365. days, and peasant farmer tends to be bound by traditional was established by H. M. Susuhunan Paku practices that tie him to his family and village Buwana VII of Surakarta on 22 June 1855 organization, and as a consequence individual (Tanojo, 1962). Thus by the Pranatamangsa, life-styles and innovative agricultural practices are 1982 is the year 127. Pranatamangsa means 'the difficult to establish. Furthermore, peasant activi• arrangement of seasons' and was known as such ties depend on the rhythm of the seasons, and a by the Javanese peasants long before immigrants peasant farmer will have a life-style that is geared arrived from India (van Hien, 1922). to these natural rhythms. Consequently, he will

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 15 be reluctant to take the initiative of breaking which is opposite the wet rice harvest period away from these rhythms, and will be resigned (panen —19 April to 12 May). to bad years as part of nature and fate (Kaslan The months of the Pranatamangsa year are Tohir, 1953;Mennicke, 1948). named according to their numerical sequence as However, with the advent of modern tech• kasa, karo, katelu, kapat etc. through to kasa- nology and the opening of rural areas, peasant puluh, which respectively means first month, farmers are increasingly being exposed to artificial second, third, fourth etc. through to tenth. The fertilizers, new seeds, weather forecasting and eleventh {desta) and the twelfth (sada) both are other advances that tend to make traditional derived from Hindu season names. It is possible practices appear redundant, although it is unlikely that these two last months of the solar year were that the old beliefs will disappear in the im• taboo months for agricultural activities after the mediate future. Just one bad season or crop harvest time (Soebardi, 1965). For the months as failure can be very depressing for the rural people, stated above, Hindu names are also available. and make them revert to traditional beliefs These are Kartika, Pusa, Manggasri, Sitra etc. In (Herjona, 1968; Mennicke, 1948). There is little addition, every month is coordinated with a doubt that attempts at modernization must take special star constellation such as Lumbung careful note of existing practices and beliefs, and (Crux), Banyakangrem (Scorpio), Waluku the traditions associated with Pranatamangsa (Orion), Wuluh (Pleyades), Wulanjarngirim (Cen- cannot be ignored in the development process. tauri), and Bimasakti (Milkyway). The total For example, Lee (1957) has shown the great number of the stars is ten because the eleventh importance of climate in rural life, especially its and the twelfth are the same as the third and the influence on spiritual life, and this importance is second. reflected in the development of the Pranatamang• Finally, the calendar also refers to the course sa calendar. of the sun, which in turn determines the various movements and reactions of the plants and animals of the earth. The Cosmographical Background of the Pranata• mangsa Calendar At first glance, the Pranatamangsa appears to The Pranatamangsa Calendar and Bioclimatology be a very complicated and confusing calendar, The seasonal rhythms described by the Pranata• because the number of days in each month varies mangsa calendar are closely related to certain from 23 to 43. However, on more careful monthly bioclimatological characteristics. For examination, the calendar reveals an astonishing example, kasa (first month) is Sotya murca ing symmetry based on cosmology. The first six embanan i.e., a jewel (a dew drop) falling from its months have 41, 23, 24, 25, 27 and 43 days, and setting. To karo (second month) is applied the the sequence is reversed in the following six phrase Bantala rengka (the cracked soil), for months, with the exception of the eighth month kanem (sixth month) Rasa mulya kasucen (a which usually has 26 in place of 27 days. Such a feeling of holiness) because the whole of green year is called a common year or wuntu. If the nature (9 November to 21 December) stimulates year is a leap year, the eighth month will have 27 a peaceful mind. The following seventh month days, and is called wastu. A common year with (kapitu) is characterized as Wisa kentir ing maruta 365 days can be divided into four main seasons: (flying poison blown by the wind), which katiga or dry season (88 days), labuh or beginning describes a period of disease, dangerous river of rainy season (95 days), rendeng or wet season floods etc. (22 December to 2 February). (95 days) and mareng or ending of rainy season The Javanese peasant organizes his agricultural (86 days). activities throughout the year in relation to these The year can also be divided into four seasons seasons, and he believes that if he departs from as follows. Terang (season with clear sky, 82 traditional seasonal patterns, his work will fail days), semplah (season of despair, 99 days) and either totally or partially. Based on experience of pangareparep (season of full hope, 98 days). The previous generations, the people attach great symmetry in the calendar is demonstrated by the importance to the traditional horoscope divining period of scarcity (pacelik—12 August to 25 manual (petangan primbon) to determine the like• August) which is opposite the river flood period ly success or failure of their proposed activities. (banjir—3 February to 1 March) and the disease Although some of the taboos appear to be period {Mara—13 October to 9 November) illogical, others are easy to understand. For

16 The Environmentalist example, the taboo which prohibits the removal The Advantages and Disadvantages of the Socio- of dwelling places during the third month katelu cultural Functions of the Pranatamangsa Calendar (because of a risk of housebreaking or fire) can be explained by the fact that katelu falls mainly in September which is hot and dry (hence the fire From the above account, it should be clear risk) and is also a period when flood and water how the Pranatamangsa calendar influences rural are scarce and housebreaking is more likely to activities, and there is no doubt that it has many occur (Tanojo, 1962). advantages as far as rural people are concerned. However, it does have its negative side, in that peasant farmers tend to be ruled by the related seasonal rhythms, and appear reluctant to break away from them. This makes the introduction and adoption of new techniques a problem with Economic Life and the Seasonal Rhythm the more traditionally inclined individuals, as many of the new techniques are in conflict with April, May and June (about the tenth, eleventh a passive acceptance of seasonal rhythms. The and twelfth month of the Pranatamangsa calen• agricultural emphasis of the calendar reflects the dar) constitute a three-month period in which the order of the elements of nature—maruta (air) rural community earns 75% of its income. Debts agni (fire), tirta (water) and bantala (earth). Each are repaid following a period of borrowing from of the four elements constitutes the particular October to January. The end of borrowing in character of the quarter period concerned. For February coincides with the beginning of a period example, air dominates the dry period, and water of water scarcity, which precedes the period of the rainy period. hope. The latter is announced by the calling of It is interesting to note that even in the period tree crickets, which is an indication that the rainy of despair (semplah), people maintain the urge to season is coming to an end. survive, but the very fact that such a period exists Although the economic life of the rural com• at all mitigates against the successful implementa• munity is closely related to the wet and dry tion of plans, especially if the plans destroy tradi• seasons, there will never be perfect correlation tional beliefs in the Pranatamangsa. The following in any one year. Nevertheless, the seasons do examples show how conflict situations can arise. influence the mental attitudes of the rural people, • With the introduction of new seeds and ferti• and on the whole they tend to remain optimistic. lizers, more than two crops can be harvested in This is reflected in the Javanese proverb ana dina any one year. The Pranatamangsa caters for just ana sega (every day brings its own food) and two harvests—the wet rice plant and the dry saben bocah nggawa rejekine dewe-dewe (every plant. child brings its own luck). This firm belief in the • In periods of drought, the introduction of inevitability of the success or failure of rural irrigation confuses the peasant farmer who is activities means that there is often a total lack of mentally adjusted to anticipated hardships. fear for the future, and under these circum• • Modern education emphasizes the ecological stances, logical planning is difficult to implement. aspects of agricultural development and tends to In Java the wet season lasts from November to overlook or ignore the contribution of the Prana• April and the dry season from June to September. tamangsa calendar. According to the Pranatamangsa calendar the dry • The failure of some scientific predictions on period (88 days long) is recognized as extending climatic trends or crop yields can diminish a from 22 June until 17 September, and these dates peasant farmer's faith in modern methods of are based on the position of the sun in relation to agriculture. the horizon. The calendar recognizes the impor• tance of September as the driest month of the year when soil moisture is at its lowest, and that Conclusion period is called sate sumber (drying springs). In the following period (from 18 September to 13 This study of the Pranatamangsa calendar has October) the first rains fall in Central Java, and shown how the cosmographical, meteorological the soil moisture starts to be replenished. The and bioclimatological aspects of the calendar peak in soil moisture is achieved in January, a influence the life of the peasant farmer, and link month known by the corrupted Javanese pro• him to his environment. Any attempts to intro• nunciation jan-ana-warih which means 'just enough duce modern farming techniques should take note water'. of the influence the calendar has on traditional

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 17 life-styles and beliefs, and rather than push these Kaslan Tohir, A. (1953) Sekitar masalah pertanian rakyat, Pem- bangunan, Jakarta, pp. 1-16. aside and reject them, the developers should build Lee, H. K. (1957) Iklim dan perkembangan ekonomi di daerah on them and help the rural people to undergo a tropis, Jayasakti, Jakarta, pp. 20-32. smooth transition to the use of modern farming Mennicke, C. A. (1948) Sociale Psychologie, Erven J. Bijleveld, Utrecht, pp. 110-119. techniques. Soebardi, R. (1965) Calendrical traditions in Indonesia. In Majahah Ilmuilmu Sastra Indonesia, Vol. 111/1, Jakarta, pp. 49-62. References Tanojo, R. (1962) Primbon Jawa (Sabda pandita ratuj, Toko Buku Pelajar, Surakarta, pp. 36-45. Aartsen, J. P. van (1953) Ekonomi Pertanian Indonesia, Pemban- Daldjoeni, N. (1982) Pokok-pokok klimatologi, Alumni, Bandung, gunan, Jakarta, pp. 148-150. pp. 64-72. Hien, H. A. van (1922) De Javaansche Geestenwereld, Kolff, Herjona, A. (1.968) Unit daerah kerja sebagai salah satu method Batavia, pp. 310-355. PMD, Karya Dharma Praja Mukti, Samarang, pp. 35-45.

18 The Environmentalist 4. Traditional Classification of Plants GEMBONG TJITROSOEPOMO Faculty of Biology, Gajah Mada University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Summary the growth of the science of plant taxonomy (Lawrence, 1958). The object of this study was to investigate the extent Indonesia has its own system of traditional to which rural people practise traditional systems of plant plant classification, and the object of this study classification. Based on interviews with old people living in rural areas coupled with a study of the literature, it was was to examine the basis of the system of classi• established that among the Javanese in Central Java there fication by interviewing old people living in rural is a system of classifying cultivated plants or agricultural areas, where many of the traditions have been crop plants. The resulting groups are not comparable with handed down from generation to generation. the taxa of plant taxonomy. The traditional system of The interviews were coupled with a comprehen• classification makes use of binary names, consisting of the sive study of the literature. word pala meaning fruit or product (the harvested part of the plant) followed by a word which indicates one of the characteristics common to the whole group. Larger groups Indications of the Existence of a Traditional are given names in which the first part is the word taru System of Classification meaning plants or trees. Thus Taru pala refers to all fruit- bearing trees. This traditional system is restricted to culti• Any group of organisms require identification vated plants and does not apply to the whole of the plant and classification if man is to understand their kingdom relationships and uses. Even primitive people divided plants into two simple groups—useful and not useful, or wild and cultivated. They Introduction must also be able to distinguish plants on the basis of their size and appearance, and more often The classification of plants is not a new sci• than not they grouped plants into herbs, bushes ence. Man depends heavily on various plant and trees. In Central Java, and probably also in species for his survival, and their identification other parts of Java where Javanese is spoken, and classification has been an on-going process collective names are still in use by farmers that for thousands of years. For example, the Egyp• describe certain features in common in crop tians in Africa, the Chinese in East Asia, the plants, and there is evidence that these names Assyrians in the Middle East and the Indians in are hundreds of years old. America took a number of species of plants into Most of the names given to each particular cultivation seven to ten thousand years ago and group are binary in nature in the sense that the they distinguished food crops, medicinal plants name is a combination of two words, as applied and plants producing material for their clothing. today in taxonomy for the name of species. It is They created plant names, some of which are still composed of the word Pala, meaning fruit, prod• in use, with little deviation from the original uct or harvested part of the plant, followed by a (Reed, 1952). For example: cardamon, in Assyri• word indicating usually the origin of the har• an kudimeranu; poppy, in Assyrian papa; sesa- vested part on the plant or where the harvested mum, in Assyrian samasamu. parts are to be found. The following examples In the fourth century B.C. the Greeks initiated illustrate this concept. a system of classification which divided plants based on their habit into three categories, called Pala gumantung (pala = fruit; gumantung = herbs (herba), bushes (frutices) and trees (ar- hanging) a group of plants comprising trees with bores). This system is still being practised today, their fruits hanging on the tree, such as banana although it has been expanded and refined with (Musa paradisiaca L.), pawpaw (Carica papaya L.), etc. Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 19 Pala kependem (pala = fruit; kependem = Taru lata (taru = plant; Lata = leaf) is meant buried in the soil) a group of plants covering to indicate all plants in which leaves are useful members of various families, that are cultivated one way or another (Prawiroatmodjo, 1981). for their edible subterranean parts (rhizomes, Rural people also use other names indicating tubers, roots). Pala kependem could therefore groups of plants without any common features be considered as equivalent to root and tuber between their members except for the fact that crops, which cover among others various members they are grown together on the same place. For of the Araceae, Dioscoreaceae, Marantaceae, example: Cannaceae. Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz, Karang kitri (karang = coconut tree; kith = Euphorbiaceae), sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas fruit trees plant on farmyards) which is meant to Poir., Convolvulaceae), potato (Solanum tuber• indicate all the coconut and fruit trees together osum L., Solanaceae), and black potato (Coleus grown on farmyards (Prawiroatmodjo, 1981). tuberosus Bth., Labiatae) are also included in the With the growth of both formal and non- group of pala kependem. formal education, where the younger generation gets the opportunity of learning plant taxonomy, Pala kesimpar (Pala = fruit; kesimpar probably the use of Indonesian terms applied to various equal to kesampar = kicked inadvertently, lying categories of taxa as taught in schools is becoming on the ground). This group comprises plants with more common, in particular the use of names to a creeping growth habit, in which fruits are lying indicate groups of plants known in taxonomy as on the soil surface, where they may be kicked families. Names of families of plants are given by unintentionally. Members of the Cucurbitaceae doubling the local name of a representative of such as watermelon (Citrullus vulgaris Scrad.) the family and adding the suffix -an. For exam• pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata Duch. ex Poir.), ple: cantaloupe (Cucumis melo L.) etc. belong to this terung-terungan (terung = Solanum melongena group. L.) for Solanaceae. Pala wija (pala = fruit, wija = seed; pala wija = kacang-kacangan (kacang = Arachis hypogaea seed producing crops). At present this name is L.) for Papilionaceae. considered as the translation of 'annual crops', empon-emponan (empuan-empuan, from empu comprising plants which can be harvested after = main part of rhizomes) meant to indicate 3—6 months (less than one year) and are usually Zingiberaceae (Rifai, 1973). planted on rice fields during the dry season, when The use of Indonesian terms is not. only re• there is not sufficient water available for raising stricted to the category of family but to the other paddy, or on non-irrigated fields. This group categories as well. It will take some time however, includes crop plants belonging to various families, before the use of Indonesian names applied to e.g., corn (Zea mays L., Gramineae), soybean indicate groups of plants that agree with taxo- (Soja max Piper, Leguminosae), peanut (Arachis nomic thinking become customary among the hypogaea L., Leguminosae), cassava (Manihot Indonesian people. esculenta Crantz, Euphorbiaceae), sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas Poir., Convolvulaceae), etc. Discussion and Conclusion Pala kirna (pala = fruit; kirna-T, probably There is little doubt that a traditional system perennial, long living woody fruit trees). This of plant classification exists in Indonesia. How• group include mangoes and their relatives (Man- ever, unlike the science of taxonomy, the tradi• gifera indica L., Mangifera foetida Lour., Mangi- tional system does not lend itself to a logical fera caesia Jacq., Mangifera odorata Griff., grouping of families and orders. Nevertheless, Anacardiaceae), durian (Durio zibethinus Murr., the word taru must be considered as having a Bomacaceae), Jack fruit (Artaocarpus Integra higher rank and covering a larger number of Men.,Moraceae), etc. (Prawiroatmodjo, 1981). plants than groups covered by the word pala, A less common use of binary names are those but this does not mean that a taru can be divided where the first part is the word taru, meaning into palas. Present research has not indicated plants or trees. Names forming a combination of the existence of other categories, higher or lower, taru plus another word are usually intended for than those already mentioned. larger groups of plants. For example: Seen from the point of view of plant taxo• nomy, the existing system must be considered as Taru pala (taru = plant, tree; pala = fruit) is an artificial one which is devised in an arbitrary meant to indicate all edible fruit bearing plants. manner for practical purposes only. The names 20 The Environmentalist given to the various groups that are in old Java• jambuan (myrtles) with the awareness that those nese or Kawi are of little use to the younger names are representing plant groups of a lower generation, who no longer understand the lan• category than that given the name tumbuhan guage. It is no wonder that those names are biji and tumbuhan biji belah. becoming more and more unfamiliar and will It seems inevitable that with time most of eventually disappear from the daily vocabulary these traditional names will disappear from the of the people, except probably for the name Javanese language. lpala wija', which is still in common use as an equivalent of the English 'annual crops', although the Indonesian name tanaman muda is also used. It is interesting to note the extent to which References rural people understand that tumbuhan biji Lawrence, G. H. M. (1958) Taxonomy of Vascular Plants, Mac- belah (dicots) and tumbuhan biji tunggal (mono- millan, New York. cots) are names of plants belonging to a lower Prawiroatmodjo, S. (1981) Bausastra Jawa-Indonesia I + II, category than the category given the name Gunung Agung, Jakarta. tumubuhan biji (spermatophytes). The same Reed, H. S. (1952) A Short History of Plant Sciences, Chronica Botanica, Waltham, Mass. people will also use the name kacang-kacangan Rifai, Mien. A. (1973) Kode Internasional Tatanama Tumbuhan, (legumes), terung-terungan (night shades), jambu- Herbarium Bogoriense, Bogor.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 21 5. Traditional Conservation and Utilization of Wildlife in Papua New Guinea

NAVU KWAPENA Division of Wildlife, Department of Lands, Surveys and Environment, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

cated weapons, roads, exotic forestry plantations, Summary fishing, agriculture and resettlement schemes, the The majority of the rural people of Papua New Guinea natural beauty of Papua New Guinea and the depend partly or wholly on. the use of the region's many accompanying traditional life-styles are being species of fauna and flora. Traditional life-styles which threatened as never before. This paper deals with have evolved over hundreds of years have developed some aspects of these problems in relation to practices that deliberately set out to conserve wildlife wildlife conservation in lowland areas of Papua resources, and these include seasonal hunting and harvesting, and giving special protection to certain species New Guinea. that are important to the community. Unfortunately, some traditional practices are particularly destructive to wildlife, and as human populations have increased, their impact has become greater. However, the major threat to wildlife is the massive habitat destruction which is asso• Traditional Practices and Wildlife Conservation ciated with population resettlement schemes and agricul• 1. Practices that deliberately set out to conserve tural and mining developments. wildlife resources The formation of Wildlife Management Areas initiated at the request of landowners is a most encouraging move• Seasonal ban on hunting every three to four ment which has the potential to retain traditional years by the Maopa people in the Marshall practices of wildlife conservation, at the same time Lagoon area preventing further habitat destruction. There is a traditional hunting season called Iwatha-Kala. Iwatha means a digging stick for cultivating the land, and Kala means food. So every three to four years when the people finish Introduction their cultivation work with digging sticks and Papua New Guinea is rich with culture (tradi• start to harvest their crops, a special occasion is tional music, dance, plays, etc.), wildlife and held to mark the period. This occasion is Iwatha- various other natural resources. The majority of Kala, when several things take place such as Papua New Guinea people live in remote areas hunting, fishing, and exchange of food among which are scattered all over the country. Because relatives and between neighbouring villages. The of the remoteness and ruggedness of the country activities last for a week. When the time comes there are still areas where people have not been for this traditional occasion, especially after the touched by Western civilization and have not Christmas period, all the men and young girls changed from their old ways. Many of these rural from nearby villages gather together in their clan people still depend partly or wholly on the groups and prepare for hunting. Before they enter natural resources they cultivate from their the bush, each clan leader must perform his clan's gardens or collect from the bush. Most of them traditional ritual. While the rituals are performed, still practise their Melanesian style of hunting, the men who own the hunting group will go to gathering, harvesting, playing, dancing, singing, each appropriate spot surrounding the hunting talking, treating sickness, family planning, using area and set the bush on fire in a circular forma• medicinal plants and many, many other tradi• tion. When the fire is almost complete and the tional activities, which are still there because the bush is cleared, the people from all the clans rush ecosystems surrounding them are unchanged. in chaos and chase any animals they can find. However, with the pace of modern-day tech• Men and girls can be seen chasing wallabies and nology, and with the introduction of sophisti• pigs together up the hills, down the valleys or into

22 The Environmentalist nearby unburnt bushes. It is undoubtedly a abundant and is available seasonally each year. unique spectacle. This kind of crab is widespread in Papua New Whatever animals are killed on this occasion Guinea. can be shared later with relatives. Hunting of this kind lasts for a week, and those people who do 2. Practices and customs which are incidental not want hunting on their land can go fishing. conservation measures The advantages of this traditional hunting is that There are certain beliefs or practices that were people do not hunt in one area alone. They select not deliberately designed for conserving wildlife from three available bushlands which are used by but undoubtedly have incidental effects on con• the whole community. They will select bush servation, and they involve a variety of species which has numerous animals and thick vegetation, and traditions. and once an area is selected and hunted on, it will be left alone for another three to four years. This White wallaby in Marshall Lagoon area allows the bush to regenerate or to follow the In the Aroma area of Marshall Lagoon, there is pattern of bush-fallow rotation, a system which is a mystic belief that if a white wallaby is seen in also used in gardening. Hunting alone with bush the bush it is not to be killed. This unknown burning not only helps the people to find the wallaby species is quite different from the other animals easily, but also helps to improve the grass wallabies found there, and is light to creamy in as well as introducing or promoting new plant colour with long eye-lashes, long whiskers and a species in the area. blood-red nose. It looks beautiful and it is Another advantage of this hunting ceremony referred to as the 'Mother Wallaby' of all the is that the Marshall Lagoon people can confirm wallabies in the area. It is regarded as a sacred and establish firm relationships with sisters, animal, and because of this the people do not kill brothers, cousins, uncles and other relatives by it. If they do, it is believed they may have no luck sharing and exchanging the meat obtained from in their future hunting ventures. hunting. These family ties also help to prevent In the past the people used to trap this animal inter-marriages between cousins or close relatives. in their traditional nets and because it was At present, because of the introduction of regarded as sacred, it was let free. They used to modern weapons, population pressure, and easier decorate it with flowers and all the good things access to more remote wildlife areas, it is doubt• they could find in the bush before releasing it. ful whether the animals will withstand the The idea was that if they treated that wallaby changes that are now taking place. Possible disap• kindly, it would give them good luck in their pearances of hunting grounds may destroy the search for wild animals. traditional practices. The bowerbird Seasonal harvesting of crabs A traditional practice of using one of the Another good example of a traditional practice bowerbirds (Amblyornis macgregoriae) in selec• which conserves wildlife involves the seasonal ting wives or husbands among the Kewabi harvesting of crabs (Graham Levi, pers. comm.). speaking people of the Southern Highlands In Central New Ireland, the people have a certain Province, is common, especially in the Ialibu area. season for collecting spider-claw crabs. During the If a boy wants to get married he must go to the period November to December, this species comes bush and obtain a fresh leaf of a fern and a parti• out in large numbers, and according to the cular straight-shafted shrub about a foot in existing local customs, only women are allowed height. He will tie this fern leaf upright on the to collect this particular crab. The women are crown of the shrub with a leaf of sedge grass expert in collecting the females, which are which is used for women's grass skirts. He will believed to be more fleshy and tasty, and the take the shrub and look for a newly cleared males are left alone. According to the beliefs of bower built by MacGregor's bowerbird. Before the people, they must only collect during the first planting the shrub near the bower, he will ask the month of the season when the crabs are large and bird, 'Tell me which girl I will marry?' He will fleshy. The collection of the crabs is abandoned then plant the shrub and hide near the bower during the middle of the breeding season, when where he can see the bird and shrub. The boy will people feel that the crabs become small and less wait for hours in the bush. Gradually the bower• fleshy. Although the crabs are still there in bird will approach and display with and around abundance they are not collected. the bower. In doing so the bird will pick up the According to the informant, and my previous fern leaf and place it near a tree, shrub or herb. experience of the area, the crab resource is The first letter of its name will indicate the initial

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 23 of the girl he should marry and the parents will Guinea use plumes of P. minor as their emblem in arrange to buy their son that wife. This procedure their traditional dancing and other ceremonies is also used to indicate names of villages or places (Fig. 5.1). from which one will select a wife. Quite clearly, MacGregor's bowerbird has a Hunting of wildlife in Ialibu very important role to play in the traditional life It is only the important Highlands people, of the community, and thus every effort is being especially the Kewabi and Imbongu speaking made to protect it, particularly in the new Siwi- people, who are allowed to use the plumes of the Utame Wildlife Management Area. King of Saxony bird of paradise (P. alberti) and the blue bird of paradise (P. rudolphi). It is a Black long-tailed birds of paradise traditional practice that only the village elders can The Kumbeme people believe that the black wear more plumes of these birds than the others, long-tailed bird of paradise (Astrapia stephaniae and the traditional wealth of these village elders represents the women in their culture. The long is illustrated by the numerous plumes in their black plumes represent the long grass skirts which head-dresses. An elderly man can wear up to 20 are dyed black and are worn by women in the different pairs of plumes of birds of paradise area. It is believed that if a young man dreams species (Fig. 5.2). One thousand two hundred dif• about this bird, it means a young woman is ferent head-dresses of P. alberti plumes, 50 of A. coming his way for a future marriage. Because of stephaniae and 50 of P. rudolphi have been this and other beliefs, this bird is not killed for its counted in the upper Mendi area. plumes in the Ialibu area. The Mailu people of Amazon Bay imitate the 3. Traditional customs and practices that did not dance of the birds of paradise. The Raggiana birds or do not help to conserve wildlife resources of paradise (Paradiseae raggiana) are important in Just as certain traditional practices directly or the lives of many people who use them to suit indirectly help with the conservation of widlife, their particular purposes. The Mailu people others are particularly destructive, as the fol• imitate the dance of P. raggiana as their tradi• lowing examples illustrate. tional dance called Tovi, which is famous along the south-east cost of Papua. Because of the Morga Ceremony in the Highlands display and the brilliantly coloured plumes of this In the Mendi and Mt. Hagen areas of the High• bird, people acquire these as their symbol and lands, the local people have a traditional Morga preserve them. The Sepik people and all other ceremony (pig and cassowary feast) once every people on the northern coast of Papua New 5 — 10 years, depending on the number of pigs or cassowaries each man has accumulated between ceremonies. In the ceremony, relatives, friends and people from other tribes are invited to attend the feast at a selected ceremonial ground which has three to five long grass-thatched houses built especially for this purpose. The ceremony lasts for days or weeks, during which time dancing, peace-making and cultural exchanges take place. Women and children also take part. All the pigs, cassowaries, meat from the bush, potatoes, and vegetables are shared and eaten during the singing. At this ceremonial gathering each family has to cook its share of meat on hot stones covered by fern, banana and other vegetable leaves. They eat, dance and give endless speeches. It is during this ceremony that friendship and peace are established and maintained among tribes. Here, a large-scale exchange of pigs, cassowaries, shells and plumes takes place. A man who has more pigs, shells and plumes will show off here and share his wealth with the men he Fig. 5.1. The Sepik people and all other people on the Northern invited, and he will validate his leadership by Coast of Papua New Guinea use plumes of Paradiseae minor, the doing so. At a later ceremony, the men who Lesser Bird of Paradise. (Photo credit: WWF/Alain Compost.) received goods from him will pay him back in

24 The Environmentalist return, and this goes on for many generations. which result in the replacement of large tracts of This practice of killing so many cassowaries, wildlife habitats. pigs and other animals is undoubtedly detrimental (3) Easier access to rich, remote wildlife to the wildlife populations. habitats by means of road transport. (4) Trade in wildlife for modern goods and other items including money (Healey, 1977). Plumes of birds of paradise are heavily utilized in the Highlands. Southern Highlands people claim that big parties of Chimbu people come asking for plumes in large quantities from the Southern Highlands area. This uncontrolled col• lection of wildlife is growing rapidly. (5) Hunting with shotguns has started to replace the old form of hunting wildlife using bows and arrows, and this is more effective. As an example, the number of shotguns in the Mendi area has increased from one in 1967 to 150 in 1978. (6) Large-scale mining and fishing, and popula• tion resettlement schemes are rapidly destroying natural wildlife habitats. As the population increases, more new areas are cleared for gardens or for other purposes. 'Slash and burn' agriculture has spread into previously untouched areas.

Fig. 5.2. An elderly man can wear up to twenty different pairs of plumes of birds of paradise species. (Photo credit: WWF/Eugen Ways in which Traditional Conservation Practices Schuhmacher.) should be Encouraged and Regulated Using Existing Legislation Harvesting of Megapode eggs in the Eastern and The traditional control measures in conserving Western New Britain Provinces wildlife and its habitat should be enforced using A large number of wildfowl eggs are harvested existing wildlife legislation, such as the Fauna each year in the Eastern and Western New Britain (Protection and Control) Act of 1966 and its Provinces. This protein resource has been in use amendments. Under the Fauna Act the Minister for generations, and it has become a traditional for Environment and Conservation can declare a practice, with the eggs being used on a number of Wildlife Management Area and protect certain ceremonial occasions. Thousands of eggs may be wildlife species from over-exploitation. The collected in just one week, and with the growth Minister can also appoint the traditional land of the human population, there is no doubt that owners as Wildlife Committees, who should then this practice is resulting in a serious reduction of make wildlife laws controlling hunting, harvesting the wildfowl population. and the taking of wildlife from Wildlife Manage• ment Areas. When the rules which are made by the Wildlife Committees are officially gazetted in Present Situation and New Problems in Relation the Government Gazette, they become national to Wildlife Resources laws like any other laws in the country. A Wildlife Management Area is a piece of land, of any size, The growth of the human population and the kept for the conservation and management of advent of modern technology are .presenting wildlife—both plants and animals. Many of these serious threats to the wildlife of Papua New areas are already declared in the country. They Guinea. Some of the major contributing factors are run by committees of people with traditional are as follows. land rights to the areas. Each committee is chosen (1) Clear cutting and selective logging of forests by the people and it decides on rules for looking in which wildlife lives. after the area. These rules are made law only (2) Large-scale agricultural development for oil when they have the support of all the people, and palm, rubber, cocoa, coffee and other products the rules can be changed if new problems arise or Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 25 if the reason for making the rule has disappeared. disrupt these traditional practices and wildlife Hunting and the use of plants is not stopped in a resources, it is recommended that the following Wildlife Management Area unless there is a special actions be implemented as soon as practicable. reason to do so. If there is a special problem with (1) A thorough survey must be carried out of one kind of animal or plant, rules can be made to all the existing traditional conservation practices correct the problem. This does not effect the use which may be useful in wildlife resource manage• of other animals eaten or used by the people. ment planning and conservation. Wildlife Management Areas are thus reserved at (2) Use should be made of the available tradi• the request of landowners for the conservation tional conservation practices which conserve wild• and controlled utilization of wildlife and its life and its habitat. habitat, and in these areas many of the traditional (3) An investigation is required to determine if conservation and utilization practices can sufficient representative areas have been estab• continue to the benefit of both the local people lished to conserve the most endangered species of and the wildlife species. With careful manage• wild flora and fauna and their habitats. ment, some of these wildlife management areas (4) The National government, Provincial have the potential to produce meat, skins, eggs governments, community government, the local and other by-products on a sustained-yield basis, leaders of Papua New Guinea and the tertiary (yielding a major source of income for villagers), institutions should be asked to work together in and in addition further considerable income can developing and conserving the important natural be obtained both directly and indirectly from the forests and the wildlife resources of the country. tourist industry.

Recommendations References Bulmer, R. N. H. and Majnep, I. S. (1977) Birds of My Kalam Knowing the important values and benefits of Country, Auckland University Press, Auckland. the traditional practices in wildlife conservation Healey, C. J. (1977) Maring hunters and traders: the ecology of an and realising the possible problems which may exploitative, non-subsistence activity,Thesis.

26 The Environmentalist 6. A House is a Tiny World AMINUDDIN PONULELE Center of Environmental Study, Tadulako University, Palu, Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

influence on the building of houses. This paper Summary examines the traditional house forms of two of There are twelve ethnic groups in the Central Sulawesi the ethnic groups of Central Sulawesi, the Kulawi area. Each has its own local language, social customs and Group (Donggola Regency) and Lore Group ways of living, and much of this variety is influenced by (Poso Regency). the natural environment where the groups live. This paper analyses this variety with respect to the building of houses and the traditions associated with this building. Housing materials depend on climatic conditions, availability of The House Form resources and cultural norms. The people of Central Sulawesi believe that a house and its occupants become The traditional dwelling house for the Kulawi one unit, and thus housing materials are selected that are Group is called hou or bola, and for the Lore it is most suitable for the occupants. It means that a house is like a tiny world for them, and a spiritual relationship is established between the house and the people who live there. Every effort is made to create a unity between man and his environment when building a new house, and in this connection each group follows orderly social customs and traditions obtained from their ancestors. Particular emphasis is given to the selection of suitable building materials to fit local environmental conditions, and wood and fibre are favoured. Homage is paid to the surrounding environment, especially those items that possess spiritual forces. It is concluded that those profitable customs and traditions retained from their ancestors which positively support the advancement of the ethnic groups should be maintained.

Introduction The Central Sulawesi Province (68 033 km2) consists of four regencies (Donggala, Buol Toli- Toli, Poso and Banggai) with 62 sub-districts and 1281 villages. The Province has distinct wet and dry seasons, and rainfall varies from 400 to 3000 mm/year. Upland areas are slightly cooler (20—30 °C) than the lowland areas (25-31 °C). Monthly humidity varies from 71 to 76%. The majority of the Province consists of mountain ranges covered by dense forest. The total population of 1 300 000 people can be divided into twelve ethnic groups. The average population density is 19 people/km2. The majority of the population in the rural Fig. 6.1. The traditional tambi house has one large hall which is areas, especially those living in the mountain not divided into separate rooms. The cross-section of the house ranges, are greatly influenced by their environ• (above) shows the five layers of logs and the rapu in the middle mental conditions, and this has a profound of the lobena.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 27 called tambi. Houses vary in size from 30 to 60 consulted. For example, the Raranggonau people m2. The roof of the house is in the form of a kill a chicken to help them decide on the site. pyramid with a 45° angle (see Fig. 6.1), and con• Before it dies, it is left to jump around near the sists of one large hall (lobona) which is not sub• site. When it dies, its head points either in an divided into separate rooms. In the middle of easterly or westerly direction. If it is the former, the lobona is the kitchen (rapu) from 1.5 to 2 m2, then the site is acceptable. However, if the neck which has three functions, cooking, illumination points in a westerly direction, the site is rejected, at night and a fireplace for space-heating in cold because a house built there would bring illness weather. The roof has a number of racks which and misfortune to the occupants. The Rarang• surround the large hall, and these are used by the gonau people also use a crab to help them select occupants as beds and as a place for keeping a site, based on the belief that because the crab household goods. The house has only one door in lives in the ground it knows the spirit of the its front part, with a ladder and steps made of earth. A needle is stuck into the back of a crab, wood. The lower parts of the house are made of and the animal is placed on the ground. If it up to five logs supported by big stones. moves straight away, the site is acceptable, but if Houses built for meetings, worship or food the crab does not move, the site is rejected. stores have the same general form as a dwelling The Pakava people use a piece of bamboo to house, but differ in measurements and in the help with their selection. The bamboo is stuck into variations found inside. the ground for two days, and then withdrawn. If the bamboo is empty or only half filled with earth, the site is regarded as unacceptable, and Preparation for House Building anyone building there would soon die. In another technique, a hole is dug in the ground, and then Selection of materials a chicken is placed in it and covered with palm- Throughout the two regions, people build their blossom (mayang pinang) for three days. The houses from wood, rattans, black sugar-palm chicken is then removed, and if it is still alive and fibres, the trunks of sagu trees, bamboos, and all the feathers are intact, the site is acceptable. stones, all of which are readily available in sur• Should the chicken die subsequently, another rounding areas. The choice of special wood for must be found to replace it. The dead chicken house building is based on knowledge that goes must be buried with the head pointing towards back for many generations. Woods that rot easily the west and its legs pointing towards the east. are avoided, as are species that are believed to The people of Kulawi greet the spirits of a bring bad luck. Trees covered by lianas are also potential building site by placing seven grains of avoided, for a number of reasons. For example, rice on the site for three days. If all the grains in Toro (Kulawi Region) the lianas supporting are still present at the end of the three days, it trees which fall to the ground are looked upon as means that the spirits are happy and that building ropes used to lower a coffin into the ground. The can go ahead. most favoured wood for house building comes from trees which at the time of falling to the The ceremony and house measurements ground were supported by other trees nearby. Before any building is initiated, both the Lore The people of Lore and Kulawi Region believe and Kulawi people hold a ceremonial feast and that the wood from the supported trees will bring kill a buffalo. The symbolic significance of the success and long life to the occupants of the house. feast is that the owners of the house will not die In the Napu Region, if a tree is cut down and of starvation in the future. The buffalo is also breaks into two parts, the wood-cutter is regarded regarded as a symbol of wealth. Buffalo are also as unlucky and the wood from that tree would killed for a ceremonial feast when the house is not be used as building material. An even stronger first occupied, and the horns of the buffalo are view is held of the bad luck associated with taking made into decorations and placed on the house of wood from a tree that does not fall down a local nobleman. horizontally when cut, but remains attached to Houses vary in size according to individual the base of the tree at an angle. It is believed that requirements and material available. However, a house built from such a tree will bring disasters, the Kulawi group does attempt to unite the house sickness and even sudden death to the occupants. with its occupants by relating house size to measurements of husband and wife, based on five Selection of building site times one third of the length of the wife's little In both regions, great care is taken in selecting finger plus seven times one third of the length of a site for building, and the spirit living there is the husband's index finger. 28 The Environmentalist safeguard against damage by earthquakes. Both Conclusion Lore and Kulawi Regions have frequent earth• quakes, and there is no doubt that these tradi• The houses found in Lore and Kulawi have the tional building methods have a distinct advantage unique pyramid construction as described in this over modern techniques. In addition, traditional presentation which makes them very suitable and knowledge has resulted in the selection of wood comfortable in humid, hot weather, and warm in that can last for many years, and this in turn the cooler weather. Ventilation is minimal. reduces the frequency with which trees are cut Limiting entrance to one door facilitates defence down for building materials. The lack of ventila• against intrusion. The logs and stones at the base tion and dark interiors (there are no windows) are of the house are not tied together. A flexible distinct disadvantages, and these conditions are structure is thus maintained which is a very useful almost certainly detrimental to health.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 29 7. Marine Conservation in Relation to Traditional Life-Styles of Tropical Artisanal Fishermen

R. E. JOHANNES CSIRO Marine Laboratories, Division of Fisheries Research, PO Box 20, North Beach, Western Australia, 6020

The Value of Traditional Marine Conservation Summary Measures Managing a resource involves regulating the behaviour of the people whose activities affect that resource. In The past few yeals have seen an expanding order to do so effectively, therefore, it is necessary to interest in traditional strategies for managing ma• study not only the resource itself, but also the local methods, traditions and knowledge associated with its use. rine resources in the tropics. It used to be assumed Artisanal fishermen often act in ways that deliberately that 'common property' or open access arrange• or inadvertently function as conservation measures. Such ments governed the traditional harvesting of these traditional practices include the observation of fishing resources and that overexploitation— 'The rights (a form of limited entry), and self-imposed closed Tragedy of the Commons'—was the probable seasons, closed areas, and gear restrictions. Management fate of such fisheries, largely because this was the and conservation laws that are compatible with such state of affairs in most temperature zone fisheries. customs are more liable to achieve public acceptance than But Pacific islanders (among others) were far those that are perceived as alien. Such acceptance is ahead of westerners in recognizing the need for especially important in developing tropical countries conservation of their fishstocks. In the absence of because money and personnel available for enforcement wide, productive continental shelves that charac• are generally minimal. terize continental coastlines, their marine Scientific knowledge concerning natural resources in the tropics is often inadequate. Traditional users of these resources were limited largely to a narrow fringe resources possess knowledge about them that can be of of reef and lagoon. The limits of these resources considerable value to conservationists and resource therefore became apparent to them centuries ago. managers. Such knowledge includes information on fish In consequence, almost all the basic fisheries con• migrations, the timing and location of spawning of various servation measures devised in western countries in species and the locations of important fishing sites that the past eighty years have been in use in Oceania should be protected from deleterious human activities for centuries. These include closed seasons, closed such as pollution, dredging and filling. areas, bans on exploiting spawning aggregations, size restrictions, and, most importantly, tenured fishing grounds (Johannes, 1978). Early western colonizers of Oceania generally Introduction did not recognize the value of these customs There has been much recent discussion on how (when they were aware of them at all). A case in to make research and management of terrestrial point involves traditional systems of limited entry resources in the tropics more compatible with to coastal fishing grounds. Island chiefs, clans, local cultural and environmental conditions. In or villages customarily owned the rights to fish in this presentation, I will describe some experiences designated areas, including the right to exclude in marine resource management and conservation others. This custom was both the most important in the tropics, and I will show you how studies of fisheries conservation measure employed in the both the customs and the knowledge of tradi• area and the most widespread. Early western tional fishermen can enhance rural marine colonizers, adhering to the now outmoded resource management and development. I speak concept of 'freedom of the seas', considered such from the perspectives of both fisheries manage• practices backward and destroyed them in some ment and general marine conservation, and from parts of Oceania. Their descendants belatedly personal experience limited mainly to the oceanic discovered their value in their own countries a islands of the tropical Pacific. century or more later (Johannes, 1978).

30 The Environmentalist Today fisheries scientists consider limited entry ceived, is to freeze what traditionally were to be the cornerstone of sound fisheries manage• flexible systems of resource management and ment. In its absence, overexploitation is almost allocation. In the past, fishing boundaries and inevitable. This has implications that go beyond rights often changed in order to accommodate biological conservation for, as Marr (1976) states: population shifts or new political or economic "overcapitalization and thus economic waste is conditions. inevitable in a fishery in which there is unlimited The customs discussed here are not restricted entry". to Oceania. Recently Polunin (1982) has sum• Traditional fishing rights are still strong in marized sparse but invaluable information on some areas of Oceania, but their existence some• traditional marine practices in Indonesia and their times poses problems for governments or indivi• bearing on conservation. Similar customs can also duals wishing to stimulate new commercial be found among artisanal fishermen in Africa fisheries. One of the most common difficulties (Kapetsky, 1981), Brazil (Cordell, in press), Torres relates to the taking of baitfish in traditionally Strait (Nietschmann, 1982) and elsewhere. owned waters for the purpose of commercial tuna Research is urgently needed to document such fishing offshore. The right to take these fish must practices and integrate them, where practical, be negotiated with the owners of the waters in with modern management. which they are found. Problems have arisen in Traditional authority and indigenous environ• this regard in various Pacific islands. Where such ment regulations often carry considerably more difficulties have occurred, authorities have not weight than government laws and lawcourts. been familiar in any detail with local ownership Fishermen in the islands of Palau, Micronesia customs. Frustration with these problems has led (Fig. 7.1) used to tell me: "I'm not scared of the some fisheries development personnel to question court. I'm scared of Palauan custom. When you the value of traditional fishing rights. However, are punished Palauan style you are really had these customs been fully understood, negotia• punished!" tions with reef and lagoon owners would have In 1974, someone from the island of Falalop in taken place under more friendly and constructive the Yap district of Micronesia killed a turtle and circumstances, and accord might have been tried to hide the remains. Turtle harvesting was reached. under the control of some Chiefs from a nearby Such conflicts are becoming more common as island. The remains were discovered and reported pressures on tropical marine resources increase to one of these Chiefs. He issued a general due to expanding market economies and growing punishment to all the people of Falalop. They populations, but they do not justify abandoning were prohibited for three weeks from touching traditional fishing rights. Although the main• sea water, catching fish, travelling over water or tenance of such customs cannot guarantee the eating any seafood. Seafood is normally eaten conservation of coastal fishstocks, the ultimate three times a day on Falalop. This punishment decline of these stocks is almost certain in the applied to US government employees stationed absence of some such form of limited entry. on the island, a Jesuit missionary and two Peace Any legislation that weakens traditional Corps workers, as well as the local inhabitants. fisheries rights also reduces the ability of the The ruling was obeyed by all. Official government owners to police their resources—something they conservation regulations, in contrast, were often do voluntarily if their rights are secure. generally not known, let alone obeyed on Falalop. Such legislation would therefore increase the Here is an example of the fact that traditional government's regulatory responsibilities and place controls on resource use are still effective in some an additional burden on already understaffed and remoter areas where westernization has not underfunded fisheries departments. The govern• weakened or destroyed traditional authority, but ment thus disposes of a service it gets free and in many more westernized areas, such controls assumes new responsibilities it is ill-equipped to have eroded and government action is need to handle. (There is a second, and in some ways even supplant them. Here, whenever practical, govern• more compelling reason for some governments to ment management measures should be patterned support local traditional fishing rights; it would after local customs, for they will gain consi• be politically suicidal to do otherwise. Parts of derably more public support than regulations Papua New Guinea are a case in point.) perceived by resource users as alien restraints Legislation has been introduced in some coun• imposed for incomprehensible reasons. In many tries, in contrast, to protect traditional fishing developing countries, enforcement capabilities rights. Whereas the goal of these efforts is are minimal. Public support of conservation law laudable, the effect, unless very carefully con• is thus especially important. Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 31 Fig. 7.1. Local fishing at Palau Bandal, Indonesia. (Photo credit: WWF/Willem F. Rodenburg.)

Some fishermen know a great deal, for ex• The Value of Local Knowledge of Natural History ample, about the spawning of coastal fishes. Many reef food fish migrate on specific moon phases during specific seasons and aggregate at In addition to local customs concerning the use very specific locations year after year in order to and management of marine resources local knowl• spawn. The fact that many larger reef fish species edge concerning these resources is also worthy of all behave in this fashion has been recognized by careful study. Nowhere in the world are nearshore biologists only recently, and as a direct result of tropical fish stocks being managed optimally. seeking the knowledge concerning reef fishes that Even if we ignore, for the moment, political, is possessed by artisanal fishermen (Johannes, cultural, legal and economic considerations, 1981). The number of fishes throughout the shallow tropical waters present the most complex world known by biologists to form lunar fisheries management problems in the world. spawning aggregations has more than doubled in There are far more species than in high latitudes, the past few years as a consequence of informa• and the fisheries are not dominated by just a few tion provided by Pacific island fishermen. species as in temperate waters. Learning enough These spawning aggregations provide biologists about the biology of the hundreds of species that with excellent opportunities to monitor stocks contribute to the catch so as to manage their because they occur at such predictable times and exploitation effectively is an enormous task. Arti• places. Because exceptionally large catches are sanal fishermen offer a shortcut for obtaining often made from these aggregations, they can also important basic natural history data for these provide a useful focus for management (Johannes, species. They know much about local marine 1980, 1981). (Salmon fisheries represent a well- resources which biologists do not. This is not sur• developed temperate zone model of this form of prising since they were plying their trade and stock monitoring and management.) passing on their accumulated knowledge long Another example of the value of local fisher• before we marine biologists entered the picture. men's knowledge concerns reef fish migrations. 32 The Environmentalist The disruption by dams of salmon migrations is suggested that every local primary and secondary common knowledge in the temperate zone, but school should compile its own natural history it is not generally realized that because many reef books and local atlas, containing simple ecological and lagoon fishes also migrate (albeit over com• maps. Today, as the shortcomings of western paratively short distances) their movements are knowledge and the strengths of local knowledge likewise vulnerable to disruption by man. The concerning natural resources have become more government of one Pacific island country recently obvious, Bulmer's suggestion does not seem so began to build a solid causeway between two Utopian. Would not the children of Western islands. It will, if completed, block the last Samoa, for example, be better off gathering infor• remaining spawning migration route of the most mation from their elders on local natural important food fish in local shallow waters. If resources, than studying ecology using text books local fishermen had been consulted concerning written for New Zealand conditions, as they do causeway plans, this problem would have come to now? light and construction plans could have been Among those in the tropics who know least modified inexpensively to allow passage of the about their own natural resources are the edu• fish. Elsewhere in Oceania dredging of fill for cated elite whose learning years are spent far from road building has destroyed tidal migration routes their villages. Ironically, it is these very people and spawning areas of reef fish known and who ultimately will be responsible for deter• exploited by local fishermen. Consultation with mining the patterns of natural resource use and these fishermen could have aided government conservation in their countries. Their technologi• planners in picking less vulnerable locations for cal and economic sophistication would be put to obtaining fill. better use if they also possessed the vital knowl• Sea turtle fishermen throughout the tropics edge concerning their natural resources possessed have known for centuries that green turtles by their rural compatriots. undergo long migrations and return repeatedly to I believe institutes of higher learning in the same general area to lay their eggs (Fig. 7.2). developing countries should also make greater Zoologists were very skeptical of these reports efforts to obtain such knowledge, especially since until Archie Carr took them seriously and showed it is being lost rapidly as westernization takes its that they were correct. toll of traditional ways. The general absence of Little serious effort has been made to collect such knowledge from their westernized school and record such information. This is because of curricula has amounted to a constant tacit asser• the traditional focusses of social science and tion (unintended though it may often be) that it biology. When anthropologists or human geogra• is no longer worth learning. Consequently, I phers study man-in-nature, the general form their would like to see courses on traditional use and queries take is usually: "How does this environ• knowledge concerning natural resources given in ment influence you?" rather than: "What can we the institutes of higher learning in developing learn about this environment from you?" countries. The effective transmission of such Biologists, on the other hand, are trained to look knowledge cannot as yet be achieved entirely in to nature for their answers, not to people. Such a typical classroom setting, and first it must be deeply in-grained and implicitly-held biases are gathered. Thus, as one of the course require• hard to change. Fortunately younger social ments, students might be asked to submit reports scientists and biologists (and a few older ones) describing aspects of local knowledge of natural are showing an increasing willingness to transcend history or traditional resource use in their villages. traditional academic boundaries in pursuit of the The required research might be carried out during knowledge that falls between these interdiscipli• vacation breaks when students return home. nary cracks, but there are not nearly enough such Copies of these reports could be kept on per• people to go around to exploit the wealth of local manent file, where, collectively, they could grow knowledge that resides only in the heads of local to become a large and unique source of tradi• fishermen, farmers and hunters. tional knowledge. Bulmer (1971) suggested a partial solution to Such training would be desirable for all types this problem. He was one of the first social of students—not just biology, agriculture and scientists to recognize and systematically gather fisheries students, but also students of law, indigenous knowledge about local plants and business, political science, engineering, education animals. Referring to Papua New Guinea, he and the arts. All of them should understand the stated: "It may sound Utopian, but I for one nature and limits of their natural resources, for would like to see every school in this country within a few years it is they who will make the turned into a junior research institute". He important decisions concerning their management.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 33 Fig. 7.2. Sea turtle fishermen throughout the tropics have known for centuries that green turtles (Chelonia mydas) undergo long migrations and return repeatedly to the same general area to lay their eggs. (Photo credit: WWF/Archie Carr.)

34 The Environmentalist Information gathered from village informants is not always reliable. Bulmer (1969), an an• References thropologist with extensive experience with both professional biologists and village informants as sources of information on local plants and Bulmer, R. J. H. (1969) Field methods in ethnozoology with animals in Papua New Guinea, finds them about special reference to the New Guinea Highlands. Unpublished equally reliable and states: "General ethno• MS Rept. University of Papua and New Guinea, Papua New graphers must learn to treat their scientific colla• Guinea. Bulmer, R. J. H. (1971) Science, ethnoscience and education, borators with the same courtesy, humility and Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 7, pp. 22—33. above all caution that they adopt in dealing with Cordell, J. (in press) Methods for indigenous fishery conservations. their most knowledgeable and reliable indigenous In Ecoculture—A Strategy for Survival, IUCN, Gland, Switzerland. informants", (emphasis added). Indigenous Johannes, R. E. (1978) Traditional marine conservation methods knowledge has to be sought cautiously and in Oceania and their demise, Annual Review of Ecology and winnowed judiciously. Moreover it often has to Systematics, 9, pp. 349-364. Johannes, R. E. (1980) Using knowledge of the reproductive be blended with more sophisticated forms of behavior of reef and lagoon fishes to improve fishing yields. biological research (e.g., population dynamics, In J. Bardach, J. Magnuson, R. May and J. Reinhart (eds.), physiology, genetics) before it can be put to Fish Behavior and its Uses in the Capture and Culture of Fishes. ICLARM Conf. Proc. No. 5, International Center for optimum use, and this is no small matter. But Living Aquatic Marine Resources, Manila, Philippines, pp. ignoring it, allowing it to vanish, amounts to 247-270. throwing away the results of centuries of priceless Johannes, R. E. (1981) Words of Lagoon: Fishing and Marine Lore in the Palau District of Micronesia. University of California practical experience. Press, USA. Finally, I feel that biologists concerned with Kapetsky, J. M. (1981) The artisanal fisheries of coastal lagoons and estuaries in the CECAF region: their importance relative the kinds of problems discussed here should avail to other fisheries and some considerations for their manage• themselves of all the help they can get from social ment and development. CECAF Technical Report, 36. scientists. The latter are better versed in the arts Marr, J. C. (1976) Fishery and Resource Management in Southeast Asia, Paper No. 7, Program of International Studies of of interviewing and participant-observation, and Fisheries Arrangements. Resources for the Future, Washing• can help frame questions and interpret answers ton DC, USA. in the context of the cultures in which they Nietschmann, B. (1982) Indigenous island peoples, living resources reside. Biological studies for tropical resource and protected areas. World National Parks Congress, Bali, Indonesia, Oct. 11-22, 1982. management often miss the mark when they are Polunin, N. C. V. (1982) Traditional marine practices in Indonesia done in a cultural void. and their bearing on conservation. Unpublished MS.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 35 8. Aboriginal People - Guardians of a Heritage J. D. OVINGTON Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, PO Box 636, Canberra City, A.C.T. 2601, Australia

found elsewhere in the world. It also contains Summary many beautiful scenic features and an outstanding In 1979 land rights were granted to Aboriginal people series of Aboriginal art sites. in the Alligator Rivers Region of Northern Australia. The The Australian National Parks and Wildlife Aboriginal people leased an area of about 6000 km2 to Service is working closely with the local the Director of National Parks and Wildlife to be managed Aboriginals to protect this unique heritage whilst as a National Park on behalf of all Australians, a gesture providing for greater use by non-Aboriginal without precedent in Australia. Kakadu National Park has a wide variety of landscape, vegetation and wildlife types people. As experience is gained by Aboriginal not found elsewhere in the world. It has many attractive people their participation in park management scenic features and a rich collection of Aboriginal art sites. is increasing. The Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service is The area is coming under mounting use pres• working closely with local Aboriginals in protecting this sure from non-Aboriginal people for two main rich heritage, the first Australian area to be included on reasons. Firstly, it is attracting growing numbers the World Heritage List. of tourists both national and international. Secondly, within the vicinity of the Park there are two major uranium mines and other mines are contemplated in the surrounding area. The Park Introduction contains a small town in which the mine workers Aboriginal people came and settled on the live. Australian continent probably over forty thou• I doubt that all the experience gained at sand years ago. Whilst they brought about Kakadu in working with local people and environmental change, mainly by the use of fire, involving them in management, both at policy the landscape broadly had an essentially natural and executive levels, has universal application. appearance at the time of the first European Nevertheless it has some relevance to situations settlement in 1788. With the spread of European where, with the establishment of a National Park influence across the continent the transforma• or other kind of protected area, there is a need to tions of the natural landscape accelerated marked• reconcile the interests of indigenous people with ly. Nevertheless, extensive areas of wilderness other interests. In these circumstances the remain, particularly in central and northern Kakadu experience may provide some practical Australia. guidelines of use to politicians, park managers In 1979 following a detailed public inquiry, and people resident in or having rights in the area. land rights were granted to the Aboriginal people of the Alligator Rivers Region of Northern Australia. Subsequently the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land gave a lease for 100 years over The Heritage an area of some 6000 km2 to the Director of The National Park is of national and inter• National Parks and Wildlife, on the understanding national importance because of the unique that the area would be managed as a National natural and cultural values it contains. In terms of Park on behalf of all Australians. This remarkable its natural values, Kakadu National Park is one of gesture is without precedent in Australia and the few remaining relatively undisturbed tropical possibly in the world. areas. Through the generosity of the Aboriginal The National Park, named Kakadu National people in leasing the area for a National Park, Park, was the first Australian area to be included future generations will be able to see biological on the World Heritage List and has a wide variety communities and species which have evolved over of landscape, vegetation and wildlife types not the centuries under natural conditions. Increasingly 36 The Environmentalist the Park may prove to be a valuable scientific applique figures are found at some sites. There are reference area with which to measure environ• also extensive and intricate arrangements of mental change brought about by human activities stones, the significance of which is not generally in neighbouring areas. understood. Five main land types are present, namely the The cultural significance of the area goes far tidal flats, floodplains, lowlands, escarpment with beyond the art sites. Aboriginal people see all outlier, and plateau. Whilst each land type has landscape features and living plants and animals special scenic qualities, the precipitious sandstone as an intimate part of their cultural development escarpment, over which magnificent waterfalls and background. Any management in the Park cascade in the wet season, is the dominant land• must be sensitive to this traditional relationship scape feature. Each land type has its own charac• between Aboriginal people and the totality of teristic plants, animals and ecosystems. their environment. For its size the Park is rich in species. Nu• The National Park also has some historical merous species of plants and animals previously significance to Europeans in that it was crossed unknown to science are being discovered as by early European explorers such as Ludwig biological inventories are completed. Already Leichhardt. Many of these explorers were com• about one thousand species of plants and a great petent biologists. For example, Leichhardt was diversity of animals have been recorded. Over one the first to record the Spectacular Grasshopper, a third of Australian bird species are to be found in large vividly coloured insect mainly confined to a the Park. Birds of the wetlands are present in few special localities in the Park. Some areas of profusion, and during the dry season from May to the Park are of special interest to Europeans as September they congregate in huge flocks around places where activities such as cypress pine the remaining water bodies. The variety of cutting, crocodile hunting, cattle grazing and tropical natural habitats preserved in the Park mining were attempted in the opening up of the provides hope that a number of endangered, rare 'top end' of Australia for settlement by people of or endemic Australian species will survive. European stock. The area is archaeologically unique because of the variety, multiplicity and great antiquity of Aboriginal sites, and these important sites give Involvement of Traditional Land Owners in Park the Park its cultural value. Some deposits at Management Aboriginal sites occupied from ancient times are very rich in objects of archaeological interest. The involvement of Aboriginal people in the These are providing an insight into the changing management of Kakadu National Park has been climatic conditions and way of life of the Abori• achieved in many ways (Fig. 8.1). When the Park ginal people. Already excavations at Kakadu have was established, few of the traditional Aboriginal revealed evidence of the earliest human settle• land owners fully appreciated the complexity of ment in Australia and the oldest examples of edge park management and their potential to contri• ground stone axes in the world. Pieces of ochre bute to management. In reality, the knowledge used for rock painting and recovered from occu• and experience of the local people has proved pational deposits have been dated as over 25 000 invaluable in managing the area. years old. Under the National Parks and Wildlife Conser• In general, Aboriginal art sites are concentrated vation Act of 1975, the Director of National along the Arnhem Land escarpment and its out• Parks and Wildlife is required to prepare a plan of liers. Ochre paintings played an important part in management as soon as practicable after a the traditional, religious and daily life of Abori• National Park has been declared. In the prepara• ginals. There is a chronosequence of art styles tion of the management plan for Kakadu National including stick figures of 'mimi' art and X-ray Park, close consultation with the Aboriginal paintings of animals and people. Some rock people was achieved through the Northern Land paintings feature legendary beings or animals Council. The Council is an Aboriginal organiza• whilst others are of the common animals of the tion responsible to Aboriginals for looking after area. Sometimes the animals depicted are no interests over an extensive region of the Northern longer present in Kakadu and some are thought Territory, including the Kakadu area. The plan to be extinct e.g., the Tasmanian Tiger. Other details the management prescriptions whereby paintings are believed to have been drawn to agreements between the Director and the Land bestow particular benefits on their owners such as Council will be implemented. The descriptive and bringing rain or increasing the supply of useful interpretative parts of the plan particularly plants and animals. Rock engravings and bees wax benefited from the Aboriginal input.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 37 Fig. 8.1. Kakadu National Park: Management through and with Aboriginal owners. (Photo credit: M. Bijleveld.)

A Kakadu Advisory Committee advises Aboriginal agreement is obtained. In some Ministers and the Director on policy matters con• instances projects have been abandoned because nected with the administration of the Park. The of Aboriginal concerns. Aboriginal Chairman of the Northern Land Eight Aboriginals, having completed a one-year Council chairs this important Committee whose training course, are employed as park rangers. other members are the Director of National Parks The qourse was established by the Australian and Wildlife and the Director of the Northern National Parks and Wildlife Service to provide Territory Conservation Commission. training in National Park operations closely Aboriginals, both male and female, are attuned to the capacities and experience of the employed at different levels within the job range Aboriginal trainees. By having small classes each available in the Park. Currently Aboriginals trainee was encouraged to develop his or her constitute about half of the operational field special expertise, e.g., in buffalo control, wildlife staff. No distinction is made between Aboriginal research and park interpretation at Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal staff with regard to their sites. The selection of Aboriginal trainees was by terms of employment or the availability of facili• the local Aboriginals through their own consulta• ties such as housing. Several non-Aboriginal staff tive process although before making a formal speak one or more of the Aboriginal languages of decision they did seek the views of officers of the the area and all are sympathetic to Aboriginal Service on possible candidates. Once their training aspirations. is completed the trainees are not automatically Two Aboriginal leaders were appointed to appointed to the staff of the Service but apply for specially created senior positions of cultural any available ranger posts in open competition. advisers. Besides being involved in general park Other Aboriginal people are employed in a management matters, the cultural advisers seek variety of support roles on a casual basis. Some Aboriginal views on proposed development in the park operations such as prescribed burning, the Park and explain any proposals to the Aboriginal building of water retaining earthworks and vege• people. No development is proceeded with until tation establishment for erosion control are

38 The Environmentalist carried out under contract by family or tribal The Gagadju Association, a locai Aboriginal groups of Aboriginals. organization, has purchased a motel and a store The Service works closely with the Aboriginal close to the Park to provide both an income to people in the setting aside of special Aboriginal Aboriginals and amenities for visitors to the Park. living areas, in facilitating settlement by tradi• The Service works closely with the Association tional owners in the Park and in generally looking in the development of Park facilities to comple• after the interests of Aboriginal people. The local ment these important Aboriginal initiatives. Aboriginals in their turn are helpful in keeping the Service informed of happenings in the Park, such as vandalism or illegal shooting. Conclusions The majority of visitors are anxious to meet Aboriginal people and to learn from them about The development of cooperative arrangements Aboriginal culture. Special staff having a close between the Australian National Parks and Wild• affinity with Aboriginals have been appointed to life Service and local Aboriginal people for the work with the Aboriginal people in providing management of Kakadu National Park has proved interpretative Aboriginal material and in both challenging and informative. Whilst the developing techniques to preserve the traditional involvement of local people adds an additional rock paintings. and complicating dimension to park management, The interpretation of Aboriginal art sites to the experience gained at Kakadu National Park visitors is a sensitive issue and any information has shown that considerable mutual benefit is provided to visitors must be authentic yet not derived from such involvement, and conflict situa• disclose anything that the Aboriginal people wish tions can be avoided. The Aboriginal people at to be kept secret. In providing information about Kakadu National Park have not set themselves specific sites the Service liaises closely with the aside from Park development but see themselves individual Aboriginal owners or people respon• as guardians of a valuable national heritage sible for the care and protection of the site to working cooperatively with the Australian ensure their interests are protected. National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 39 9. The Role of Religion in Conservation J. M. BOYD Nature Conservancy Council, 12, Hope Terrace, Edinburgh EH9 2AS, Scotland

Summary tives of conservation in maintaining essential ecological processes and life-support systems, The World Conservation Strategy is essentially a man- maintaining genetic diversity and encouraging the centred technical document which carries a great and sustainable utilization of species and ecosystems, largely unstated moral issue of restraint for the long-term but all of these are intended 'to satisfy human common good in the face of exploitation of natural resources for short-term gain by a privileged few. Yet no needs and the quality of life'. There is no mention effort has been made to have the Strategy recognized and of any doubt that man might not be capable of adopted by the world religions. Without this, such docu• achieving such goals. It seems implicit that tech• ments fail to move the spirit of man to new efforts for nology and education are all that is required; in rational use of resources for the good of all mankind and all other respects mankind is capable of achieving become an end in themselves without benefit to poor such targets. The spiritual context of the human people. The Strategy also neglects the problem of human societies into which the World Conservation population growth with inter alia its immense religious Strategy is received goes without mention. More• significance. The great aim of any world strategy is that over, no attempt seems to have been made to man should live in 'dignity and in harmony with God, the have the World Conservation Strategy recognized source of all life' (Salim, 1981). and widely adopted by the world religious move• ments: Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Shintoism, Hinduism etc. Yet the objective of the World Conservation Strategy demands radical changes in attitude between man and man and between man The period from 1950 to 1980 has seen the rise and nature in which moral choices generated by and fall of the popularity of conservation in the religious beliefs are inescapable. world scene. There have been many key docu• The relationship between man and man— ments which have accompanied the World Conser• Salim's harmony between fellow men—is at the vation Strategy, most notably the report of The centre of the great disparity of wealth and Brandt Commission (North—South: A Program resources between the developed and the For Survival) and The Global 2000 Report To developing worlds. In the communist world the The President. All of these publications markedly material relationships between men are condi• avoid dealing with the great moral and spiritual tioned by a socialist creed and discipline unac• backcloth of mankind. The World Conservation ceptable in the capitalist world, where the human Strategy is typical in this regard, as is the current relationship is based on a freedom of material report by the Working Group on Conservation wealth and moral choice. The North—South and Rural Development of the IUCN Commission divide of material wealth persists only because on Ecology entitled "Why Conservation?" The of human behaviour which belies the common lecture by Dr Emil Salim entitled Conservation belief in God engendered so strongly in capitalist and Development is exceptional in the use of the societies as a final arbiter of life—inevitably in words: favour of the North. In the reasoning put forward in current 'conservation and development' papers, "Our aim (in Indonesia) is the type of global condi• new philosophies are stated ostensibly to convince tions where all men can live in dignity ... in harmony poor people that it is 'right' (i.e., morally justi• with his fellow man, in harmony with his environment fiable in the sight of God) that they should give and in harmony with God, the source of all life". up their lands and livelihood to conserve the The World Conservation Strategy is centred on rainforest or rhino; however, these philosophies man. Of course, it has specifically stated objec• can be seen as the latest means of justifying that 40 The Environmentalist J* % ^ j^. ^

r IL at Fig. 9.1. An aerial view of a large herd of wildebeest in the Acacia savanna of the Serengeti Plains in Tanzania. Masai people whose religion is tribal and peculiar to themselves in their own place, were voluntarily displaced from these rich grasslands in the setting-up of the Serengeti National Park. In this case satisfactory compensation of other grazing areas was arranged which obviated a sense of deprivation among the tribesmen; a spirit of good will prevailed based on an appreciation of the conservation ethic. (Photo credit: J. Morton Boyd.) nothing be done by the developed world to solve from nature? That is the question asked by R. J. not only this problem of wildlife conservation but Berry (1983) in his essay "Environment ethics others in the production of food, fuel and and conservation action" in Earth's Survival: UK drinking water. There is no doubt that conserva• Dimension which is the documentary follow-up in tion is a function of development and vice versa, UK to the World Conservation Strategy; it also but that is only important if,it can carry also the relates to Salim's statement on man 'in harmony will of the developer to pay not simply to com• with his environment'. The questions seem pensate an equally rich northern complainant next academic but pervade the environmental debate door but a poor southern man far away in a situa• and underlie the broad basis for man's exploita• tion of dire need, all encompassed by the World tion of natural resources and that there should be Conservation Strategy (Fig. 9.1). any case for conservation at all. There are those Such magnanimity of man for man is necessary whom Berry (quoting G. McConnell) refers to as if the World Conservation Strategy is to work, 'technocentric', who apply rational scientific and it will not happen without a spiritual force managerial techniques to the exploitation of the exercised through religious and political move• environment as a morally neutral resource, and ments. It is oversimplifying the problem of con• others who are 'ecocentric', who see an overall servation within development to say that it would natural order governed by natural law, in which the be solved by a redistribution of wealth, but the delicate and perfect balance is maintained until single most crucial factor in the developing world man enters with his ignorance and presumptions. is lack of funds which are employed in the Religious beliefs foster 'technocentricity'. developed world to maintain affluence and Christianity and Juddhism propound a God-given profligacy, while others starve. dominion by man over nature at the creation of Can man be simultaneously a part of nature the world and this is bestowed with 'man made in and—in his own mind at least—be set apart the image of God'. God's first command to Adam

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 41 was 'conquer nature'. The first man was placed in tion of the earth. The grandeur of empires has 'a garden'—a place of order, harmony and gone but one wonders that the clever technocrats beauty—of a kind—to be regarded as pleasing in of the late twentieth century do not have the God's sight compared with the chaos and savagery same sense of mastery of nature in working the of the wilderness, which we are to assume was not world's commodity markets, as did the conquista• so pleasing (Fig. 9.2). dors of old in the New World and with no greater Man's sense of dominion over, and apartness sense of conservation. from, nature can find expression at the personal Eastern religions are much more existentialist level; the story and allegory of Moby Dick strikes than those of the West. They tend to concentrate a harmony in all mankind. Man's instincts in on transference of the human state from that of hunting, gardening, bee-keeping are all manifesta• the real wOrld to another of peace and fulfill• tions at the personal level which are significant ment. This disengagement from worldly problems only in the masses; but the personal involvement detracts from their relevance in assisting with the of the architects of the Aswan High Dam or the propagation of the conservation ethic, although Easter Scheldt-Storm surge Barrier in the manipu• all hallow the earth in the sense of soil, pasture lation of nature is of colossal significance at the and water, as sacred to their religious creed individual level. The harnessing or taming of (Fig. 9.3). Stewardship of the earth transcends nature is elemental in human nature and has fired religious divisions of society and is a great the great movements of exploration and exploita• common denominator in human spirituality.

Fig. 9.2. The 'wet desert' of north-west Scotland. Deprived of its forest, a great deal of its wildlife and most of its native people by Britain's leadership of the agricultural and industrial revolutions in the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries. The enlightened Christian society at the time had little or no awareness of the conservation ethic. Now this country at Inverpolly in Wester Ross with Loch Sionascaig is a National Nature Reserve. (Photo credit: D. Gowans.)

42 The Environmentalist Fig. 9.3. The pools at Azraq Sheshan, Jordan with herds of camels and groves of palms and tamarisk. Bedouin people, whose religion is Islamic, depend on these pools in their time immemorial seasonal migrations to and from the deep desert. The World Conservation Strategy will mean nothing to these people if it cannot be identified with their religious beliefs which are geared closely to the means of survival provided by meagre water supplies, sparse vegetation and the hardiest of livestock over many thousands of years. (Photo credit: J. Morton Boyd.)

The technocentrics, the developers of the earth by man but to a point of apocalypse with world, can therefore draw a great deal of justifica• man's downfall and ultimate disappearance. tion for their actions from holy writ. Not so for The division of society into the developers and the ecocentrics, the conservationists. It is a sane, the conservationists could be seen to evaporate in rational belief that mankind shares a common the World Conservation Strategy in as much as ecosystem with all other kind and has an intricate both groups seem convinced that the solution to interdependence with them; yet this rationale the world's problems of resource conservation are between man and nature does not ring true in in fact within reach of man. The World Conserva• most religious dogma. The scourges of an over- tion Strategy says nothing about human popula• populated, overgrazed, overfelled, overpolluted tion control. The fact that the present population world did not visit the citizens of the Koran or of 4.5 billion is causing enormous damage to the the Old Testament, though in their time they had human environment in the 1980s is frightening, their famine, pestilence and poverty which must but the projection that this figure will rise to 8.6 have created their own generation of environ• billion by 2015 is terrifying. Yet the World Con• mentalists. However, religions are concerned with servation Strategy says nothing about this human nature and therefore, in our era, if not at problem presumably because it sees the problem all times since the emergence of Homo sapiens as lying in the province of world health and not from his Simian ancestry, religion must be con• of natural resources. The Strategy does not seem cerned—deeply concerned—with man's relation• to accept that the size of the human population is ship with nature. The holism of nature, including a central factor in the world conservation man as part of a greater whole called nature, has problem. This omission is as good an indication brought the ecocentrics to the vision of not only as can be obtained of the man-centred develop• the progressive depletion and despoilation of the mental nature of the Strategy, with the world

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 43 having to be reshaped to accommodate the which characterize western society today. If poor human population and not the opposite. The people are asked to give up their land, homes and Strategy could have taken a forthright stance for livelihood for the survival of the tiger they should the all-round reduction of the world population be accorded the standing of national (and inter• and of the need for the educational, clinical and national) benefactors; they should be a 'chosen social side of the operation to be financed by the people', their land should be a 'sacred heritage', developed world. This would also have been an they should be given fitting redress in resettle• opportunity for providing an ecologically stated ment and their names written large in the annals of case to the world religious organisations, parti• the nation. Why? They have given the closest cularly the Roman Church. It was a chance thing to life itself to the nation and the world— unused. their homes, livelihood and inheritance. Dr Salim's statement that "man can live in dignity . . . and in harmony with God, the source of all life", should be the great aim. That is a deeply religious statement which cries out for References action between the movements of religion and Berry, R. J. (1983) Environmental ethics and conservation action. conservation throughout the world. It is vitally In The Conservation and Development Programme for the important that the stewardship of natural UK: A response to the World Conservation Strategy, Kogan resources which is mentioned in holy writ be Page, London. Brandt, W. (1980) North-South: A Program for Survival, The identified, interpreted and updated by the bright Report of the Independent Commission on International young clergy of today. It is of the greatest impor• Development Issues under the Chairmanship of Willy Brandt, tance that the portents of the physical world are Pan Books, London. correctly documented and presented by science, Council on Environmental Quality and the Department of State (1980) The Global 2000 Report To The President, US and their significance in the spiritual world Government Printing Office, Washington, DC. appreciated, to provide a response from the IUCN (1980) World Conservation Strategy, IUCN, Gland. masses towards new life-styles which espouse the IUCN Commission on Ecology (1982) Why conservation? Occa• sional paper No. 4, Commission on Ecology, IUCN, Gland. virtues of Mother Theresa—poverty, self-sacri• Salim, E. (1981) Conservation and Development, Second World fice, anonymity and eschew rank and self-interest Conservation Lecture, WWF, London.

44 The Environmentalist 10. Eco-Ethics as the Foundation of Conservation HENRYK SKOLIMOWSKI University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

component do not clash with each other, but Summary complement each other. Environmental ethics must be distinguished from eco• Since the whole project is in the service of logical ethics. While the former concerns itself with the appropriate management of natural resources and is often values, we cripple our thinking by denying values. guided by cost-benefit analysis, the latter (ecological This is an important point. I am not saying that ethics) is much broader as it spells out the relationships we should tolerate values as an appendage to between man and nature; and also analyses those attri• our objective thinking, but rather that the in• butes of man which can make him an ecological animal. tegrity and validity of our thinking depends on Eco-values are based on the recognition of intrinsic values our capacity to integrate values into our think• of which reverence for life is one, and perhaps the most ing; and conversely, on our capacity to integrate important one. Without recognizing some intrinsic values analytical thinking into the framework of sustain• we do not have a basis which is sufficiently universal and able values. comprehensive to talk either of environmental ethics or In so many traditional societies, the Buddhist eco-ethics. The values of eco-ethics are an inherent part of especially, there is a clear awareness that right ecological thinking. thinking, and right attitudes lead to right action. I will let the poet T. S. Eliot make a main point for me: Without Values Our Thinking is Incomplete A wrong attitude towards nature implies somewhere, Among the resources we possess and must a wrong attitude toward God, and the consequence cultivate is thinking. In many cultures, particular• is an inevitable doom. ly traditional cultures, there is a deep under• standing that right thinking leads to right action. The idea of right thinking of course is a category Conservation is an Ethical Act much larger than specialized thinking within any When excessive specialization claims larger and specific domain, be it fishery or forest conserva• larger parts of our minds, conservationists may be tion. Right conservationist strategies, let us the only true guardians of the whole earth. Inso• emphasize, are the ones that would benefit all far as they are part of the scientific community, human kind. The idea of 'conservation', the idea they are under the strictures of the accepted of 'strategy' and the idea of 'benefit for all methodological principles. However, insofar as humankind' are all value terms. Pure objective they are the true guardians of the whole earth, science has little use for such concepts as 'con• they may have to overcome and transcend some servation', 'benefit to all', 'survival value', for of these strictures. these are categories outside the content of objec• What is conservation? Conservation is an act tive science, and they are outside so-called 'cog• of caring to the point of fighting for what you nitive content'. These categories are immensely consider important to preserve—even against important to us and our well-being in the short considerable odds. When the world is shrinking run and in the long run. Thus the entire premise and the earth is devoured by expanding popula• of right conservation on the global scale is steeped tions and expanding concrete surfaces, how can in values. Simply, the conservation strategy is a we establish and maintain a right and rational value programme. We do not deny that it is also strategy for preservation? The answer is not by a scientific programme. We need to know in great treating habitats we wish to preserve, as choice detail what we are doing, but at the same time pieces of property, but by regarding them as we must not forget for a moment why we are something of intrinsic value. doing what we are doing. The scientific compo• We must justify eco-habitats to be of intrinsic nent of conservation strategies and the value value, and not as pieces of commodity to be

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 45 evaluated by market strategies, by realizing that living organisms. But there is a different principle conservation is an ethical act, which is based on of objectivity in action when we examine molec• the premise that we are preserving the richness ular structures in the laboratory, on the one hand, and uniqueness of life itself. and when we examine life in evolution, on the This of course assumes the recognition of the other hand. unity of life, of which we are a part. This unity I have deliberately chosen the case of the ob• of life must be viewed not in the trivial sense, jectivity of chemistry, as perhaps the most con• as paying lip service to the idea that we are all fining one, for physics nowadays is quite a dif• interconnected, but in a deeper sense, by ferent matter. Already with Einstein (relativity), acknowledging reverence for all life, and by Heisenberg (uncertainty) and Bohr (quantum making our stewardship of life a principle of theory) enormous difficulties had arisen in ap• paramount importance. plying the criteria of objectivity characteristic The guardianship of the heritage of life is a for the Newtonian system. In recent years, the much larger proposition than the maintenance New Physics has been bursting in new and unex• of scientific objectivity. This we have to acknowl• pected directions, to the point that the principle edge quite clearly, and yet we find that we have of objectivity (in the old-fashioned Newtonian an almost moral obligation to maintain the sense) is considered an antiquated thing of the principle of scientific objectivity. This alleged past. moral obligation must be carefully examined; we The proponents of the New Physics are telling want to pursue a rational path; we don't merely us that we live and think in the participatory want to adhere to a dogma. universe. We cannot be objective, and never are The reconciliation of these two seemingly objective, in the strict old-fashioned sense (even incompatible ethics: of objectivity and of caring, in molecular biology). We are always co-creators though difficult, is both necessary and possible. participators. (Witness in this context the writings We must simply look at the criteria of objectivity of John Archibold Wheeler.) for different kinds of systems. The objectivity of The new concept of objectivity, if we are still the very small (sub-atomic particles) and the to preserve the term, is one of the participatory very large (galaxies and black holes) are not the process, and this concept is excellently suited to same thing. The objectivity of the very simple our new ethics of conservation. Conservation as and the objectivity of the very complex are again an ethical act is now well justified by the stra• governed by different criteria. The objectivity of tegies and methodologies of the New Physics systems without a time dimension and of systems and, especially, its concept of participation. evolving in time are different again. We must therefore not apply one kind of objectivity "Man Did Not Weave a Web of Life, He is Merely (characteristic of simple timeless systems, which a Strand in it. Whatever He Does to the Web, He we analyse in chemistry for instance) to all other systems: of different complexity, different dimen• Does to Himself." sions, of enormous number of variables, and in Before I attempt to outline some principles which time is a most important factor. specific to eco-ethics, let me share with you When properly analysed, we shall find as many a couple of fragments of the great speech of the different types of objectivity as there are disci• Red Indian Chief Seattle, delivered in 1854. In plines examining different aspects of life or of this speech, in a poetic and metaphorical way, the universe. An objective way of looking at the he captures the spirit of eco-ethics. It is this spirit life process, when we attempt to understand life that we must bear in mind when we contemplate as life, is one which must enable us to understand conservation as an ethical act, and other prin• the diversity of the forms of life within the unity ciples of eco-ethics. Chief Seattle said: of all life. This act of deeper understanding is "The Great Chief in Washington sends word that he based on the faculty of empathy, or identifica• wishes to buy our land... tion with other forms of life, which is, at the How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the same time, an act of caring. This is a moral act, in land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the a sense an act of participation in life. Therefore, freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how forget about Jacques Monod (1971) and his opus can you buy them? Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Chance and Necessity, for what he promotes is Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every not understanding life in its evolution, but mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming reducing life to its chemical components. Yes, insect is holy in the memory and experience of my we shall not deny that there is some light that people. The sap which courses through the trees carries comes from the study of molecular structures of the memories of the red man... 46 The Environmentalist Teach your children what we have taught our I think Arne Naess has hit the nail upon the children: that the earth is our mother. Whatever be• head and identified one of the important reasons falls the earth befalls the sons of the earth. If men why so many conservationists keep silent. Many spit upon the ground they spit upon themselves. This we know. The earth does not belong to men; of them would like to say to others: "Awake, man belongs to earth. This we know. All things are don't you see that this tough-mindedness, this connected like the blood which unites one family. process of reducing everything to economic com• All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth modities is in fact bloody-mindedness. What we befalls the sons of the earth. Man did not weave the are at present pursuing is not realism but the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he worst kind of fiction which is leading us to our does to the web, he does to himself." own extinction." This is what so many of us think. But if so, then we shall have to break the conspiracy of silence, for this conspiracy does not serve any form of realism. Instead it is aiding and Conservation Work is About Responsibility. We abetting a destructive fiction. Let us also reflect Abrogate our Responsibility if We Know The that if to know the truth, and stand by it, is to Truth and Do Not Convey it to Others appear romantic, then there is something wrong with the whole structure of society. We would not have designed all the various The responsibility for environments and for conservation strategies, if we did not feel re• their right conservation is our moral obligation if sponsible for the survival and well-being of eco- we are to leave behind any meaningful heritage habitats and whole environments. Responsibility for future generations; and it is our responsibility is a moral category. No scientific description of also to instill the sense of responsibility in each any habitat can make us responsible for it unless other. The World Charter for Nature (Point 8), and until we feel responsible for it. Feeling and proposed at the UN in June 1980 is in a similar being responsible for environments and natural vein. resources is being responsible for the world larger "Man must acquire the knowledge to maintain and than oneself and also being responsible to future enhance his ability to use resources in a manner which generations: of humans and non-humans as well. benefits present and future generations without lasting Our responsibility is effective if we inspire others injury to nature. Man can be in harmony with nature to be responsible. Responsibility is contagious, if the human community acts as a steward for nature for it has a moral force behind it. in the interests of future generations." However, we have a problem here. Our culture, Emil Salim, in his excellent address Conserva• and by this I mean western culture, seems to tion and Development delivered to the Royal discourage us from acknowledging values as a Institution in London in 1981, developed this legitimate part of our scientific and cognitive theme still further when he said: endeavours. Thus in spite of our better knowl• edge we often deny or suppress value considera• "Our aim is not just mere survival; our aim is the type of global conditions where man—all men—can tions though we deep down know of their impor• live in dignity in the environment of his choice, condi• tance. This is the result of the positivist philosophy tions where man can life in harmony with his fellow that has crept into our academia and our thinking man, in harmony with his environment and in harmony and which tells us that values do not belong to with God, the source of all life. the realm of rational cognition and must be there• It is abundantly clear even today that the environ• fore eliminated from man's rational discourse, ment is indivisible; that the degradation of the environ• which is of course nonsense when you come to ment in one location in the end affects the environ• reflect upon it. Yet the atrophy of values is a mental quality of the entire globe. The welfare of the fact. We are all-constrained by the positivist entire globe is therefore the responsibility of people straitjacket. everywhere, regardless of the specific location where The situation has been incisively summarized environmental degradation is actually taking place." by a distinguished Norwegian philosopher, Arne Naess, who wrote in a letter to me: "People in nature management and in important Cost-Benefit Analysis is Insufficient as the Basis institutions having to do with environment and life• for Long-Range Conservation Strategies, and is styles remain silent for tactical reasons: they are afraid in the Service of Myopic Values to seem too idealistic, to take too long a time and place perspective, to appear romantic—not tough enough. The most effective strategies for conservation If they confessed what they value at hear, others would and maintenance of natural resources are not do the same." through mere economic calculations, but through

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 47 the promotion of right eco-values. This point may Is the lonely African with his values going to be appear debatable, at least in some quarters in melted in the melting pot of one homogenized which cost-benefit analysis is elevated to a su• culture? preme criterion. Let us therefore examine the In this context let me suggest that all ethics situation more closely. The cost-benefit analysis have always been in the service of conservation itself is an expression of a value judgement for and preservation. All ethics wish to preserve and it tells us that we should value economic renu- conserve the sanctity of the human being, his meration over everything else. This is an impor• wholeness, his integrity. The virtues that various tant point to remember: we are encouraged to systems of ethics advocate and wish us to uphold abandon traditional values in favour of the always serve some programme of conservation. economic value, in favour of reaping profit in the Here therefore is another argument for our short run. There is clearly a value judgement earlier claim that conservation should be seen as behind seemingly objective cost-benefit analysis. an ethical principle. For all ethic is conservation; As conservationists and comprehensive thinkers and all conservation is ethic. dealing with global strategies, we must resist this kind of subversion of our thinking based on a value which—as we have seen over and again— Every Form of Life is Unique, Warranting Re• is so inadequate in the long run. If we are so spect Regardless of its Present Worth to Man clever that we can exploit everything to our ad• vantage, then we must not be so stupid as to cut How do we preserve the integrity of the people off the branch on which we sit. still adhering to traditional life-styles in our times Yet, development is important, particularly of change and development? Perhaps by maintain• for the Third World nations. Incidentally, I often ing that not only every culture is of intrinsic have the feeling that the idea of development has value and should be spared but also that every been made into a fetish in the developing coun• form of life is unique, warranting respect, regard• tries. What 'progress' signified in the West some less of its present worth to man. This principle is 20 years ago—the sacred cow beyond criticism so expressed in Point 8 of the UN World Charter and shadow of any doubt—development came to for Nature, which I have already mentioned. signify in the Third World nations. Be it as it may, Now, in order to treat every form of life as we have to find a way of reconciling conservation unique, and as a value in itself, we must develop with development. Now, let us reflect and realize certain attitudes, certain frames of mind, in short, that the very formulation of our dilemma is values specific to eco-ethics which would inspire slanted in favour of development. For reconciling right behaviour and make us take seriously our conservation with development almost invariably intrinsic evaluations of eco-habitats. When we means (even in the boundaries of eco-develop- look deeper into the attitudes that are required of ment; though I may be mistaken about that) us to treat every from of life as unique; when we constraining conservation to the demands of inquire what modes of thinking would be re• development. quired to respond adequately to the demands of We should have the courage and wisdom to the heritage of whole life, then we must come to look at the total equation, at the whole pano• the conclusion that no form of objective thinking rama of man's culture, including his spiritual will ever suffice. Instead we must develop and needs. What I specifically mean is beautifully implement reverence for life. rendered in the book by Colin Turnbull (1962) in which the lonely African thus speaks: "I have tried hard to understand the white man and Reverence for Life is Both an Ecological Value his ways, but I can see only harm. What happiness have and an Important Principle of Conservationist they brought us? They have given us a road we did not Strategies, for Without Endorsing it, our Defence need, a road that brings more and more foreigners and of Living Habitats will Hang in Thin Air enemies into our midst, causing trouble, making our women unclean, forcing us to a way of life that is not ours, planting crops we do not want, doing slave's Reverence for life is not you and me talking work. At least the BaNgwana left us our beliefs, but about it. If it is to become a reality we must the white man even wants to steal these from us. He change the modes of our thinking. We must sends us missions to destroy our belief and to teach develop what I should like to term as reverential our children to recite fine-sounding words: but they thinking, which is quite a different kind of think• are words we believe in anyway, most of them. And we ing from one that is thrust upon us in present live according to our beliefs, which is more than the schools and academia. The 'official' thinking is an white man does". objective one which often goes against the grain 48 The Environmentalist of reverential thinking and the principle of ethics and eco-culture, must not be seen as a reverence of life itself. luxury but as an endorsement of a way of looking To think reverentially is first of all to recog• at life. nize human life as an intrinsic value; is it to recog• nize love as an essential and indispensable modal• ity of human existence; is it to recognize creative thinking as an inalienable part of human nature; Our Evolutionary Heritage is a Value, and Evolu• is it to recognize joy as an inherent part of daily tion Can be Used as the Criterion as to Which living; is it to recognize the brotherhood of all Forms of Life are More Valuable than Others: beings as the basis of our epistemological para• the More Accomplished a Creation of Evolution, digm. the More Worthy it is of Preservation Aldo Leopold (1949) was clearly anticipating this new ethic, which he called a land ethic, in Organisms not only live in large habitats but his memorable book A Sand County Almanac. they are also a product of evolution. Evolution He claimed: itself is a value. It is within the matrix of evolu• tion that everything happens. In both human "All ethics so far evolved rest upon a single pre• realities and ecological habitats there are always mise : that the individual is a member of a community conflicts between different demands of life. of interdependent parts. His instincts prompt him to compete for his place in that community, but his Reverence for life should be maintained as much ethics prompt him to cooperate. The land ethic simply as possible. But we cannot extend it to all living enlarges the boundaries of the community to include forms all the time. In times of conflict how soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively, the should we decide which form of life is more land." important, if we claim that each form of life is unique? I suggest that we use the criterion of The enlargement of ethic so that it includes as evolution: the more exquisite the form and the part of the global eco-community soils and more accomplished the product of evolution it waters, plants and animals, rocks and other represents, the more worthy it is of preserving. beings, brings us to the idea of eco-justice. This In my book Eco-Philosophy: Designing New idea has been of late pursued by churches which Tactics for Living (Skolimowski, 1981) I have are becoming more and more ecologically aware. outlined the evolutionary imperative and its There are two simultaneous movements converg• values. If we accept evolution as continually ing; the churches slowly enlarge their conscience transcending itself, in other words as emergent; to include justice for all beings in this universe; and if we accept ourselves as a part of the evolu• so that we read in one of the pamphlets, on eco- tionary process, the question is, what values can justice (produced by American Baptist National we extract from the evolutionary process and Ministries), that 'Humanity and nature can come how can these values, if judiciously applied, shape together in eco-justice'. The pamphlet goes on to our attitude and behaviour? I suggest that the explain that eco-justice means joining together following precepts can be extricated from intelli• concerns for ecology and justice. It expresses the gent reading of evolution: age-old dream that 'Earth shall be fair, and all • behave in such a way as to preserve and her people wise'. The other movement is the enhance the unfolding of evolution and all its ecology movement which is slowly gravitating riches; toward the idea that we shall need a spiritual • behave in such a way as to preserve and basis to make an ultimate sense of our ecological enhance life, which is a necessary condition for concerns. An eco-theology is thus in the making. carrying on evolution; What reverence for life means in terms of our • behave in such a way as to preserve and thinking, perception and attitudes toward all enhance the ecosystem, which is a necessary con• beings is beautifully expressed in the passages of dition for further enhancement of life and con• the Chief Seattle I have already quoted. Tradi• sciousness; tional life-styles of many cultures provide elo• • behave in such a way as to preserve and quent evidence that reverential thinking is not enhance the capacities which are the highest only possible but has been practiced on a large developed form of the evolved universe: con• scale. The strength and sustain ability of many sciousness, creativeness, compassion; traditional cultures and traditional life-styles • behave in such a way as to preserve and consisted precisely in enshrining the attitude of enhance human life which is the vessel in which reverence for life as a modus of daily life. In brief, the most precious achievements of evolution are reverence for life, as an essential value of eco- contained.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 49 These five characteristics of the evolutionary Self-reliance of Individuals, Nations and Cultures imperative are only variations on the same theme. is an Ethical Imperative so that the Idea of Res• They all follow from the first formulation. How• ponsibility (of Individuals and Nations) does not ever, the articulation of the first formulation Become Meaningless makes us aware and gives us a guidance on how to act in times of conflict. From the standpoint of Eco-justice demands that we not only assume the evolutionary imperative, if we have to take our responsibilities, but also that we have the the life of a human being or a mosquito, we scope and the possibility to do so. Self-reliance, should not hesitate but take the life of a mos• the capacity to be your own master, thus appears quito—for it is a far less accomplished product to be one of the values indispensable for eco- of evolution. We have always known this by justice. This refers to the self-reliance of individu• instinct. The evolutionary imperative justifies as als, who must not be dwarfed by the machine, a right moral principle that which we have acted bureaucracy, or some other forces that crush the upon through our instinct. will of individuals and make mockery of their responsibility for themselves and their eco- My evolutionary imperative has been chal• habitats; and this also refers to the self-reliance lenged by deep ecology proponents as heedlessly of nations which must be able to sustain them• anthropocentric; indeed as spelling out a new selves and not be so dependent on and so deter• version of the old-fashioned concept of the mined by other nations that the will and inter• superiority of man over all other beings, and as ests of these other nations will make mockery of giving a carte blanche for the exploitation of self-management and indeed the sovereignty of other beings for the benefit of man. Yet, I wish dependent nations. to submit that this old-fashioned anthropocen- Self-reliance of individuals and nations is one trism cannot be found in my imperative. What side of the coin; ecological diversity is the other can be found in my imperative is an awareness side of this coin. In order to do justice to the that ethical choices are choices of values, and variety of lands, climates, circumstances and when I am faced with a choice: whether to take traditions we have to cultivate diversity in ecolog• the life of a mosquito or a life of a human being, ical, agricultural (as well as cultural) terms. For I choose (on the basis of the evolutionary criteri• this diversity is the basis of self-reliance; and vice on) the life of a mosquito. What other criteria versa; self-reliance in so vastly varied circum• are there? Total egalitarianism, according to stances of our globe, and within different tradi• which every form of being has an absolutely equal tions simply means encouraging and maintaining right, is a nonsense from the human point of diversity. Diversity means heterogeneity; means view, and I must emphasize—that this is the only the opposite of homogeneity. Homogeneity point of view we have: human, even when we profits central economies, high-tech homogeneity. wish to argue against this point! Total egalitarian• Heterogeneity profits local people; enables them ism is also against the modus operandi of nature; to be self-reliant; ultimately enables them to be and of the whole of evolution—as we understand responsible and good stewards. it. Do the proponents of deep ecology wish to We therefore have a cluster of three concepts: say that they know better than nature and evolu• self-reliance, diversity and heterogeneity which tion? And what is their special mandate that do not seem at the first sight to belong to the enables them to cast out all other views which realm of ethics, and yet on a closer inspection disagree with theirs—when the subject is so have clearly ethical implications; are in fact a intricate, complex and difficult? Moreover, from part of eco-ethic. the standpoint of the Third World Nations, the To put the matter in a crude and simplified gospel of return to original natural conditions of manner: it is immoral to allow homogeneity to the hunter-gatherer societies, whereby we shall prevail. have to eliminate some 80% of the world's pop• ulation—this concept means a systematic Conclusion genocide. For where do we start 'eliminating' the overabundant populations (may I ask deep The International Union for the Conservation ecology people) if not from so-called overpop- of Nature and Natural Resources, especially its ulated countries? Thus on one interpretation deep Commision on Ecology, should be lauded and ecology is spelling out a version of population applauded for taking the initiative to develop fascism; unintended by deep ecology people no eco-culture and eco-ethic. This initiative is very doubt, but embedded in some premises of deep timely and very important as can be witnessed ecology nevertheless. by signs coming from various quarters.

50 The Environmentalist Already in the early 1970s the Polish writer nal for Environmental Ethics, as well as the group Alexandrowicz wrote a penetrating essay entitled concerned with deep ecology, whose chief inspira• Ecological Conscience; and this was a statement tion is John Muir, should be particularly men• coming from Communist Poland. In the late tioned. 1970s and early 1980s the awareness that our The time for eco-ethics has arrived. It may ethic must be ecologically based has been emerg• be said without exaggeration that unless we devel• ing from various quarters, among which the op and implement eco-ethics as based on some churches seem to be taking more and more intrinsic values, our work as conservationists will decisive initiative—calling not only for eco- be superficial and ineffective. It is to be hoped justice ('Humanity and nature can come together that working conservationists, members of the in eco-justice'), but also calling for enacting the Commission on Ecology in particular, will not shy 11th Commandment. Thus we read in the essay from value considerations, but will consciously by Vincent Rossi entitled: Toward an Ethic of and deliberately include them in their work Ecology that: because these values are the hidden springs of our action and thought. "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof: Thou shall not despoil the earth, nor destroy the life thereon." References This statement comes from the organization Disch, R. (1970) The Ecological Conscience (Values of survival), Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. calling itself (interestingly enough!) The Eleventh Leopold, A. (1949) A Sand County Almanac—with essays on Commandment Fellowship, and is based in San conservation from Round River, Ballantine Books, New Francisco. York. Monod, J. (1971) Chance and Necessity. From other quarters we have heard powerful, Salim, E. (1981) Conservation and Development, Second World if at times lonely, voices of Murray Bookchin, Conservation Lecture, WWF, London. who tied his ecological ethic to an anarchist Schweitzer, A. (1949) Out of My Life and Thought, A Mentor Book, New York. philosophy; and of Thomas Berry, who is more Skolimowski, H. (1981) Eco-Philosophy: Designing new tactics Teilhardian in his inspiration (Teilhard de Chardin, for living, Marion Boyars, London. 1959). Of course there is a legion of others with Teilhard de Chardin, P. (1959) The Phenomenon of Man, Collins, London. various degrees of commitment and different em• Turnbull, C. (1962) The Lonely African, Simon and Schuster, phases. Among them the people around the Jour• New York.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 51 11. Conservation: Not by Skill Alone. The Importance of a Workable Concept in the Conservation of Nature HERMAN D. RIJKSEN School of Environmental Conservation Management, I.P.L.P.P., Ciawi, Indonesia

Indonesia gained independence in 1945, the situa• Summary tion remained the same until the seventies, when Indonesia has a long history of conservation activity, some major changes were effected by govern• particularly within its original religious customs fadatj, mental decree; thus the special branch became a and since the beginning of the twentieth century, it has Directorate with a higher degree of executive become institutionalized under colonial rule. From 1969 power. onwards Indonesia has welcomed foreign assistance in conservation, which has been provided by the World Since 1969 Indonesia has welcomed foreign Wildlife Fund, IUCN, FAO and the Netherlands Develop• assistance in the protection of its wildlife and ment Cooperation (in the form of a Training School). sanctuaries. The World Wildlife Fund cooperated Initiated by the FAO programme, the combined assistance with the Indonesian Service for the Protection has resulted in the establishment of new conservation and Conservation of Nature (Dinas Perlindungan areas, and the extension of those already existing, and the dan Pengawetan Alam, PPA), and initiated im• drafting of management proposals. These activities have provements in the management of the Ujung initiated an unfortunate shift in the meaning of the Kulon Reserve, West Java, so that a population conservation concept from a protective to a utilitarian of some 50 Javan rhinoceroses could build up in approach, according to the World Conservation Strategy. safety. The success of this initiative was followed The utilitarian approach is apparently ambiguous, inviting opportunistic interpretations which put a burden on the in 1970 by a technical assistance project for the task of the conservation manager and is likely to result in Gunung Leuser Reserve in Aceh (north Sumatra) accelerated destruction of conservation areas. Drawing by the Netherlands Appeal of the World Wildlife from the customs of his own culture, the Indonesian Fund (WNF). In 1972 the cooperation with PPA manager should know that protection of nature is not a was extended to technical assistance for the Meru foreign, 'modern' concept, and that it complies with adat Betiri Reserve, and for the Baluran Reserve (both in a stronger sense than any rights of utilization a person in East Java). Special committees in the Nether• might claim. A plea is made to IUCN to revise its recent lands guided the assistance and allocated the concept of conservation so as to make it serve the survival funds from several different sources. of nature's diversity rather than politics, and to stress the underlying cause of decline of natural diversity, namely From these activities, in 1975 a coordinated over-population in combination with irresponsible applica• WWF/IUCN Indonesia Conservation Programme tion of advanced technology. evolved, setting off a five-year assistance program• me financially supported by funds raised in the Netherlands, and directed by an International Advisory Committee. At about the same time, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Introduction Nations (FAO) started a long-term programme to Indonesia has a comparatively long history of also assist PPA in the management of major authoritative conservation activity. In 1889, it reserves. The teamleader of this programme also established its first official sanctuary, Cibodas, on served as the honorary representative of the the slope of the Gn. Gede-Pangrango mountain World Wildlife Fund, directing the Indonesia complex in West Java. At the end of the thirties, Conservation Programme. Indonesia established a legal system for protecting At the completion of both programmes in its unique nature in the face of development; a 1982, the major effects of the joint WWF/FAO system which was grafted on the nature protec• assistance can be summarized as significant exten• tion legislation of the Netherlands. The actual sions of several reserves; the establishment of a protection of sanctuaries was delegated to a number of new, major conservation areas in special branch of the Forestry Service. When Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, the Moluccas and

52 The Environmentalist Fig. 11.1. Indonesia's rainforest is one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world. At present, less than 6% of it enjoys some form of legal protection. (Photo credit: H. D. Rijksen.) Irian Jaya, including marine sanctuaries; and the hemisphere. Since the higher authorities directing drafting of an impressive library of management forestry and nature conservation activities func• proposals for the major reserves in addition to a tion in such a technocratic atmosphere, these comprehensive Indonesia Conservation Master- innovations seemed so attractive as to become plan. readily accepted by the Government. In 1980, However, the foreign assistance also had some when the World Conservation Strategy was intro• unfortunate results. Just in the period when the duced in Indonesia, it was generally considered conservation movement began to gain some as little more than the official institutionalization momentum in Indonesia, the FAO programme of the "conservation is 'wise'utilization" concept. introduced two innovations in Indonesia's con• So far, the developments in the circles of servation philosophy. (1) It advocated that the higher authority and administration may seem American interpretation of conservation—i.e., promising. Some people have hailed the official "conservation is the utilization of nature re• acceptance of these new concepts as a 'success for sources for the greatest good, to the greatest conservation'. However, it is not altogether number, for the longest period of time"—was certain that this acceptance means that natural more relevant to Indonesia than the 'old- systems and organisms in Indonesia have a better fashioned' definition of protection. (2) It recom• chance of survival. Currently, some five years mended that major sanctuaries—also after the after the introduction of the innovative concepts, American model—should become developed as it is generally being accepted that conservation National Parks so as to allow for their utilization areas—and organisms—must be 'managed' and by the people of Indonesia. 'utilized', rather than protected—so as to ensure After Indonesia's independence, and since the their survival. establishment of a politically stable government In the field, the situation with regard to in 1965, many prospective managers received encroachment of conservation areas in the period their training at Universities in the United States 1975—1980 seems to have worsened, while of America, so as to become authoritative techno• measures for preventing encroachment were crats in the materialistic tradition of the western obviously insufficient (Fig. 11.1). During the

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 53 early years of the foreign assistance programme conservation areas (Sub-balai KSDA), executing the problem was identified as mainly due to poor responsibilities over a variety of disciplines, dele• management skills of the managers. Consequent• gated to an extensive cadre of 'specialists' and ly, it was strongly recommended to provide middle- and lower-level personnel. Their task is higher levels of management authority with extra to direct staff, and delegate and supervise and training in the philosophy and techniques of direct planning. In principle they should also con• 'nature conservation' so as to improve their per• trol and where necessary enforce, the implemen• formance. Thus, in 1979, with the assistance of tation of their own and the government's author• the Netherlands Government (Bilateral Technical itative decisions. It is noteworthy that many Assistance) the School of Environmental Conser• of these qualities are still rather underdeveloped vation Management was established at Ciawi by in the Indonesian way of life. They are qualities the Agency for Agricultural Education, Training belonging to a 'state-concept' of centralized and Extension (BPLPP) of the Ministry of Agri• authority, which may contrast with the ancient culture. ideal of communal 'authority'—as exemplified in lmushawaraK'—or even 'non-authority', which is still highly valued in Indonesian thought. In his work, the manager has little more than The Problems of Understanding a Concept limited contact with the basis of his responsibili• ties. In the Indonesian situation, the manager The School of Environmental Conservation receives very scant feedback from the field in Management provides an intensive course of some response to his decisions. Consequently, he may ten months duration, and this includes theoretical employ and direct strategies which do not effec• instruction and training in the field to employees tively fit the situation in the field for a consi• of the Directorate of Nature Conservation (PPA). derable period of time without realising that very Most of the students attending the course are little is being achieved. The training programme university graduates, and many of them have con• therefore puts emphasis on the active gathering siderable experience in the service. They are, or of feedback by the managers. are meant to become the top-level managers in It may sound like a truism that a manager, in the Directorate, the Provincial Conservation Units order to execute his task properly, must have a (Balai Konservasi Sumber Daya Alam), and major good understanding of the quality of his task. He

Fig. 11.2. Lack of control can result in the destruction of rainforests through 'traditional' forms of land use. The rainforest of Borneo is being destroyed by slash and burn (shifting) cultivation by the dayak tribes. (Photo credit: H. D. Rijksen.)

54 The Environmentalist must understand what 'conservation' is and why complex of religiously founded customary rules it is necessary for it to be implemented and of behaviour, designed for regulating daily life in enforced. However, even managers who have been a clan-system under subsistence economy. It can working for many years in the service of conserva• be argued that adat regulated daily life in such a tion in Indonesia, might be utterly confused in manner as to ensure clan-survival by enforcing an their understanding of the concept of conserva• harmonious exchange with the environment. tion, and, as a consequence, they might lack To a manager with little local experience, yet motivation for their task. Many of them have who is sympathetic to the problem of poverty experienced frustrations in the implementation in rural areas, such a case may represent a clash of their work. For example, they are expected to between a still widely respected institution of the guard and protect a stretch of land reserved by past and the modern state-concept enforcing law, but on the other hand they may feel obliged, 'alien' ideas of land use upon a local situation. if not compelled, to let all those 'poor' people in When he recalls the general belief that his the surrounding areas make use of it—especially ancestors lived in harmony with nature, he may if encroachment pressure is high (Fig. 11.2). feel compelled to let the people have their way in Even since their independence from colonial the hope that they, too, must still be able to live rule, Indonesian people still do not easily accept in harmony with nature, because of their lower rules and restrictions on their behaviour, especial• standard of living. After a few years his hope is ly those rules dealing with the utilization of land invariably betrayed! and natural products. Instead of super-individual Then, when he overlooks the ruins of what he 'property', state-land is commonly considered as was supposed to conserve, he may argue: "What 'free-land', and when a trespasser encroaching is more important, people or nature?", and he will upon a natural system reserved by law is have no difficulty in answering himself: "People challenged by legal action, he commonly defends of course!" (Fig. 11.3). And thus he consoles himself by reference to his adat rights. Adat is the himself in the conviction that by forsaking his

Fig. 11.3. Conservation areas in parts of Indonesia are being destroyed by local people cutting trees to sell as firewood to supplement their low incomes from subsistence agriculture. (Photo credit: H. D. Rijksen.)

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 55 task he has in fact done a good deed. However, Nevertheless, apart from being a concept by so doing, the manager has misunderstood the derived from an untenable assumption of people's position and function of adat, the concept of a conduct with respect to natural systems, the 'new state, the function of government and the value and positive' interpretation of conservation con• of his task. tains a more serious flaw, namely that it invites a reversed order of priorities, which violates logic by uniting two fundamentally different entities. On the one hand, the concept 'conservation', The Meaning of Conservation which literally means to keep/save or protect In the majority of encroachment cases by local from decline, and on the other the concept 'use', people referring to adat rights, it is not a clash of or 'utilization', an activity which, as a rule, leads an ancient, very respectful and functional institu• to a more or less significant decline in physical tion opposing the modern state-concept. On the properties and/or functions of the object used. contrary, it is usually a rather vulgar clash of It so happens that conservation is related to interest between an individual—or group of utilization in an unidirectional hierarchical individuals—opportunistically deploying a relic relationship, since both entities are of a different of an otherwise abandoned religious life-style 'logical type'. Something meant to be conserved while seeking economic gain, against the unspe- cannot by definition be utilized, while some cifiable, yet highly valuable survival interests of aspect or part of something meant to be used can the state community. Unfortunately, this is not indeed be conserved. Thus, utilization under the commonly understood, and the former, false, influence of the dominant concept of conserva• view of adat clashing with the 'alien' concept tion we may call 'wise' or 'economic' use, while seems to prevail in the circles of management the opposite construction makes the word authority. In such an atmosphere the authorita• conservation meaningless. Even if technocrats tive introduction of a 'new and positive' interpre• consider natural systems and organisms as a tation of conservation, full of attractive catch• 'resource' which they presently want to protect words—i.e., "the management of human use of so as to utilize them later, then it is still erroneous the biosphere so that it may yield the greatest to speak of conservation. In that case one should, sustainable benefit to present generations" according to institutionalized language speak of (IUCN, 1980) seems to offer just the alternative economic management. formula for a manager frustrated by the problems The word conservation should be reserved to of his protection task, and at the same time designate the concept which aims at protecting appears to corroborate his made-up justification and keeping in 'good order' significant parts of for forsaking his task. the biosphere for no other than intrinsic reasons, The 'new and positive' approach may seem at• since it is being acknowledged that the bio• tractive. As it is enveloped in quasi-scientific sphere—in its composition of the times before jargon it is just comprehensible for the majority the industrial revolution—provided for the of the people. They are given to understand that optimal living conditions for mankind, while any by commercializing a commodity—or natural form of human interference, including technology resource—rational people are supposed to con• designed for purposes other than subsistence, serve these resources in their own, long-term, impairs the functions of any natural system. It economic interest. However, what most people need not be of our concern here to consider the apparently do not realize when advertising this desirability and feasibility of involving managers approach, is that it is based on an assumption of conservation areas in matters of economic coming from an almost mythical ideal of the management; for the time being their task is materialistic societies of the western hemisphere, strenuous enough. which does not appear to apply to natural (free) Given the opportunity of a training school, systems and organisms, particular those that are one can ask the manager-student to simulate not directly useful. In Indonesia, as in many other what would happen in a conservation area if, 'developing' nations the mental atmosphere, which under his management, the people were allowed only recently changed from a fundamentally to utilize any complex of 'natural resources' in religious, subsistence way of life, to anon-religious, such a manner that they reap the 'greatest sus• materialistic way of life may currently favour tainable benefit' so as to serve development. In depleting any 'free' resource—perhaps in the lin• his exercise, he readily arrives at scenarios derived gering belief that the Supreme Being, like the Nat• from the actual situation. In order to reap the ural Forces of the past, will undoubtedly replenish greatest possible (sustainable?) benefit, people whatever is being taken by His devout followers. apply the theories of agriculture and forestry,

56 The Environmentalist which, by their commercial nature must fail to plants and fishes, fruits, tree seedlings, and pos• comply with the secondary objective—i.e., that sibly timber, can be managed and harvested so as the natural system should remain unimpaired. to be retailed to processing industries. In some However, the incompatibility is usually detected places the commercial exploitation by conces• only after irreversible loss has become evident! sionaires (e.g., swift-nests, nener-fish, timber) Then, given the task of maintaining ecological seems to have resumed former proportions. diversity and the richness of the systems pre• Against such an authoritative background a served by law, it is not difficult to let the manager cannot properly fulfil a protection task conscientious manager make a choice so as to preventing and blocking local encroachment of determine the most workable interpretation of a growing population in need of land no matter the conservation concept. If he has gained enough how strongly motivated he may be to conserve motivation from the arguments demonstrating the natural systems and organisms. The only way out need to conserve large portions of the bio• of this dilemma seems to be that Indonesia sphere—and his country—in good, natural officially revises its philosophy of conservation order, he is bound to adhere to the literal once again. Rather than adopting an interpreta• meaning of the word conservation. tion which may, perhaps, be feasible for techno• logically advanced nations, Indonesia might seek for ways to protect and safeguard effectively its Background Support unique nature, based on concepts present within its own cultural traditions from the dawn of For executing his task back at his station the history. manager needs more than understanding and The manager who was compelled to forsake his motivation. He must be backed by authority and task was right in supposing that his ancestors, legislation which leaves no room for opportunistic more often than not, did live in harmony with interpretations, such as those possibly generated nature. However, rather than supposing that this by reference to 'wise use', 'greatest sustainable was due to some mysterious characteristic, benefit', etc.. perhaps lost in the course of time, he should have At present, Indonesia's conservation activity wondered why they could live in harmony with seems to operate in a sort of conceptual vacuum. their environment. There is little reason to think The old Ordinances legally regulating the protec• that those ancestors, no matter how long ago, tion of conservation areas were more or less were significantly different in their mental capaci• abolished in 1975, awaiting a new legislation ties from the people of today. In other words, adjusted to the 'conservation is utilization' deep down in their 'hearts', they may have enter• concept. Draft legislation clearly reflects the 'new tained as many secret wishes for more ... and and positive' approach, materializing and com• better ... as anyone of us today. Nevertheless mercializing nature. Natural systems have become they characteristically rarely, if ever, took more degraded to a 'resource' in which organisms serve from their environment than was necessary for as commodities to be utilized. No doubt this their subsistence. Reading the many minutely approach facilitates Indonesia's development in detailed ethnographies on the peoples of South• the service of a world economic system domi• east Asia, he could discover that the people lived nated by technologically advanced nations in in harmony with nature because their culture— need of 'resources'. However, with regard to religion—adat complex directed individuals to Indonesia's unique natural systems this approach behave in such a manner that they could not take is certain to be disastrous mainly because it fails more from nature than was necessary for their to authorize and support protection unam• daily subsistence. biguously, but focusses instead on utilization The most important factor in this culture— while inviting unspecified developments. religion— adat complex was undoubtedly the Although the legislation has not yet been institutionalization of mechanisms to regulate the ratified, the achievements gained in the protec• number, and hence density, of people (e.g., tion of natural systems during the period 1970— warfare and infanticide). This does not mean that 1980 are gradually being reversed again, in spite such mechanisms should be permitted in modern of improved performance of the managers. Thus society, but rather demonstrates how thoroughly the 'conservation is utilization' concept appears the complex interfered with the individual's to invite the institutionalization of conservation wishes and aspirations, and acted against his areas as the 'resource' from which primates, private interests. Secondly, the religious beliefs turtle-eggs and hatchlings, crocodile young, birds, and adat severely restricted people in their butterflies, nener-fish, swift-nests, 'ornamental' behaviour (e.g., by restricting the frequency of Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 57 intercourse), and in particular it was restrictive in underlined by every individual is almost irre• regards exploiting more than they needed. Rather levant, although it will certainly help enforce than 'immodest' or 'illegal' it was considered a sin the restrictions if, through education, every to take more than was necessary; violation of the individual understands the values of such group- rule was believed to be punished, not by some interest, or at least can have confidence in the person or tangible institution, but by a Divine 'wise' authorities who claim to understand these Force which might strike with an unpredictable values. agent of vengeance. In any case, the manager should not be It is interesting to note the effectiveness of this inhibited in his protection task by a feeling that psychological method which appeared to operate such restrictions as must pertain to conservation through the violator's own physical functions. areas are due to an alien or modern concept. The Following the violation of adat, the person might social history of his own immediate ancestors feel so 'disharmonious' with his environment as to could teach him that even the strictest forms of fall ill, an illness which could be cured only by protection of sanctuaries is (and was) a perfectly elaborate social rituals, imposing even more severe legitimate concept, complying with adat in a restrictions upon him and his kindred. stronger capacity than any of the private 'rights' This short summary demonstrates how the a local individual might assert. culture—religion— adat complex effectively com• If a government, as a wise measure of pru• manded a great harmonious coexistence with the dence, or for any other reason, establishes a natural environment in ancient Indonesia. It is balance between the different forms of land use perhaps sad that when the original religions were by conserving 10—20% of its land surface in an being supplanted by the 'modern' religions, there unspoilt, natural state, it in fact forces itself to appeared a vacuum in the people's attitude find a solution to the real problem, namely exces• towards nature, not only because the awe of sive human population growth, before the condi• nature was precisely the focus of mental change tions of life for people have become entirely effected by the missionary activities, but also hopeless because the point of no return has been because the restrictions on behaviour in the adat passed. Such a move is clearly and unambiguously were the first to be abandoned—the 'rights' never in the interest of the entire state community, faded away! Modern religions do not offer any especially the coming generation, although it may rules with a similar respect for nature. On the not be in the immediate interests of some contrary, in their emphasis on the almost divine deplorable individuals who might wish to try and nature of mankind, they amplify the natural urge find their prosperity on the reserved land. to exploit and subdue nature. Be that as it may, The students trained at the School of Environ• the manager might glean from a study on the way mental Conservation Management are specially of life of his ancestors, that they survived in employed to direct the conservation of such areas harmonious coexistence with their natural sur• reserved by law, in the interest of their state. One rounding, while maintaining a legendary rich cul• would expect that IUCN would appreciate the ture, because they strongly adhered to institu• difficulty of their task and would strongly sup• tions, regulations and restrictions. port them on an authoritative, international Clans have merged into states, and much of the level, since the effectiveness of conservation is regulations of ancient adat have been incor• not dependent on the manager's motivation and porated into laws. The only important aspect skill alone. The survival of South-east Asia's lagging behind is that the former religious awe has unique nature will be dependent largely on not metamorphosed into obeyance of the law and whether or not the skilled manager receives the state-concept. Furthermore, the function of adequate authoritative support and legal backing clan-authority enforcing some rules of behaviour, according to an unambiguous interpretation of when necessary, has not automatically turned the conservation concept. into a respectful, efficient law-enforcement ap• paratus in many 'developing' states. Thus the manager and his supporting authorities should understand that conservation at present, as much A Plea to IUCN as in former times, is a group-concept. Conserva• Ironically perhaps, the conservation of nature tion appears to be primarily in the interest of in Indonesia enjoys rather strong official support groups or the state community by ensuring from the government. As the Minister for survival and harmonious existence, in spite of Development Supervision and the Environment immediate interests of individuals of that group, (PPLH) has stressed during many meetings, the or state. Whether the group-interest is being fully Indonesian government aims at reserving 10—15% 58 The Environmentalist of the land surface as land for conservation being desiring to conserve such environmental condi• aware that this in the full interest of the state tions as are able to sustain human life, they first community. The non-sustainable or destructive have to arrange for a human population size (and utilization patterns of the environmental sector density) which must be significantly lower than allocated for production are gradually coming the population size of the period just before the under official scrutiny, while legislative control is industrial/technological revolution began to improving. The training of land-use planners and dominate the economy of the nation. managers of conservation areas has high priority. The law of nature prescribes that one cannot Of course this does not imply that conservation have both development and growing populations, areas are safe from encroachment, and that illegal while maintaining a 'life-supporting' environment! hunting and trading in endangered protected Far from being a revolutionary message, such organisms has ceased. But added to the threats to a standpoint based on biological realities, would nature from within the country, nature conserva• corroborate the serious socio-economic studies tion presently faces the threat of 'fundamental concerning the present state of affairs in the changes' in the concept of conservation which is world, and, more important still, would support based on the official conservation authorities' ap• nature conservation efforts more forcefully. proach to nature induced by the World Conserva• Rather than restricting conservationist-managers tion Strategy and encouraged by IUCN. in their service, it would attract sincere conserva• Rather than fundamentally revolutionizing tion-activists to join forces with IUCN, not with long established concepts which are apparently funds perhaps, but certainly with intellectual and meant to attract political support by grooming physical powers. Alternatively, IUCN will not be technocrats with slogans on the 'integration of able to fulfil a meaningful function in the con• conservation and development', IUCN, in its servation of nature, as long as it allows its possible capacity as the established 'scientific conscience' insights in the ecology of Mother Earth to be of the conservation movement, should formulate corrupted by political, or monetary love for, and adequately, and in the strongest possible and belief in technocracy. comprehensible language, the authoritative message to governments that the possibilities for further socio-economic and intellectual develop• ment are inversely related to human biomass. In other words, if governments aim at maintaining References or further developing their technologically IUCN (1980) World Conservation Strategy, IUCN, Gland, directed economies, while at the same time Switzerland.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 59 12. Conservation and Rural Development: Towards an Integrated Approach J. HANKS Institute of Natural Resources, University of Natal, PO Box 375, Pietermaritzburg 3200, Republic of South Africa

strategy which recognizes the prime importance Summary of food production, but at the same time safe• The overall goal of rural development programmes guards soil and representative areas of natural should be the reduction of poverty, unemployment, mal• ecosystems. nutrition and inequity, and an integral part of all these It is perhaps inevitable that hungry and very programmes is the introduction of a positive rural land- poor people who live in a situation of rural pover• use strategy, which recognizes the prime importance of food production, but at the same time safeguards soil and ty next to a well-protected wildlife sanctuary will representative areas of natural ecosystems. The goal of have no enthusiasm for traditional nature conser• the World Conservation Strategy is the integration of vation, mainly because they believe that the conservation and development so that we may all have interest of wildlife is being put before that of a way of life which is sustainable. However, it is becoming human beings. In their eyes, poverty, disease and increasingly difficult to sustain legitimate human demands malnutrition are the priority concerns, and the because high rates of human population growth, coupled apparent excessive concern for wildlife is regarded with a high rate of world economic growth are threatening as incongruous and unbalanced. When a conflict the four basic biological systems that support the global arises between conservation and legitimate human economy, the grasslands, fisheries, croplands and forests. demands for rural development, and politicians This paper gives an outline of how these systems are like Professor Emil Salim are asked to justify the threatened, with emphasis on the relationship between retention of designated wildlife areas, a conserva• rural development, as defined by the World Conservation tion philosophy must be readily available that will Strategy, conservation and environmental degradation. The importance of determining felt needs and aspirations satisfy the most demanding critic who is sur• in designing both conservation and rural development rounded by absolute rural poverty. activities is discussed, with particular reference to the Unfortunately, far too many people still look advantages and disadvantages of traditional life-styles. upon conservation activities as being solely con• cerned with the 'preservation' of large and spectac• ular mammals, for either aesthetic reasons or for Introduction the benefit of foreign tourists. Under such circum• stances, it is hardly surprising if 'traditional' con• In most Third World countries, poverty and all servation values receive little support. The World the problems associated with it tend to be con• Conservation Strategy is an attempt to change centrated in rural communities. Urban poverty such attitudes. Following the Strategy, conserva• is all too often exacerbated by rural-to-urban tion is defined as the management of human use migration, and thus it is logical to view it as a of the biosphere so that it may yield the greatest derivative of rural poverty. For reasons that will sustainable benefit to present generations while be described later, rural development is one of maintaining its potential to meet the needs and the most difficult problems facing a developing aspirations of future generations. In other words, nation. conservation goes far beyond 'preservation', and For the purpose of this presentation, it is includes sustainable utilization and the enhance• assumed that the overall goal of rural develop• ment of the natural environment. Above all, this ment programmes is the reduction of poverty, un• new philosophy emphasizes a positive linking of employment, malnutrition and inequality, and conservation and development. The goal of the that an integral part of all these programmes is World Conservation Strategy is the integration of the introduction of a positive rural land-use conservation and development so that we may all

60 The Environmentalist have a way of life that is sustainable, and if cultivating one third of the world's cropland that pursued realistically, conservation goals and rural is tilled by draft animals. development goals should be totally compati• Unfortunately, the world is full of examples of ble—hence the title of this presentation. serious grassland degradation leading ultimately to desert formation. Approximately six million hectares per year are becoming desert-like, and The Link between Environmental Degradation this change is being accelerated by the unsus• and Poverty tainable and destructive practice of cultivating steep hillsides with primitive subsistence agricul• Lester Brown, the Director of the Worldwatch ture techniques and also by deforestation. So Institute in Washington, has stated repeatedly many traditional life-styles regard cattle as a that, at some point, environmental deterioration source of wealth, and there is an extreme rel- translates into economic decline and ultimately, luctance to de-stock. Environmental degradation social disintegration. Policy-makers, conserva• coupled with declining livestock productivity is tionists, and rural development planners can no the inevitable consequence of overstocking, and longer afford to dismiss the link between environ• sustainable utilization becomes an impossibility. mental deterioration and economic stress. Quite clearly, as a consequence of a combination of 2. Fisheries high rates of population growth, coupled with a Some over-optimistic and unsubstantiated high rate of world economic growth, the basic claims have been made recently about the role of biological systems that support the global the fishing industry as a possible .solution to economy—grasslands, fisheries, croplands and world food shortages. From 1950 to 1970, the forests—can no longer sustain legitimate human world fish catch more than trebled from 21 to 70 demands, that is, if we persist with the present million tons, the increased catch yielding about ways in which we use and abuse these systems. 18 kg per person per year. However, since 1970 Projections for human population growth give it has fluctuated about that level, and has even us no cause for optimism. From a 1980 total of started to decline, and there is every reason to 4.433 billion, UN experts expect the world to believe that this decline will continue until the reach over 6.100 billion by the year 2000. On a end of this century. This example, like that of regional basis, Africa will have the highest rate of man's use of grasslands, shows that the produc• growth over the same 20 year period—81%. The tion of food cannot continue to increase for ever, inertia of this growth is built into the population's and that any biological system, whether it be on age distribution, and will carry it forward well into the land, or in the sea, must eventually conform the next century. A world population exceeding to biological constraints. nine billion by 2050 would be a plausible fore• cast. Africa's high rate of growth demonstrates 3. Croplands how powerful this momentum can be. For The croplands of the world, and the soil example, Nigeria's present population of 85 associated with them that we take so much for million is projected to reach 425 million before granted, are being seriously threatened by soil levelling off—almost as many people as now erosion, increasing salinization of irrigated land, inhabit all of Africa. loss of land to urban development, and ever- How does this high rate of growth influence accelerating losses through desertification. For the four basic biological systems that support the example, in Egypt, where only 4% of the land is global economy? Briefly, as Lester Brown has arable, 285 000 hectares of the best cropland have repeatedly emphasized, these are threatened as been lost to urban development in the past 10 follows: years, which represents 8.5% of Egypt's total agricultural land, and this in a country where one 1. Grasslands million Egyptians are born every 10 months. In nearly every region of the world, the area Many traditional life-styles are associated with covered by grasses exceeds arable land.. There are shifting cultivation, a system in which a family approximately 2.5 billion hectares of grassland, will move into an area, cut down trees and clear supporting 2.7 billion domesticated ruminants, the land for cultivation, and use the soil until its and these animals play an indispensable role in fertility is exhausted. They will then move on to a the world economy. Ruminants are uniquely new area and repeat the process, leaving the adopted to digest roughage and to convert it into exploited land for 30 years or more to recover. meat, milk, cheese, butter, wool, leather and Such a way of life is sustainable as long as there tallow. In addition, grasslands provide 'fuel' for are still new places left to move to, but in most

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 61 developing countries the rate of population relationship between deforestation and the growth is such that shifting cultivation is no increase in dirty and insufficient water and longer a realistic form of land use—in simple inadequate sanitation. Between 10 million and 25 terms, there is nowhere left to move to. Shifting million people die each year in the world from cultivation is a destructive cropping practice, but diseases caused by or aggravated by unclean or with a traditional life-style in which people inadequate water supplies. In fact, the World moved, soil and vegetation had an opportunity to Health Organization estimates that as much as recover. When people can no longer move, but 80% of all sicknesses may be due to these causes. continue to employ the same agricultural tech• niques in the same place year after year, a totally unacceptable rate of soil loss is inevitable. Rural Development and the World Conservation Soil erosion is, of course, a natural process, Strategy that occurs even on land that is well grassed or covered by forests, but soil itself is also being The lesson for developing countries from these formed continuously, normally at a rate of examples of environmental degradation must be between 2—5 tons per acre per year. When the obvious. Unless rural development programmes rate of soil loss exceeds the rate of soil genesis, can be designed and implemented to meet the the topsoil thins, and eventually disappears, needs and aspirations of the people who live in leaving only subsoil or even bare rock. Serious soil the rural areas, rural-to-urban migration will losses of this nature are one of the main reasons accelerate. The effect of this migration will be to why the croplands of the world are one of the sap the rural areas of their vitality and strength, most threatened of the basic biological systems, leaving them leached and barren, the repositories and provide an excellent example of the link be• of struggling mothers, of the old, the sick, the tween environmental deterioration, economic young and the tired. Rural development, one of stress and social disintegration. Africa's inability the most difficult problems facing any developing to feed itself demonstrates this point. Between country, is thus in the hands of those who are 80—90% of the nearly 400 million people living in least capable of dealing with it. The longer the sub-Saharan Africa live in rural areas. Most survive rural areas are neglected, the more environmental on an annual per capita income of less than degradation will increase, with ecological and US$150. The per acre yield of many subsistence economic consequences extending far beyond food crops appears to have stagnated, or even the present rural areas themselves. declined, and if present trends continue, Africa Few would deny that there is an urgent need will increase its dependence on food imports. In for rural development, with a priority being given Central Africa, a calamitous drop in food produc• to food production and the introduction of a way tion is projected. The quantity of food available of life that is sustainable. However, rural develop• will simply be insufficient to permit children to ment activities must be linked to a realistic reach normal body weight and intelligence. philosophy for conservation as set out in the World Conservation Strategy, and a hungry man 4. Forests in a situation of rural poverty must be convinced In less developed countries, wood is used by up that the goals of rural development and the goals to 90% of the population for heating, cooking of conservation are most definitely compatible. and building, and there are already many places For this to succeed, the three objectives for living in the world where people are finding it very dif• resource conservation according to the World ficult to cook their food and obtain raw material Conservation Strategy will have to be presented for building purposes. If present trends of wood in an acceptable and comprehensible form that use continue, by 2020 virtually all of the physi• is related to the felt needs and aspirations of cally accessible forests in the less developed each individual community. The three objectives countries are expected to have been cut down. are: There is much more to this than a loss of raw (1) to maintain essential ecological processes material for energy and for building. Deforesta• and life-support systems; tion destroys well-established water cycles, (2) to preserve genetic diversity; leading to siltation of streams and river, depletion (3) to ensure the sustainable utilization of of ground water, intensified flooding, and an ag• species and ecosystems. gravation of water shortages during dry periods. If conservation is 'packaged' according to these This relationship between forests and water is three objectives, then there is good reason to extremely complex, but perhaps of most im• believe that it can be integrated into rural mediate significance to rural people is the development.

62 The Environmentalist In developing countries, where new lands are retain representative examples of plant and being opened up for food production, and simul• animal communities and ecosystems in a taneously demands are being made to set aside reasonably undisturbed state. Although these land for nature conservation, politicians face a protected areas need not be relatively large in real dilemma that can only be resolved through a relation to existing arable land, to a land-hungry systematic land capability analysis, and this is the individual they will inevitably appear to be sub• approach that is being used by the Institute of stantial, and a great deal of diplomacy, tact, Natural Resources in KwaZulu. Such an analysis initiative and thought will have to be assembled in is based on up-to-date survey on the quantity, an attempt to justify the land being 'sacrificed' quality and distribution of relevant natural for the protection of plants and animals. resources, including soil, climate, water resources, No one answer to such a conflict can ever be existing land use, land ownership, fauna, flora and devised to suit all individuals in all countries; the human populations. From these data, derived approach will depend on national goals, biological maps have been produced for a part of KwaZulu characteristics of the protected area, local socio• showing lands of high potential for dryland crop economic conditions, and above all, on the objec• production, irrigation, afforestation, grazing by tives of the 'sacrificed' area. However, politicians domestic animals, and nature reserves, and it is can stress that they are committed to a positive also possible to identify those areas where the use rural land-use strategy, which recognizes the of indigenous fauna and flora on a sustained- prime importance of food production, but at the yield basis is the optimum form of land use. Cer• same time safeguards soil and representative areas tain areas have an obviously high potential for food of natural ecosystems. Accordingly, they can production, and they will have to be used ac• point out that if land is ploughed up to grow cordingly. Similarly, other areas have an obvious crops, it is being committed in a way which is potential for planting of exotic trees for timber, probably not reversible; species and communities and would be unsuitable for growing food. would be removed and might never return. The By the same standard, when an area is identi• role of the 'life-support systems' in these natural fied as either a nature reserve or as a place where areas requires continual emphasis, concentrating naturally occurring plants and animals can be on the more Visible' services such as soil forma• used by man on a sustained-yield basis, this tion, the maintenance of water cycles and the implies that a systematic analysis has indicated reduction of flash floods, the pollination of crops, that for a variety of reasons these areas would be and the control of pests. unsuitable for food production from introduced Two objectives of conservation are covered by cultivated plants or from domesticated animals. this integrated approach, namely, the main• Two recent Institute projects elsewhere in Kwa• tenance of essential ecological processes and life- Zulu have demonstrated the importance of using support systems, and the sustainable utilization of indigenous species as the optimum form of land species and ecosystems. The third objective, the use. In one project, Acacia tortilis was investi• preservation of genetic diversity, is a much more gated as a source of food for livestock in difficult concept to put across to relatively unso• impoverished, overstocked Valley Bushveld phisticated people, and yet it is nevertheless a during the winter months, and in another an very important one if conservation and rural investigation is being carried out on the use of development are to be integrated. indigenous fish on a sustained-yield basis from An immediate problem is that there are unlike• naturally occurring pans as the best way to use ly to be any short-term benefits to local people and develop the Pongolo floodplain. The latter whatsoever in terms of preserving genetic diversi• is one example where a traditional life-style ty, and education programmes are going to have is still sustainable in the 1980s and is, in fact, to stress the likely long-term benefits. still the best way to use the area concerned The preservation of genetic diversity for future (Fig. 12.1). agricultural use should be an acceptable starting A land capability analysis as conducted in point for any education programme. For exam• KwaZulu can go a long way towards.reducing a ple, nearly all cultivated plants are being strength• conflict between nature conservation and food ened for continued human use by cross-breeding production, because these areas identified for the with wild relatives, resulting in improved durabili• former category would probably make only a ty, yield, nutritional quality and disease resis• marginal contribution to food production. The tance. Farmers must be made to understand that conflict arises when arable land of high potential they cannot afford to be without a reservoir of is incorporated into a nature reserve, as must still-evolving possibilities, because they have no inevitably happen if developing countries are to idea what varieties may be of use to them in the

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 63 Fig. 12.1. In Maputaland, Natal, traditional communal fonya fishing drives are still practised by thousands of local people. During the recent drought when crops failed, tons of fish were consumed every day by the floodplain inhabitants, at no financial cost. (Photo credit: Clive Walker.)

64 The Environmentalist future as climates alter, soils vary, and consumer traditional life-styles, and the loss of such species demands change. would be a severe blow to national or tribal In addition to the direct use of varieties of prestige. plants and animals for food, there are many other Finally, there are the issues of moral principle examples where a group of closely related species related to the preservation of genetic diversity. can be of benefit to man. There is no better An estimated 25 000 plant species and more than example than the dung beetles of Australia, where a thousand vertebrate species and subspecies are the 200 species of native dung beetles evolved to threatened with extinction. Ethical and moral cope with the dry droppings of marsupials. The justifications for the preservation of genetic diver• droppings of Australia's 20 million cattle were sity are impossible to quantify, but they are not touched by indigenous dung beetles, and as a important arguments that cannot be ignored. result an estimated 1 million hectares of pasture (half the area of Wales) were becoming useless each year because they remained covered by dried The Significance of Wildlife Sanctuaries to Rural out dung. The introduction of 55 species of dung People beetles which eat and bury cattle dung have helped solve the problem, with the additional How can wildlife sanctuaries, in particular benefits of removing the habitat in which bush- National Parks, be of relevance to people who live flies breed, and recycling the nutrients in the in an increasingly degraded rural environment? It dung. is difficult to give a globally acceptable answer, Another important justification for the preser• because so much depends on the management vation of genetic diversity is the provision of objectives of. the Park. In simple terms, the resources for health. Although only a few of the primary objective of most National Parks is to world's plants and animals have been investigated preserve in perpetuity representative examples of for their value as medicines and other pharma• the plant and animal communities of that country ceutical products, modern medicine depends or region. The secondary objective is usually to heavily on them. For example, more than 40% of allow the use of the area by current and future the prescriptions each year in the USA contain a generations of man for inspiration, education and drug of natural origin. More than 85% of the research, provided such use is consistent with the prescriptions for cardiovascular drugs contain achievement of the primary objective and avoids derivatives of just two tropical plant genera. In conflict between the interests of these different the USA alone, the value of medicines just from forms of use. In certain cases, the secondary higher plants, is reported to be about US$3000 objective might also include a limited amount of million a year and rising. We simply have no idea hunting and gathering by local people, but this is of the way in which vanishing and apparently a very delicate issue that requires strict control if insignificant species can suddenly become impor• the primary objective is to be retained. tant to us, and it should thus be self-evident that The majority of the World's National Parks our options for future selection will be greatly remain as inviolate sanctuaries, and the more enhanced if a high species diversity is maintained. obvious direct gain for people living in surrounding The aesthetic arguments in favour of preserving areas is usually restricted to income from tourism. genetic diversity must also be considered. Natural Less obvious, of course, are the direct and habitats represent undisturbed examples of the indirect benefits from the 'life-supporting systems' range of variation in the world's ecosystems, and that have already been described. are attractive and stimulating to look at and The tourism and money-earning argument for watch. Particular species and habitat types have nature conservation can become very counter• provided inspiration for sculptures, paintings, productive if there is no legislative, political and literature and music. Consequently, the greater administrative insurance that the income derived the species and habitat diversity of an area, the from tourism will be channelled back into the more likely it is to be attractive and aesthetically region in such a way that the people living there pleasing to people. An additional consideration is will be able to comprehend and realize this benefit that wilderness areas can act to release the stress in one way or another, in contrast to the State or gained from living in a modern society, probably hotel agents getting most of the income. Local because they offer a complete alternative to urban district administrations can prevent revenue going surroundings and thus allow one to stand back to a central source by establishing reserves on their and put urban society in perspective. Furthermore, own land and deriving all benefits from them. certain species of plants and animals have for The ideal form of development is to have a generations been of symbolic significance to many National Park surrounded by a 'buffer zone', Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 65 Fig. 12.2. The integration of conservation with development is unlikely to succeed without a consideration of the human factor. In a rural African community like this, a National Park is usually perceived as remote and inaccessible, and irrelevant to the felt needs and aspirations of the local people. (Photo credit: J. Taylor.) where various degrees of hunting and gathering been done for the people rather than with the are totally accepted. Such 'buffer zones' should people. Furthermore, all too often conservation also contain the major installations, such as lodges policies have been introduced in developing and campsites, which would not only directly countries which mimic those of the developed benefit local people, but would also relieve the world, and these are usually ill-suited to local con• pressure on the Park itself. In addition, with ditions and social needs. tourism being centred in the 'buffer zone', local The message for conservationists should be markets would be opened up for agricultural obvious. Unless a sincere attempt is made to products, labour and handicraft. accommodate felt needs and aspirations of the To gain the full support of local people, it must local people in designing both conservation and be demonstrated that a National Park can provide rural development activities, the programmes will more benefits than shifting agriculture and forest not succeed, and the designated wildlife sanc• product harvesting. A good example of this comes tuaries will become increasingly insecure. from Amboseli, where the total park net return amounts to US$40 per hectare compared to 80 cents per hectare under the most optimistic agri• cultural return. Bibliography Brown, L. R. (1981) Building a Sustainable Society, W. W. Norton An essential prerequisite for any programme and Co., New York, USA. that links conservation with development which Brown, L. R. (1982) Kroding the base of civilization, Earthwatch, promotes the preservation of an isolated sanc• 9, pp. 1-2. tuary or a National Park, is a consideration of the Council on Environmental Quality and The Department of State (1980) The Global 2000 Report to the President. Vol. 1. human factor (Fig. 12.2). Unfortunately, many Entering the twenty-first century, US Government Printing conservation plans have failed because they have Office, Washington DC, USA.

66 The Environmentalist Dasmann, R. F. (1976) Life-styles and nature conservation, Oryx, Lele, U. (1981) Rural Africa: modernization, equity and long-term 13, pp. 281-286. development, Science, 211(6), pp. 547-553. Diamond, J. M. and May, R. M. (1976) Island biogeography and Newland, K. (1980) City limits: engineering constraints on urban the design of natural reserves. In R. M. May (ed.), Theoretical growth. Paper No. 38, Worldwatch Institute, Washington DC, Ecology. Principles and Applications, Blackwell, Oxford, UK. USA. Everett, R. D. (1979) The functions of wildlife and their possible Ratcliffe, D. A. (1976) Thoughts towards a philosophy of nature use for deriving site selection components, Biological Conser• conservation, Biological Conservation, 9, pp. 45-53. vation, 160), pp. 207-218. Salim, E. (1982) The Second World Conservation Lecture, World IUCN (1980) World Conservation Strategy, IUCN, Gland, Switzer• Wildlife Fund, Gland, Switzerland. land. Terborgh, J. (1974) Preservation of natural diversity: the problem Jewell, P. (1974) Problems of wildlife conservation and tourist of extinction prone species, Bioscience, 24(12), pp. development in eastern Africa, Journal of the Southern 715-722. African Wildlife Management Association, 4(11), pp. 59-62. Western, D. and Henry, W. R. (1979) Economics and conservation Lee, B. (1979) Dung beetles to the rescue, New Scientist, 82- in Third World National Parks, Bioscience, 29(1), pp. (1149), pp. 46-47. 414-418.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 67 13. The Role of Tropical Forestry in Conservation and Rural Development GERARDO BUDOWSKI Renewable Natural Resources Department, CATIE, Turrialba, Costa Rica 1982

forests (Budowski, 1976; Caufield, 1982; Natio• Summary nal Research Council, 1982; IUCN, 1980), and A growing dilemma faces tropical foresters. Their various estimates have been made on the rate of activities must be production orientated, yet at the same their destruction. For example, Myers (1980) time the tropical forests themselves are disappearing estimated an annual loss of 200 000 km2 from a rapidly. In this paper, land use is analysed as a key factor, World total of 9 million km2. More recently, and is related to growing population pressures and a 2 growing export market for tropical timber and for beef Lanly (1982) mentioned 76 000 km of tropical raised on pastures established at the expense of former moist forests destroyed each year, but in this forests. estimate the areas degraded by logging were not The forestry profession needs to remove a stigma considered (Fig. 13.1). attached to it. The profession has been accused of Whatever the discrepancies, the problem is real showing too much concern for timber production, for and worrying. A major concern has been the way having a humiliating lack of knowledge of the composi• tion and ecology of the primary forests, and for tolerating the abysmal gap between laws and practice. On the other hand, foresters can be credited with some remarkable achievements towards the establishment of protected areas, as well as many successful tree plantations that have relieved pressure on natural forests. It is suggested that conservation of the remnant tropi• cal forests should be come a leitmotiv for tropical forestry. Some practical ways to achieve this objective so as to relieve the pressure on natural forests are analysed. They include a better evaluation of on-going and planned colonization schemes and greater emphasis on increasing production on good soils where infrastructure already exists; a greater concern with the plight of rural communi• ties through the promotion of agroforestry and fuelwood production; the promotion of tree plantations on degraded lands (but not at the expense of natural forests); the management of secondary forests or certain associa• tions more homogeneous for wood production; and the establishment of forested buffer zones around National Parks and other protected areas. Ultimately there should be a much larger commitment from industrialized countries in the efforts of jointly pre• serving the last samples of a unique heritage, based on strengthening local structures for research and training, and supporting action programmes.

Introduction Fig. 13.1. Seventy-six thousand square kilometers of tropical moist forests are estimated to be destroyed each year, not in• In the last ten years, the World has become cluding the areas degraded by logging. (Photo credit: WWF/Ken increasingly concerned about the fate of tropical Scriven.) 68 The Environmentalist in which the destruction of tropical forests could 3 adversely influence climatic patterns, both through changes in rainfall patterns and through the possible increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels which in turn could result in a significant increase in global atmospheric tem• peratures (National Research Council, 1982). Of equal concern is the total loss of hundreds of species of animals and plants, and the changes in the water-cycle resulting from reduced water infil• tration. Many of these factors have been reviewed in the literature in recent years. This paper exam• ines the ways in which foresters can mitigate or reverse these destructive trends. Fig. 13.2. The present rate of tropical forest destruction is unpre• cedented. Lumber pile for exportation, Tai region, Ivory Coast. (Photo credit: WWF/U. Rahm.) Land-use Choices: the Key Factor These phenomena are particularly vicious since The World has a long history of forest destruc• many of the companies involved in financing such 'development' schemes are foreign, and the cost tion that is associated with human population implied by the destruction of the original forests growth. More recently, this destruction has been is totally ignored, let alone assessed. In fact, and influenced by international markets. Historic this should not be forgotten, for most of the large evidence shows that much of Europe has been commercially orientated enterprises intent on deforested in the last millenium. Similarly, much replacing the forest with crops or grass, the forest of the USA was deforested in the nineteenth is a nuisance, and a negative cost, since it needs to century, and this trend has spread to many tropi• be cleared, burnt or otherwise removed cal countries, including Java. Thus to many (Budowski, 1982a). The situation is somewhat people it seems unfair that the developed coun• different but no less pernicious, for the logging tries of the northern hemisphere are showing con• companies that 'cream' the forest for valuable cern about the disappearance of tropical forests timber species. Degradation also takes place since and are preaching about their conservation when there is genetic erosion—the poorly formed trees they themselves have undergone the process of that are not commercially exploitable become the deforestation. future seed bearers. There is a negative change in Nevertheless, the concern remains real, and in floristic composition (National Research Council, fact is shared by practically all scientists who have 1982) and in most cases, the roads to take out the dealt with this matter, in both developed and timber become the pathways for shifting cultiva• developing countries. What is unprecedented tors and/or cattle raisers. The latter situation is (and this must be emphasized), is the present rate particularly prevalent in Latin America where of destruction (Fig. 13.2)..Moreover, the era of some governments, through tax incentives, easy 'unlimited' lands for expansion is gone, a fact loans and other similar measures, actually favour which unfortunately is not recognized by most such opening and development of grazing lands at decision-makers and farmers in general. With the expense of the tropical forests (Fig. 13.3). present high population growth rates in most rural populations (the majority of which consist This destruction of tropical forests has been of subsistence farmers practising shifting agricul• well-documented by many authors, including ture), the future looks bleak. Since agricultural Budowski (1976 and 1977), Caufield (1982), La production in these areas is not keeping up with Bastille (1978), Myers (1980) and IUCN (1980). the population increase, the expansion of agricul• Rather than expanding on these issues, let us look tural lands at the expense of the last natural for solutions by asking first of all what the forests, seems unavoidable. To this must be added forestry profession can do about these problems. several new phenomena for the tropics, all of which involve export to the industrial countries, The Role of Foresters and the Disappearance of including clearing of forests to plant cash crops, Tropical Forests conversion of forests for cattle grazing, and large- scale timber 'creaming', each activity earning Until recently there has been a strong division urgently needed foreign currencies. between many conservationists and timber-

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 69 contact with natural forests particularly un• palatable. He knows that most laws are totally ignored or sometimes even counterproductive, that large companies carry considerable influence with central or local Government officials, and that the available means for enforcing policies or laws are extremely meagre or weak. (4) Worst of all is the fallacy based on the expectation that through 'rational' exploitation of the mixed (or heterogeneous) moist, primary forest (with over a hundred tree species per hectare), a continuous exploitation scheme should be the prime objective. But is this realis• tic? Can this objective be achieved? The tropical forester hears and reads about 'selection' or 'shelterwood' systems, yet does not know of any single good practical case where such logging has not resulted in degradation. It may well be worth• while to destroy the myth that claims that these forests can be successfully managed on a sus• tained yield basis, because there is a lack of evidence or good case studies. It should of course be clarified that this refers only to the highly heterogeneous primary forest. Admittedly, many old secondary forests or certain primary stands, dominated by one or a few marketable species such as certain swamp associations, are indeed manageable on a sustainable basis and this has been demonstrated, but they do not have the diversity of the primary heterogeneous moist Fig. 13.3. In Latin America some governments actually favour forest. Admittedly too, there may be some types development of grazing lands at the expense of tropical forests. of dipterocarp forests that can be successfully Erosion S. W. of San Jose, Costa Rica. (Photo credit: WWF/ managed, simply because they contain such a H. Jungius.) high proportion of trees of commercial value. But where are the good, well-documented examples, producing oriented foresters (Budowski, 1974a). and why have they not become 'classic' case The accusations levelled against foresters include stories of successful management to be studied, the following: and visited by managers. Furthermore, why has (1) Foresters are much too concerned with the acquired knowledge not been transferred? timber production, (either as paid employees or It is difficult under those adverse conditions to by favouring large and powerful companies), and ask many tropical foresters to share a strong not enough with the plight of the poorer rural friendly feeling towards the natural forest, and to communities. In fact, the latter have often been campaign towards its maintenance. It also may considered a nuisance, either as potential squat• explain why many foresters prefer to work in ters or as people who claim to be the legitimate plantations or in bureaucratic tenures located in or traditional owners of forest lands. cities that do not involve much contact with the (2) Foresters in the tropics have little feeling natural forest and its inhabitants. for the forests which they are supposed to On the credit side of the forestry profession, conserve. In fact, they hardly know the tree an impressive number of natural reserves and species of the natural forests, and to compound National Parks (or virtual National Parks) have their helplessness in relation to the great variety been created through their impulse. The Luquillo of life forms and species, they must face the National Forest in Puerto Rico for example, is a humiliating experience of asking illiterate workers striking example, attracting over one million from within the areas for the names of the species visitors a year. Many reserves in South-east Asia and their uses. also owe their existence to far-sighted foresters. (3) The pre vailing laws, policies, and administra• Foresters can also be credited in establishing tive frameworks make the work of the forester in thriving industries based on plantation schemes 70 The Environmentalist Fig. 13.4. Foresters can be credited in establishing thriving industries based on plantation schemes such as this 30-year old Agathis dammara plantation at Gunung Slamet, Baturaden, Java, now awaiting felling. (Photo credit: T. C. Whitmore.) (Fig. 13.4). Teak, especially in Indonesia, present• the pessimistic beliefs expressed by many of my ly covers more than 500 000 hectares, having colleagues, that these last remnants are doomed been established mostly in the nineteenth century to disappear in the next 20 or 30, or even (Lanly, 1982). In Brazil 2 million hectares have 50—100 years. We simply have not really tried been established in the last 30 years, most of as hard as we should. We have not explored all them eucalyptus and pines (although most of the options that are available to us. Moreover, them on the fringes of the tropical region). Let us the current doom language, so prevalent among not forget that these plantations were established many scientists, can only worsen the apparent (with admittedly the notable exception of Jari prevailing indifference and make the task more Florestal) not at the expense of the natural forest difficult for those organizations and individuals but mostly on degraded soils, often left exhausted who are staging a fight. The lack of a concerted after unwise coffee cultivation (Fig. 13.5(a) and action plan adopted by all also confuses decision• (b)). Venezuela can also claim a success story, makers and makes them even more suspicious with over 100 000 hectares of Pinus caribaea of scientists who so often express totally different planted on poor sandy savanna soils, formerly opinions. used as very extensive cattle ranches. Colonization of New Areas at the Expense of Present and Future Trends Tropical Forests An appropriate leitmotiv for tropical forestry In far too many tropical countries, coloniza• and its professional staff should imply the promo• tion schemes are not based on ecological consi• tion of much greater efforts to conserve the last derations, but frequently result from political remnants of the tropical forests. I do not share pressures. Almost all objective evaluations of past

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 71 colonization schemes point to failures. Nelson (1973) in his exhaustive appraisal of land coloni• zation in tropical Latin America, concludes that government-directed colonization schemes have fared even worse than the so-called 'spontaneous' in-roads by land-hungry people. It is high time that wherever land colonization at the expense of tropical forests has been going on, an objective evaluation should be called for, and what is pos• sibly even more important, alternative options to forest land colonization should be equally evaluated. In fact, careful appraisals of cost- benefit studies related to past or future coloniza• tion schemes are required, including of course a fair appraisal of those direct or indirect values connected with water quality and regularity of streamflow, and the impact of deforestation on gene pool conservation, as well as on scientific and educational assets. Furthermore, a fair assessment of such presently intangible values as pride in maintaining a natural heritage and trans• mitting it to future generations is also required. To this should be added estimates of the damage presently done by colonization schemes to the

Fig. 13.5. Plantations were established in degraded soils, often left exhausted after unwise exploitation, (a) Early stage of reforesta• tion: barren 'soil' without organic matter, Dordoma, Tanzania, in 1979. (Photo credit: WWF/Marco Erbetta.) (b) Successful af• forestation. This picture was taken at the same site in 1982. (b) (Photo credit: WWF/Marco Erbetta.) 72 The Environmentalist native forest dwellers, many of them due to be fed cattle (Budowski, 1974b). It takes special displaced, with far-reaching consequences on their skills to derive food from the forest's natural cultural heritage and physical and mental well- animals and the meat of wild animals or fish can being. Native populations living within or near the rarely be exported (although some skins can forest are particularly vulnerable (Caufield, 1982) become a lucrative trade commodity). In fact, and they depend entirely on the forest, so much export should always be avoided to prevent over- so that Dasmann (1975) has aptly described them hunting or overfishing, but it is nevertheless a as 'ecosystems people'. sound permanent land use that does not deplete The removal of primary forests for the estab• the resource and is usually well integrated into lishment of new pastures is a very wasteful the cultural patterns of the local population. process. The majority of pastures suffer from loss Quite clearly, man has become almost obsessed of vigour, the gradual invasion of toxic weeds, soil by the opening up of 'new' lands as a solution to compaction, and an increase in cattle diseases. In increased food production (Fig. 13.6). Unfor• fact, many cattle ranches can be considered a tunately, there will soon be no 'new' lands to be parallel to the more destructive forms of shifting opened, and further attention will have to be agriculture, with the aggravating factor that it given to increasing agricultural outputs on areas takes much longer for natural vegetation to get where infrastructure already exists and where the re-established on the cattle-compacted soils after soils can tolerate new methods of production. It abandonment (Budowski, 1977). There is an is of course politically more expedient for politi• added irony: in a recent study in Eastern Peru, a cians to be associated with land-opening program• group of foresters and biologists interested in mes, particularly if the land is government-owned. wildlife found that on a hectare basis, the natural It is considerably more difficult to promote tropical lowland rainforest produced more change of land privately owned and poorly used protein from hunting and fishing than did grass- (e.g., extensive grazing on soils that have high

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 73 arable potential). An essential prerequisite for any small farmers? Only recently have there been of these programmes that emphasize increased some changes such as witnessed by FAO (FAO, production from existing lands is a more active 1980), the World Bank, and a few national and efficient extension service. This in turn must centers, such as, for instance the Institute of be coupled with a population growth policy that Ecology in Bandung. is compatible with the carrying capacity of the It is high time that foresters associated them• limited land. In conclusion, I believe that we have selves with other professions in order to enlarge not tried hard enough to look for means of their horizons. If their prime objective is to help promoting food production on good land, at the the rural populations, and to protect the last same time promoting ways to leave the marginal remnants of the tropical forests, they will find land alone. many and' often unsuspected allies, even addi• tional funding. Of course, many foresters are already doing that, but there are not enough of them. Many do not try hard enough. Some resent that conservation of tropical forests is being taken A New Orientation for Tropical Forests over by other professions such as biologists and In the last 20 years, several new trends have ap• geographers under the banner of nature conserva• peared in the professional forestry world. Several tion. well-known schools of forestry have changed their Such recriminations are sterile and even names by adding the words 'natural resources' or counterproductive. The message attempted here is 'environment', often as a reaction to a worldwide that foresters should welcome the input of other concern aggressively displayed by the younger interested sectors with a feeling for nature conser• generation. In addition, organizations such as vation and hopefully occupy a leading position in FAO have hastened this new orientation by the joint effort to safeguard the last remnants of regular references at their World Congress to the tropical forests. They should lead in the 'multiple-use', 'the role of forestry in the promotion of innovative techniques to relieve changing world economy', 'forests and socio• pressure on the last remaining forests. Let us economic development', and, more recently, examine a few of them. 'forests for people'. Foresters were told they must 'adapt ... or else', the 'else' usually meaning that others would encroach on what has been tradi• Promising Techniques Concerning Tropical For• tionally their domain. The words 'social forestry' estry and 'agroforestry', have now become fashionable. Agroforestry implies the combination of trees and (a) Agroforestry crops (including grasses and cattle) simultaneous• The practice of agroforestry has already been ly or sequentially, to maximize production and mentioned. When the land-use patterns of rural productivity. It has very old roots, sometimes dwellers in the tropics are considered, it is only traced for centuries, particularly in Indonesia. It natural that forestry and agriculture (including was rediscovered, and attention was drawn to animal husbandry) blend together. Foresters can such well-known practices as 'backyard gardens' do a lot by identifying current traditional agro• (or 'home gardens', 'kitchen gardens', and other forestry techniques in their region and hopefully terminologies), live fence-posts planted by large promote wider application of the most successful cuttings, that also produce fuelwood as well as ones (Budowski, 1977, 1982b). food from fruits and flowers, as well as more live fence-posts. Above all, agroforestry implies many kinds of land-use systems that can be (b) Plantation of trees derived from combinations of timber trees, fuel- There certainly is a role for plantations, parti• wood trees, fruit and spice trees, with food cularly of fast-growing tree species, be they native plants, cattle, poultry and so on. Java and Bali for or exotic. I believe that the difference is ir• instance, display multitudes of agroforestry relevant, except when ornamentation or social systems, traditionally practiced by millions of values e.g., city parks, are involved. By producing farmers, possibly over centuries. timber, pulp, and fuelwood, they should efficient• ly relieve the pressure on the natural forests, and How many foresters have worked on agro• of course they should preferably be established forestry, its productivity, sustainability, linkages on land not suitable for agriculture and never at with socio-economic factors or with fuelwood the expense of natural forests. There are hundreds species? How many socio-economic studies have of thousands of worthless secondary forests, been carried out to understand the needs of the degraded pastures and savannas, that lend them- 74 The Environmentalist selves to reafforestation schemes. Admittedly, the whole matter of exotic and native species has been the subject of heated discussion in the last few years (Budowski, 1977, particularly the account of the discussion pp. 361—364).

(c) Management of secondary forests and certain associations dominated by one or a few species There are considerable extensions of secondary forests within or at the edges of, tropical forests, in fact many more than most people realize. The distinction between old secondary forests and primary forests is not easy to the untrained eye (Budowski, 1965). Secondary forests can be managed for sustained production much easier than primary forests. Many of these secondary forests contain valuable species which respond well to liberation cuttings because they include so many valuable light-demanding species. Certain forests with special soil conditions, such as swamps or partially flooded alluvions, can also be managed on a sustained yield basis, because one or a few species have become dominant and regenerate well. They respond relatively well to silvicultural systems that maintain their integrity while producing on a Fig. 13.7. Successful management schemes for mangrove permanent basis. With few exceptions, most of harvesting and reforestation exist in Malaysia and a few other places as shown by the replanting of Rhizophora mangrove near these forests have little importance for science the village of Tanjung Benoa in Southern Bali. (Photo credit: since they do not involve the high diversity and WWF/Nicholas V. Polunin.) very specialized interactions between plants and animals found on well-drained zonal soils. They rarely include endangered species. Most forestry practices are also compatible with wildlife con• It includes the planting of fuelwood species that servation, whenever certain precautions are taken. are often managed as part of agroforestry systems However, mangroves and certain swamp forests that are often managed as part of plantations (or deserve a special mention. Most play a very for that matter managing secondary forests for important role in relation to food chains for the sustained production) and supplying fuelwood, fish, shrimp or shellfish industry. Successful charcoal, post-poles, timber, fibres, medicinal management schemes for mangrove harvesting products and so on, always on a sustained basis, and reforestation exist in Malaysia and a few will greatly contribute to the stabilization of rural other places (Fig. 13.7). Generally speaking their populations and avoid encroachment on the intrinsic values when left alone (land stabilization, nearby natural forests. leaf decomposition as a basis for valuable food chains, wildlife refuges and roosting places, etc.) are greater than the values derived from exploita• (e) Buffer zones tion. Foresters can help to promote and partici• Foresters and conservationists can join efforts pate in objective evaluations of mangroves that in managing areas that need good protection, such take into account the short- and long-term as National Parks or wildlife refuges, by pro• benefits of all the rural populations involved, moting buffering forests (man-made or natural including those that derive a living from fisheries. regrowth) in areas where agricultural settlements border the areas to be protected. What is needed is good communication between foresters and (d) Social forestry conservationists to delineate the best buffer This term covers forestry practices that are strategy. In the tropical world, there are designed to help rural populations, especially the remarkably few cases where this has been success• poorer segments (Budowski, 1982b; FAO, 1980). fully achieved. Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 75 Conclusion References Budowski, G. (1965) Distribution of tropical American rainforest This paper has emphasized that the protection species in the light of successional processes, Turrialba, 15(1), of the remaining tropical forests should become pp. 40-42. the focus of forestry programmes and, to a large Budowski, G. (1974a) Cooperation between forestry and conserva• extent, the raison d'etre of the tropical forestry tion of nature, Proceedings International Union of Society of Foresters, Second Congress, Helsinki, pp. 79-88. profession. In achieving this objective, a rap• Budowski, G. (1984b) Conservacion y manejo de la fauna silvestre prochement with other professions becomes y areas naturales en Amazonia. En Informes y Conferencias. imperative. Simposio Internacional sobre Fauna Silvestre y Pesca Lacustre Amazonica. Manaus, Brasil, 26 noviembre-l° It is totally unrealistic to expect the tropical diciembre 1973. Vol. 1, Documento IVB, 16 pp. countries to meet the enormous costs involved in Budowski, G. (1976) Why save tropical forests? Some arguments protecting their forests, let alone to cope with the for campaigning conservationists, Amazonia, 5(4), pp. 529¬ 538. costly training and research programmes that are Budowski, G. (1977) Closing address. A strategy for saving wild urgently required. A massive effort by the inter• plants. Experience from Central America. In Ghillean T. national community is called for, particularly Prance and Thomas S. Elias (eds.), Extinction is Forever. Threatened and endangered species of plants in the Americas from industrialized countries. In a way, it cor• and their significance in ecosystems today and in the future. responds to the concepts of compensation and Proceedings of a Symposium held at the New York Botanical recompensing for maintenance of environmental Garden, May 11-13, 1976, New York Botanical Garden, New York, pp. 368-373. quality (Nicholls, 1973) in sharing the costs for Budowski, G. (1982a) Poh'ticas, estrategias y herramientas para la preserving a unique worldwide heritage. gestion de areas silvestre protegidas en America Tropical. This then is the challenge. Foresters must ally Seminario sobre Recursos Naturales, Madrid, febrero 1982, 29 pp. themselves with others to succeed in the task of Budoswki, G. (1982b) The socio-economic effects of forest saving the remnants of tropical forests and above management on the lives of people living in the area. The all grasp the various opportunities that presently case of Central America and some Caribbean countries. In exist. A rallying policy for this objective is the E. G. Hallsworth (ed.), Workshop on Socio-economic Effects and Constraints in Forest Management, Dehra Dun, January World Conservation Strategy and one of its spin• 1981, John Wiley, Chichester. offs, the 1982 WWF/IUCN's campaign that Caufield, C. (1982) Tropical Moist Forests; the resource, the focusses on tropical forests. Advantage should people, the threat, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), Earthscan, London, 67 pp. also be taken of the favourable changes to finance Dasmann, R. (1975) Ecosystems people, IUCN Bulletin, 6(8), tree plantation schemes as they have lately been p. 29. expressed by the World Bank, as well as other FAO (1980) Forestry for Rural Communities, FAO, Rome, 56 pp. IUCN (1980) World Conservation Strategy, IUCN, Gland. financing agencies, be they international, regional La Bastille, A. (1978) Facetas de Conservacion de Areas Silvestre or bilateral. Perhaps more than anything, tropical en el Areas Centroamericana, CATIE, Costa Rica, 41 pp. foresters should capitalize on the desires of a Lanly, J. P. (1982) Tropical Forest Resources, FAO, Rome, 106 pp. Myers, N. (1980) Conversion of Tropical Moist Forests, National concerned World, especially within the indus• Academy of Science, Washington, DC, 205 pp. trialized countries that are apparently willing to National Research Council (1982) Ecological Aspects of Develop• morally and financially support such an effort ment in the Humid Tropics, National Academy Press, when it is linked with the saving and proper Washington, DC, 297 pp. Nelson, M. (1973) The Development of Tropical Lands. Policy management of the remnant tropical forests. Issues in Latin America, John Hopkins, Baltimore and The present crisis of awareness and concern London, 306 pp. Nicholls, Y. (1973) Source book; emergence of proposals for should act as a trigger to generate a series of recompensing developing countries for maintaining environ• remedial actions. I have suggested a few. There mental quality, IUCN Environmental and Policy Paper No.5, are certainly others. IUCN, Morges, 55 pp.

76 The Environmentalist 14. The Study of Non-Timber Forest Products MARIUS JACOBS R ijksh erbariu m, Schelpenkade 6, PO Box 9514, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands

by the furniture industry. In brief, the variety of Summary products and their uses are astonishing. One in six Tropical rainforests contain an astonishing variety of of the known plant species of the Malesian forest plants that are of use to man as a source of timber, food, has some use to man, and one in three genera medicines, industrial products, and spices. The non- contains at least one useful species. timber forest products play significant roles in the domestic economy of countries, but unfortunately their continued use and availability is being threatened by timber extraction and shifting cultivation, both of which Problems of Forest Exploitation are wasteful and destructive activities, and which are leading to the loss of a significant number of species. If The genuine tropical forest should not be tropical forests in general and their non-timber products regarded as a source of renewable plant material in particular are to survive, a new approach is required in in the same way as a secondary forest is regarded, their conservation. More emphasis should be given to in spite of the fact that these forests contain the further studies on the enormous variety of uses of non- richest source of non-timber plant products in timber species, coupled with attempts to encourage tradi• the world. Although it is undoubtedly possible to tional and sustainable use of the species both within and carry out a collection of some of these species on outside the forest. a sustained basis, timber extraction is another matter. Cutting down and removing large trees inevitably damages the forest canopy and the soil, and removes large quantities of minerals. Quite Introduction clearly, these forests are not suitable for timber A tropical rainforest contains may useful exploitation, particularly when the main timber products in addition to timber, and 102 different species are well spaced out in the forest, and their categories of use have been identified by Burkill removal results in considerable damage to non- (1935). The better-known products include timber species (Fig. 14.1). It is a notoriously rubber (a product of the latex of Hevea brasilien- wasteful process, resulting not only in an enor• sis), cinnamon (a spice with considerable medi• mous loss of mineral and nutrients from the cinal properties made from the bark of Cinna- forest, but also the loss of other species. In momum species), and kina (extracted from the contrast, the non-timber species can be exploited bark of Chinchona species). At a more exotic to provide man with medicines, exquisite spices, level is 'garu-wood' which comes from the heart- stimulants, latexes, and wild fruits, all of which wood of Aquilaria but which is first infected with are produced in limited quantity with the utmost a fungus to make it suitable for the production of economy of inorganic nutrients. incense. Perhaps the best known product is rattan, with over 500 species in the Malesian region alone. Forest and the Domestic Economy Two-thirds of the 104 Malaysian species are useful in one way or another, and at least 12 It is only comparatively recently that so much species are of great economic importance. During emphasis has been given to the collection of the late 1970s the total recorded harvest from timber from tropical forests. Until well into the Indonesia alone was almost 60 000 tons per year. nineteenth century, the collection of non-timber The value of the world trade in rattan is at least products predominated, and the ecological impact US$1200 million, most of which is accounted for of this collection was minimal. Gradually timber

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 77 forests themselves. Unfortunately, the present rate of deforestation is such that many of these products will soon no longer be available in certain regions. Exploitation of timber and of non-timber forest products are hard to combine, and for practical purposes they are mutually exclusive. When shifting cultivation is practised, the incompatibility is even greater, because most shifting cultivation totally destroys primary forest. If present trends continue, not only will forest products disappear, but domestic econo• mies will also be adversely affected, both directly and indirectly. For example, although the narrowing of the genetic base of fruit trees might take centuries, we never know when genetic material in the wild might be needed. The virtual loss of the jeruk Bali during the 1970s is a case in point. This most delicious citrus fruit was almost exterminated by the phloem degeneration virus. A timely programme of hybridization with resistant wild relatives could have averted the danger.

The Conservation of Non-timber Products There has always been an interest in non- Fig. 14.1. The exploitation of tropical forests for timber damages timber products, and the key reference by Heyne the forest canopy, accelerates soil erosion, and destroys non- (1950) has kept this interest alive. However, the timber species. Consequences of road-grading and timber extrac• book needs updating, but this is no easy task. tion in the Jengka Triangle, Malay Peninsula. (Photo credit: M. Both botanical and ethnological skills are required Bijleveld.) to study non-timber forest products, to which must be added investigations into the manu• facture, use and sale of an enormous variety of exploitation increased. In the period from 1928 products. The works of Burkill (1935) and Heyne to 1938, the value of trade in timber from the (1950) were based on individual studies of 30 forests of Indonesia was 16 million Dutch years duration, and a team effort would be Guilders compared with 13 million for non- required nowadays to expand on their efforts. timber products. During the 1970s however, the Nevertheless, priority should be given to those share of non-timber products fell to a mere 4 to studies, which are becoming increasingly urgent as 5% of the money value of all the forest products more species move towards extinction. An essen• from Indonesia. For Malaysia, the percentage was tial prerequisite for such investigations is the even lower. preparation of a comprehensive literature review Even so, the non-timber forest products con• to bring our overall knowledge of non-timber tinue to support the domestic economy in many products up-to-date. ways, and local markets throughout Indonesia Studies on their own will not prevent forest contain a variety of products that were collected destruction, and conservationists should give at• in the rainforest. In addition, although virtually tention to encouraging traditional and careful sus• all Indonesian fruits that are now sold in markets tained use of non-timber products. In the long- are grown in domestic gardens, they originated in run, such uses are far more economical than the rainforest, and their wild relatives still grow logging, and of course, far less disruptive ecologi• there, providing a source of genetic material for cally. Finally, far more attention needs to be future cross-breeding programmes. given to developing the resource by cultivating This profusion and availability of rattan, cin• species outside of the rainforest, as is already namon, citrus and hundreds of other products has being done with rubber, fruit trees and a few always been taken for granted, as have the rain• medicinal plants. A new approach is required in 78 The Environmentalist our attempts to conserve and utilize the world's References rainforests. Profitable timber exploitation should Burkill, J. (1935) A Dictionary of the Economic Products of the be abandoned, as it is not sustainable and results Malay Peninsula, University Press, Oxford, 2402 pp. in the damage or loss of hundreds of other Heyne, K. (1950) De nuttige planten van Indonesie, 3rd edn., W. valuable species. van Hoeve.'s Gravenhage, 1662 pp.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 79 15. Watersheds and Rural Development Planning LAWRENCE S. HAMILTON and PETER N. KING Environment and Policy Institute, East—West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii 96848, USA

Summary inequitable distribution of benefits and costs, and adverse environmental impacts. We have attempted to show how the drainage basin In rural areas in particular, such plans and pro• concept is often a valid and useful integrating unit for grammes must have the support or acquiescence understanding the structure and function of social and of persons and groups outside of the planning natural systems, and that man-environment activities causing environmental impacts can also be organized area, who have greater numbers, greater wealth, within this framework. and more power. This will not materialize if the The impact of man's interaction with the environment offsite products of activities (externalities) are can change both biophysical and social systems spatially harms rather than benefits (e.g., decreased low distributed throughout the drainage basin, in different flows, water quality impairment). The majority ways and at different times. Consideration of past changes of rural planning undertakings today are in the can help to predict the adaptability and resilience of upland areas. The most numerous and important natural and social systems to planned future changes. offsite physical products from planned changes in For many kinds of regional rural development planning rural activities in the uplands, are delivered via activities in developing countries, the drainage basin is the gravity or via a part of the hydrologic cycle to most appropriate spatial unit for planning. When used areas of the lower basin, thus making the properly, the integration of patterns and processes of watershed an important candidate for a basic natural and social systems can be achieved more easily, planning unit. This is, of course, not true if the without neglecting or glossing over major aspects of either product is air pollution from some new industrial system. use in the area, though even here, in topographi• cally constrained areas, the watershed and the airshed may coincide. It is not necessarily true in the case of the offsite benefits of an aesthetic Introduction landscape, though a watershed in a 'high state of Many, if not most, rural development planning conservation' is usually also a landscape of high and implementation activities should consider the aesthetic appeal. Similarly some other benefits or use of the watershed or drainage basin as a costs delivered offsite from the area under suitable development planning unit. At the very planning scrutiny (e.g., loss of species, out-migra• least, the myriad aspects of natural and social tion of people, etc.) are not related to watershed processes which are linked in this hydrologic/ units, but nonetheless these externalities are not topographic unit must be recognized, and incor• necessarily mishandled by using a watershed for porated into plans and programmes. The purpose planning and programme implementation. of this paper is to present support for this thesis. Some rural development needs, for example improved education and public health services, are not related to watersheds, and if these are the Rural Development Planning most pressing needs, then the hydrologic unit may be irrelevant. However, where the land/ In general, the objectives of rural development water/climate/people interaction is a major focus planning are to identify a range of existing or for development (i.e., land and water use) this potential activities, especially resource uses and to interaction is most strongly expressed in a promote those which will improve the welfare of watershed. Moreover, water seems increasingly to the rural population within the guidelines or be the key physical resource limiting or triggering policies established by national development economic development in rural areas. The success objectives and priorities. Simultaneously, such or failure of a plan can lie in choosing a boundary planning should minimize conflict, social disrup• which is relevant to the principal planning issues, tion, unsustainable use of natural resources, covers sufficient natural and social linkages to 80 The Environmentalist Fig. 15.1. Land-use patterns are determined by both biophysical factors and socio-economic aspects—an interaction between natural and social systems. operate as a functional unit, and allows effective also related to elevation. Plants and animals will plan implementation. Some criteria and con• occupy the various habitats afforded by these straints indicating the appropriateness of a water• variations in soil, geomorphology, and climate. shed or drainage basin as the planning unit are Aquatic ecosystems will vary along the main presented in the Appendix to this paper. Thus the stream and tributaries, from estuarine to moun• watershed unit not only integrates natural tain stream ecosystems. systems, but also many social processes and pat• Ecosystem processes describe exchange of terns as well, and is therefore worthy of serious materials and flows of energy through each of the consideration in rural development (Fig. 15.1). structural elements of the ecosystem and provide compelling reasons for using the drainage basin as an integrating planning unit. The Watershed as an Integrator of Ecosystem Watersheds have an accumulated potential Patterns and Processes energy contributed by past geological pro• cesses—uplifted mountains having higher poten• The non-living environment is characterized by tial energy than the alluvial plains. The soil, variations in climate and features such as soil vegetation, and animal life have stores of organic types in a catena, lithological types in.a geologic (chemical) energy contributed by past inputs of sequence, or geomorphological forms from deltaic solar energy. Thus soil erosion should be seen not alluvium at the river mouth to rugged outcrops on just as the loss of a physical or nutrient medium, the ridges. The drainage basin is most successful but also as the loss of accumulated organic in organizing these variations because they tend to energy. follow an elevation gradient from basin ridgeline To these stores of energy are added current to the river and down the river to its lowest point. inputs of solar energy via the sun, rain, wind, and Similarly, climatic variation within the basin is other climatic factors. These inputs are spatially Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 81 distributed over the watershed, with the upland teristics of drainage basins. An integrative classifi• areas typically receiving greater inputs of energy cation was first suggested by Patrick Geddes in than lowland areas. Some of the energy input is the late 19th Century; an idealised pattern he lost directly from the basin through reradiation, called the 'valley section'. His student, Lewis another portion is lost as waste heat as it passes Mumford (1934) describes the schematic valley through various life processes, and a small propor• section as follows: tion is assimilated into living things and redistri• "Toward the mountain top, where on the steeper buted through the basin by gravity, water slopes the rocks perhaps crop out,—the quarry and transport, or by humans. The transformation of the mine ... . In the forest that stretches from the potential energy into kinetic energy permits man crown of the moutain seaward the hunter stalks his to generate hydroelectricity energy, irrigate fields, game ... . Further down the valley, where the little grind flour, float goods to market, and to disperse mountain torrents and brooks gather together in a pollutants; it also causes destruction from floods, stream ... is the realm of the primitive woodman: the erosion and deposition. wood chopper, the forester, the millwright, the carpen• Similarly, inorganic materials are either ter ... . Below the primitive woodman lies the province brought into the basin by precipitation or made of the herdsman and the peasant. Goatherd, shepherd, cowherd occupy the upland pastures or broad grass• available from geologic stores and are redistri• lands of the plain-plateaus ... . Below the more barren buted throughout the basin by gravity, wind, pastures, the peasant takes permanent possession of the water, and biological processes. Organic matter, land and cultivates it. He expands into the heavier river- chemical compounds (harmful or beneficial), soil, bottom soil as his command over tools and domesti• minerals, animal life, and vegetation are trans• cated animals grows, or as the struggle for existence ported through the basin by the kinetic energy becomes more keen ... . Finally, at the oceanside, transformations mainly wrought by gravity and plying in and out behind the barrier beaches and salt aided by water. marshes, lives the fisherman." It is contended that water is the most impor• tant material flowing through the basin, and the Although the correlation between occupations movement of materials downhill by gravity is one and ecological habitats is not always followed in of the most important ecosystem processes which drainage basins, the valley section concept is can be influenced by human actions. The com• often valid in developing countries, since the ponent processes of the hydrologic cycle are best resources available permit a limited range of managed in a watershed context. occupations in predominantly subsistence The drainage basin is also important for several economies. other ecological processes in physical planning. In industrialized economies, where exogenous The location and extent of floodplains can be inputs of energy and materials, and other location identified from the landscape and vegetation, and factors predominate, the correlation between should be mapped to avoid, if possible, the landscape opportunities and occupation may not widespread loss of life and property damage from apply. On the other hand, where land-use patterns encroachment of human activities into areas have been stable for many centuries, land capa• which are regularly flooded. In topographically bility has been learned by trial and error. Ac• constrained valleys, airshed behaviour and assi• cordingly, the existing spatial distribution of milative capacity may be predicted. occupations may be correlated with current land The ecological processes of aquatic organisms capability. including fish are spatially distributed along the Environmental opportunities for certain river; spawning, nurture, feeding, reproduction, occupations can lead to spatial specialization in and migration. All have water quality and quanti• the production of material goods needed by ty requirements which are affected by develop• communities. These production imbalances are ments 'upstream'. redressed by trade; the upland herdsmen trade woollen goods for fish from the coastal fisher• men, the cultivator trades agricultural produce for wood products, and so on. Thus trade linkages Social System Patterns and Processes drawn together at market places can be profound• ly influenced by the resources spatially distri• In many developing countries, there are buted throughout the drainage basin. The raw occupational, social, or ethnic differences materials also require energy to be transformed between highlanders and lowlanders, hill tribes into manufactured goods. Although much of the and valley tribes, upstream residents and down• energy input in developing countries is from stream residents which reflect the spatial charac• intensive human activity, the waterwheel, small 82 The Environmentalist grinding mills, and firewood are energy inputs Environmental Hazards drawn from environmental opportunities in the drainage basin. One can often mistakenly attribute all environ• In areas of rugged topography, the least energy mental problems to man's interference with the demanding routes for trade and social linkages environment, yet certain natural environmental will be chosen. In those countries where most processes can be hazardous to social activities and travel is by foot or pack animals, the trade routes be largely outside man's influence or control. are generally through a low pass in the dividing On steep slopes in the upper part of the range and along the floor of the river valley. drainage basin, the principal environmental hazards Where navigation is possible barges or rafts are relating to land and water are avalanches, rock- used along the river, as this is the least energy slides, mudflows, landslides and other kinds of demanding route. In some countries the topo• slope instability. Elsewhere, areas prone to floods, graphy or other factors have led to trade routes stream bank erosion and sediment deposition, and along the ridge lines and villages are found on the to geological movements such as earthquakes, ridges rather than on the valley floor. A ridge top may exist. Other hazards such as lightning, location may provide greater security, protection blizzards or drought are related to climatic factors from disease-carrying insects, or a more tolerable distributed through the basin. Fire hazard is climate. Whether the routes are along ridges or related to vegetative, climatic, and topographic valley floors, most developing countries, (where factors. road networks are still sparse), will display a One of the planning functions should be to map pattern of trade linkages and social interaction these hazards so that human use of life-threatening related to topographic features of the drainage hazardous areas is avoided, and structural or other basin. modifications can be made for less serious Another social process having spatial aspects hazards. Several development proposals can related to basins has to do with conflict. It has exacerbate the environmental hazards; large dams been expressed in Valley against valley' usually can increase earthquake hazard, roads can due to isolation effects and sometimes inter• increase landslide hazard, and conifer plantations marriage within clans. In some societies there is can increase fire hazard. Most environmental a sense of identity with a drainage basin, fostered hazards and their effects are best identified, by a vague mistrust of inhabitants over the ridge displayed and mitigated by planning based on the line. A second and almost reverse pattern has hydrologic unit. developed elsewhere in which the mountain folk and the flatlanders within a basin, have a conflict relationship. Even in developed societies today a Environmental Impacts certain polarization of interest and values be• tween upstream and downstream inhabitants is Man-initiated environmental impacts are often very real. Squabbles over water rights of 'up- best accounted for in a watershed context, streamers' versus 'downstreamers' are not un• because many of the processes through which common. If planning in a drainage basin is under• they emerge are expressed through gravity and taken, then the upstream/downstream social hydrology. For example, consider the construc• conflict must be recognized as a potential im• tion of a reservoir primarily designed to provide pediment. Upstream residents often perceive of hydropower, flood control and/or irrigation. themselves as bearing the brunt of the costs Good engineering design usually ensures that the to the benefit of the downstream people. Where project meets these somewhat incompatible this is indeed the case, some system of trade• primary objectives. Initially the new reservoir also offs or compensation should be considered. provides secondary beneficial effects through the Using a drainage basin does internalize these development of a new reservoir fishery or water- elements. based tourism. However, the construction of a Only a partial list of social interactions has barrier across the river may prevent migratory fish been considered here; others may be more impor• from proceeding upstream to spawn, thus causing tant in different traditional societies. Planners a detrimental impact on downstream populations should be aware of the spatial dimensions of of that species. Downstream water temperatures social processes, since an apparently beneficial may also be altered, further affecting the below- change such as a new road through the drainage darn fishery. Tertiary impacts include the fact basin can completely disrupt traditional social that upstream communities now have new sources exchanges and threaten the existing social struc• of livelihood whereas downstream fishing com• ture. munities may have had their source of livelihood Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 83 Fig. 15.2. Watershed land-use in the Philippines is affecting the water quality and storage capacity of this reservoir; and in turn the existence of the reservoir has affected the kind and intensity of spontaneous land use. In many cases land-use adjustments based on plan• ning and some control or inducement are called for. reduced. These changes could set in motion in sediment) has not often been recognized in another round of impacts; the downstream com• planning which has been based on political or munity could abandon their fishing village and other boundaries. move to the cities in search of work, the upstream Land-use intensification of downstream areas communities could abandon their traditional due to the availability of increased irrigation can shifting agriculture to become reservoir fishermen cause waterlogging, salinization of soils, and or tourist guides—each shift having environmen• saline-, pesticide-, or nutrient-rich runoff into tal impacts (Fig. 15.2). drainage waters, which in turn impact on Land-use intensification around the reservoir fisheries, mangroves and other downstream uses can cause soil erosion thus increasing sedimenta• of water. tion which in turn reduces the life of the These and other environmental impacts all reservoir, its fishery potential, and the life of the reverberate through the natural and social sys• hydroelectric turbine blades. The retention of tems. Similarly many other kinds of development sediment in the reservoir decreases sediment sup• proposals can be shown to distribute beneficial ply to downstream areas, which, in turn, could and detrimental environmental impacts reduce nutrient replenishment of alluvial soils, throughout the drainage basin, and over varying and initiate coastal erosion. Alteration of fresh• time periods. The point is that these chains of water nutrient flows and sedimentation can consequences are often made most apparent when adversely affect mangrove forests (a major cause environmental assessments are based on drainage of mangrove destruction worldwide), and thereby basins. reduce fish and shellfish production as well as the It is obvious that environmental impacts also other services and wood and wildlife products of operate as feedback loops, changing both eco• these important forests. systems and social systems. The floodplain, once The tie between welfare of the coastal man• a scene of frequent inundation, devastation of groves and the storage of water (and changes property, and loss of life, could become safer to 84 The Environmentalist inhabit. The estuarine ecosystem and the below- in place of this very limited and subjective assess• darn fishery could become less productive. The ment, one would need to measure a much wider upstream shifting cultivation system could change range of natural and social indicators in an over time into a settled community around the extended cost-benefit to provide greater quantifi• reservoir dependent on fishing and tourism for cation. However, it should be noted that many of cash income, and on settled cultivation around the outcomes may be regarded as inter-genera• the reservoir margins for food. This might well tional costs on benefits which are outside the relieve some shifting cultivation pressure on the economic analysis using normal discount rates. upland forest. For the downstream community Planning for these myraid changes can be who progressively lose the fish resource, the social accommodated by a hydrologic unit because in changes may be measured as reduced socio• rural areas social systems are interwoven with economic status or forced migration. Some of the ecological systems, and ecological processes are lowland cultivators who initially benefit from the highlighted in watershed planning. project may also be forced to migrate as the irri• gated areas become waterlogged and salinized. The urban dwellers who benefit from the Bibliography expanded electricity supply and the new tourist facilities, may find changes initiated by the Burgess, L. C. N. (1980) The application of airphoto interpreta• tion to watershed planning and development with special increased rural-urban migration and reduced out• reference to flood susceptibility and frequency determina• put of electricity, as the reservoir becomes silted tions, Ph.D. Thesis, Cornell University, 2 vols., Ithaca, NY, up. USA. Duggan, A. S. (1962) The occurrence of human trypanosomiasis among the Rukuba tribe of Northern Nigeria, Journal of Tropical Medicine, 65, pp. 151-163. Hamilton, L. S. (1981) Water resources development and the NATURAL SYSTEMS SOCIAL SYSTEMS emerging concept of environmental protection in the USA EAPI Working Paper, East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. Hays, W. W. (ed.) (1981) Facing geologic and hydrologic hazards: earth science considerations, US Geological Survey Prof. Paper 1240-B, US Government Printing Office, Washington DC, U.S.A. Hufschmidt, M. M. and Hyman, E. L. (eds.) (1982) Economic Approaches to Natural Resource and Environmental Quality Analysis, Tycooly International, Dublin, Ireland. Kunstadter, P., Chapman, E. C. and Sabhasri, S. (eds.) (1978) Farmers in the Forest, University Press of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. Lotspeich, F. B. (1980) Watersheds as the basic ecosystem: this conceptual framework provides a basis for a natural classifica• tion system, Water Resources Bulletin, 16(4), pp. 581-586. Mumford, L. (1934) Technics and Civilization, Harcourt, Brace and Co., New York, USA. Saenger, P., Hegerl, E. S. and Davie, J. D. S. (eds.) (1983) Report on the Global Status of Mangrove Ecosystems, IUCN, Com• mission on Ecology, Gland, Switzerland.

Appendix Some criteria and constraints indicating the ap• propriateness of a watershed or drainage basin as the planning unit. Fig. 15.3. Some indicators of the short- and long-term adjustments 1. Kind of development that might occur in a typical drainage basin. Where a key feature of the plan depends on achieving management control over water, such as Figure 15.3 illustrates how some indicators of increasing the amount of water available for use, the outcomes of the adjustment process might influencing its timing, or improving its quality, appear in the short- and long-terms. In reality, the land/water interaction is best expressed in the additional inputs would become necessary at hydrologic unit of a drainage basin. Many kinds times to prevent the natural and social systems of agricultural, forestry and some rural industrial from continuing in an undesirable direction. Also, and mineral developments are also included

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 85 because of their need for water or because the internal or radial, the concept of river basin off-site effects are transferred through gravity or planning may not be topographically applicable. hydrology to downstream users of the water Desert, tundra or plains areas may have no well- resources. defined watershed boundary. 2. Functional unit 5. Institutional compatibility Does the drainage basin contain sufficiently Does the political support exist for planning strong linkages between economic, social, politi• and implementation at the drainage basin level? cal, and natural systems to distinguish it from any Where the scale of the planning falls between two other areas of equivalent size. Where it is only powerful extant levels of political administration natural processes which distinguish the drainage such as State or local government, they may basin as a region, other social, economic, or resent the intrusion of a possible third tier of political linkages may take precedence depending administration which could usurp their power and on the planning objectives and priorities. reduce their share of the tax base. 3. Containment 6. Social simplicity Does the kind of development being planned Are most economic and social activities primarily affect people and resources within the generally conducted within a spatially constrained river basin, with relatively little leakage to areas arena? Where subsistence agriculture, cottage or outside the basin? For example, irrigation small rural industries, local marketing systems, schemes which require large scale water resource and non-motorised transport remain the predomi• development, integrated flood control, drainage nant forms of economic and social life, the schemes, and new transport networks within the drainage basin will often be the best unit for rural basin, and with relatively little impact external planning. However, where the society is already to the basin, are mostly 'contained'. developed to such a degree of complexity that the response to topography and natural processes is 4. Topographic suitability overridden by global communications, cosmopoli• Does the topography allow the definition of a tan social groups, and major national transport drainage basin boundary? Where drainage is networks, other units may be more applicable.

86 The Environmentalist 16. The Impact of Development on Interactions Between People and Forests in East Kalimantan: A Comparison of Two Areas of Kenyah Dayak Settlement

K. KARTAWINATA, H. SOEDJITO Herbarium, Bogoriense, Lembago Biologi Nasional, L.I. P.I., Jalan Ray a Juanda 22—24, Bogor, Indonesia T. JESSUP, A. P. VAYDA Department of Human Ecology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903, USA C. J. P. COLFER College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA

Summary as the 'type' of agriculture practiced or a group's 'level of development' or 'culture'. The generalization that 'shifting The approach advocated and used in this study has cultivation is destructive and therefore should be elimi• produced some findings which are important for develop• nated' (or the reverse, that shifting cultivation is not ment planning in East Kalimantan and which may be destructive) is bound to be wrong some of the time relevant to other tropical forest areas. In the Apo Kayan, because 'shifting cultivation' includes a great variety of contrary to the popular image of shifting cultivators that actual practices, and these occur in a diversity of environ• is prevalent among government officials in East Kaliman• ments and under many different specific circumstances. tan, the Dayak people are not reckless destroyers of the Development plans that recognize this diversity and take forest. Rather, they maintain and re-use sites, farming account of local needs and circumstances will, we believe, almost entirely in secondary forest with a long history of be more successful both in benefitting people and in land use. Their migrations are not, in most instances, protecting their environment. caused by a shortage of land but are mainly responses to economic problems brought about by their geographic isolation. Introduction The Telen River lowland area is quite different. Despite the hopes of government planners that 'resettled' shifting Rapid economic growth in East Kalimantan cultivators could be induced to use more intensive agri• during the last ten to twenty years (Daroesman, cultural methods, shifting cultivation there is more, not less, extensive than in the Apo Kayan, and it is being 1979) has been accompanied, in many parts of practiced mainly in primary rather than secondary forest. the province, by an increase in the rate and extent This is not due to any 'backwardness' on the part of of forest clearing and the intensity of forest Dayak farmers but is a result of inappropriate methods, exploitation, and by other social as well as ecolo• such as irrigated rice cultivation, being promoted by gical changes (Jessup, 1983; Kartawinata and extension workers and of economic circumstances that, Vayda, 1983; Kartawinata et al., 1978). Because on the one hand, encourage extensive agricultural produc• of the rapidity of these changes it is essential tion (access to markets) and, on the other, make the that forest management in the province be made clearing of large areas of primary forest relatively easy more effective and combined with development because of the ready availability of chain-saws, outboard that benefits people who live in or by the forest motors, and fuel. A related factor is the low inherent ferti• and who use it. Attempts to achieve these objec• lity of soils in the area which precludes intensive sedenta• tives have been hampered by the lack of informa• ry agriculture. tion on how East Kalimantan people use the It is concluded that development planners should pay forest and what the effects of those uses are. close attention to circumstances which may vary from one locality to another and which can have important Research on "Interactions between People and influences on people's actual behaviour. Such circum• Forests in East Kalimantan", jointly sponsored stances are usually more important than generalities such by the Indonesian and US Man and Biosphere Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 87 (MAB) programmes, was intended to provide such results obtained do provide a foundation for such information, specifically to show: (1) the range research. Quantitative ecological studies of the of people's forest-related knowledge, (2) their human activities in the forest are now being con• repertoire of forest-related activities, (3) the ducted in the Apo Kayan as part of a MAB variety of situations in which decisions to engage project begun in 1982 (Vayda, 1982; Vayda and in those activities or to change them are made, Jessup, 1980). and (4) the environmental and social effects that The forest-related activities which we found to the activities have. have direct effects on the forest in the two Three main locations for the research were research locations are the following: shifting cul• selected. The two locations discussed in this paper tivation; cutting timber for local use or sale; col• are the remote Apo Kayan plateau, which is the lection of minor (i.e., non-timber) forest pro• home of several thousand Dayak people living in ducts, also for local use or sale; and hunting and longhouse communities and practicing forest- fishing, mainly for local consumption. We also fallow shifting cultivation, and the Telen River investigated processes which, although they do lowland area, where settlements of migrants from not have a direct impact on the forest, influence the Apo Kayan were established prior to the post- people's activities in the forest and are, therefore, 1967 timber boom. The third location, not part of the context in which those activities discussed in this paper, is the vicinity of East occur. These processes include trade in minor Kalimantan's capital city of Samarinda. The forest products, from upriver collection areas to results of our research there do not show as downriver ports, and migration, mainly from the clearly as those from the first two locations the Apo Kayan to the Telen River and other lowland effects of change in traditional forest-related areas. activities and are therefore less relevant to the Migrations from the Apo Kayan to the low• concerns of the present symposium. The effects lands have occurred repeatedly during the last of change are shown in our study, partly through 200 or more years. Economic factors may have comparison of the two study locations and partly had an influence even on the earliest of these by historical reconstruction based on the recol• migrations; certainly in the last few decades the lections of informants. main reason for leaving the Apo Kayan has been The approach we have used in our research has the difficulty of getting trade goods such as salt, been to start by identifying particular human steel tools, cloth, and kerosene. Opportunities to activities which affect or can affect the forest, work and trade have attracted settlers particularly and then to try to understand those activities and to the navigable rivers of the lowlands (Colfer, their effects through investigation of the context 1982; Jessup, 1981; Whittier, 1973). Migration in which they occur. The context of an activity is had reduced the population of the Apo Kayan to taken to include not only relevant social, econo• less than 9000 by the end of the 1970s, compared mic, and environmental factors but also the with almost 16 000 in 1928 and about 12 500 in actors' knowledge of such factors, and of how the 1970 (Jessup, 1983). This has had several effects activity is to be performed. A context is not on forest-related activities, both in the Apo defined, nor its boundaries set, before the investi• Kayan and in the lowlands. First, and most gation begins. Rather, by tracing the relevant obvious, is the change in people's location. People influences and effects of an activity outward, who formerly used forests in the Apo Kayan now away from the actors and their immediate clear and exploit the forest elsewhere. But tradi• environment, it is possible to discover which tional activities are not simply transferred from factors are significant for an understanding of the one environment to another, nor do the people activity and its impact on the forest, and which who stay behind (the non-migrants) continue to can be left out of the analysis or explanation. do things in the same way as before. Migration Vayda (1983) gives a full discussion of this has altered the number and distribution of people approach, which he calls 'progressive contextuali- in the Apo Kayan as well as in the areas of new, zation'. He also discusses its usefulness in lowland settlements, and this in turn has affected understanding and solving development-related forest-related activities. For example, now that problems. villages in the Apo Kayan are smaller than they In using the approach outlined above, investiga• were, there is a relative abundance of forest which tors at the two research locations chose qualita• can be cleared for cultivation or exploited in tive and quantitative field methods that were ap• other ways. Many people need not go as far from propriate to the questions at hand. Carefully con• their homes as they once did to make fields and trolled, specialized studies were not undertaken to obtain forest products. Fish and game are said during the course of the project. However, the to be more plentiful now than they used to be. 88 The Environmentalist Little primary forest is being cleared for cultiva• In the Telen River area, research was con• tion, in part because there are enough choice sites ducted mainly in the Uma' Jalan Kenyah village in secondary forest left by emigrants. of Long Segar, located about 140 km by air from Migrants to the lowlands have also changed Samarinda in Muara Wahau subdistrict, Kutai their activities in response to new conditions and regency. Long Segar is accessible from Samarinda opportunities. Farmers in the Telen River lowland by plane (30 minutes), speedboat (9 hours), or area now grow rice to sell, as well as for their own longboat (36 to 48 hours). The village was settled consumption. They also spend more time col• in stages between 1963 and 1972 by people who lecting forest products for sale, but use fewer moved, on their own initiative, from Long forest products than they did (or than others still Ampung in the Apo Kayan. The 1980 population do) in the Apo Kayan. As we shall explain, these was about 1000. Long Segar and two neigh• changes affect the forest as well as people's own bouring villages became a government-sponsored economic status. Resettlement Project in 1972 and since then have received various kinds of assistance, such as house-building and agricultural tools, seeds and Research Locations seedlings, and agricultural extension work. One of the goals of the programme has been to move Research in the Apo Kayan centered on the people away from the practice of shifting cultiva• Uma' Tukung Kenyah village of Long Sungai tion to the establishment of permanent agricul• Barang (or Sungai Barang), located about 330 km ture, mainly in the form of irrigated rice cultiva• by air from Samarinda, near the headwaters of tion, but this goal has not been met (Colfer et al, the Kayan River in Kayan Hulu subdistrict 1980). Shifting cultivation of dry rice is still the (kecamatan), Bulongan regency (kabupaten). It predominant form of agriculture in the Telen can be reached by small plane from Samarinda or River area. Tarakan in about two hours; by boat and trail the Long Segar is situated on an alluvial plain only journey can take two months or more because of a few meters above sea level. Parts of the area are the many rapids which must be traversed or by• subject to seasonal flooding. The village is sur• passed. Sungai Barang was settled in 1942 by the rounded mostly by secondary forest, with Uma Tukung, who moved some 10 km from their primary dipterocarp forest and fields farther away previous home on the Jamahang River, also in the (some fields as far as 10 km). Most fields are Apo Kayan. Their population was close to 2000 made in primary forest and are cultivated for one prior to the 1960s but migration has reduced it or two years. Fields are made both on low (flood- to about 375 in 1980. People in Sungai Barang prone) and high (unflooded) ground. Primary and throughout the Apo Kayan practice long- forest on the former was found to contain fallow or forest-fallow shifting cultivation. They Dillenia excelsa (Dilleniaceae), Lagerstroemia spe- clear fields in the forest every one or two years ciosa {Lythraceae), Artocarpus teysmannii (Mora- while old fields are left to revert to secondary ceae), Mallotus muticus {Euphorbiaceae), and forest, usually for at least 15 years and at some Eugenia sp. (Myrtaceae) as prevalent species. In sites for more than 30 years, before being cleared the primary forest on higher ground Elmerillia again. The main crop is dry (unirrigated) rice. ovalis (Magnoliaceae), Diospyros sp. (Ebenaceae), Shifting cultivation is the most significant activity and Litsea sp. (Lauraceae) are rather common. in the Apo Kayan from the standpoint of its Long Segar is in a large timber concession and effects on the forest because no other activity near a government-sponsored pilot plantation involves the clearing of so much forest, although project, both of which provide opportunities for almost all that is cleared now is secondary forest. employment. Trade boats are an outlet for some Sungai Barang is situated at an elevation of agricultural and forest products as well as a source about 800 m above sea level in a lower montane of consumer goods. Economic conditions in the forest environment. The landscape is a mosaic area are thus quite different from those in the composed of several types of primary forest, isolated region of the Apo Kayan. secondary forest patches of varying ages, old and new fields, and a central settlement area. The primary forest over the greater part of the area is Shifting Cultivation rich in Fagaceae with Myrtaceae and some Dip- terocarpaceae also fairly common. There are also Almost all the forest cleared to make fields in patches of kerangas (heath) forest and a kind of the Apo Kayan is secondary forest. Only in a few hilltop forest (called agang by the local people) places is primary forest now cleared; even near where the soil is dry. villages where primary forest is readily available Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 89 many fields are made in successional forest. This forests take more work to clear but since the is partly the result of emigration, which by weeds are fewer in such a site it can be cultivated reducing the population has made the existing for two years. When some primary forest was still areas of secondary forest relatively abundant, but being cleared by Sungai Barang farmers (until the the use of secondary forest for shifting cultivation mid-1950s), those sites could be cultivated for is not a new phenomenon. Historical data from three years, sometimes even longer. We should interviews with people in Sungai Barang show point out that the length of the cultivation that even when the Uma' Tukung first began to period, as given above (i.e., one, two, or three farm in that area they made most of their fields years), refers to the cultivation of the main crop, in secondary forest, that is, on sites that had pre• which is rice, and other crops planted together viously been cultivated by people from nearby with rice. After the last rice harvest, however, villages. In the 40 years since then the amount of small patches in the old fields are often planted secondary forest cleared has always exceeded that with cassava, beans, and a few other non-rice of primary forest cleared (Jessup, 1983). The Apo crops. Fruit trees are sometimes also planted in Kayan as a whole has been inhabited for centu• fields or old fields. ries. On the basis of the agricultural practices ob• The area of fields cultivated by people in served in Sungai Barang and elsewhere (Whittier, Sungai Barang at any one time is about 0.3 1973) it seems probable that most cultivated sites hectare per person. The area of forest cleared have been recleared many times (Jessup, 1981). each year is less than the area cultivated because This indicates that shifting cultivation, as it is tra• some fields are cultivated for more than one year. ditionally practiced in the Apo Kayan, is not From 1979 to 1982, during which time the popu• usually destructive in terms of soil fertility or lation has remained at around 375, the total area forest cover. of cultivated fields has been about 112 hectares In the Sungai Barang area, secondary forest is per year while the area of forest cleared has been usually recleared after a fallow period of between about 84 hectares per year (Jessup, 1983). 10 and 30 years but there are always some stands A few primary forest sites are cultivated for or patches of older secondary forest as well. In• two years, with rice as the main crop. But farmers formants say not only that regular fallow periods in Long Segar prefer not to do this unless their should be long enough to reduce weeds and so first crop was unusually good and/or they have a prevent the short-term degradation of the forest labour shortage at clearing time. Although into scrub but also that occasionally sites should Kenyah farmers in Long Segar maintain that the be left unused for longer periods, say 40 to 50 second year's crop is generally not as good as the years, to prevent a more gradual decline in fertili• first, neighbouring Kutai farmers, like the Uma' ty and an increase in 'weedy' species. Although Tukung of the Apo Kayan, find that rice yields such a system of variable rotation cannot always tend to increase from the first to the second year be put into practice—for example, where local (Jessup, 1981). After the rice is harvested, Long population pressure forces a shortening of fallow Segar farmers often plant legumes in the fields. periods (Whittier, 1973)—it does seem to have Primary forest is still extensive in the Telen worked, for the most part, in the vicinity of River area but people from Long Segar must Sungai Barang. Furthermore, the fact that farmers travel up to 10 km to find suitable field sites recognize the value of long-term management and because the village is now surrounded by seconda• conservation and seem to know what is needed to ry forest. Canoes driven by outboard motors are achieve these goals belies the popular image of used to go to and from the fields (Fig. 16.1). shifting cultivators as careless and destructive Chain-saws are used to fell the large, primary nomads. forest trees, a task that was long and arduous The main reason given by Sungai Barang when done in the Apo Kayan with axes. Chain- farmers for abandoning a field after one or two saws and outboard motors are not unknown in years of cultivation is that it becomes more diffi• the Apo Kayan but only a few people own them cult to remove weeds from the old field than to and they are rarely used, mainly because of the clear a new one. Farmers observe the early phases cost and difficulty of getting fuel. (Most of the of succession in old fields and classify them chain-saws in the Apo Kayan were brought there according to the development of trees and the by men returning from work as timber cutters corresponding decrease in 'weedy' plants (mainly in Sarawak, where they bought the saws as part of grasses, herbs, and shrubs). When weedy plants their work contracts.) have been reduced to a low level, usually after 10 People in Long Segar grow rice for sale as well to 20 years, a site can be cleared and cultivated as for their own consumption; surplus rice in the for one year without difficulty from weeds. Old Telen River area, in contrast to the Apo Kayan 90 The Environmentalist Fig. 16.1. A fishing trip up the Marah River (note outboard motor on the back). is easily disposed of through trade boats or local was no more than 30 hectares (although larger markets. For this reason, and perhaps also clearings have been made in the past, according to because of the availability of chain-saws and fuel, informants). The recovery (secondary succession) the area cleared and cultivated by Long Segar of such vast fields to forest is likely to be slow farmers is about 0.4 hectare per capita per year, and there is accordingly a danger that the Long 33% greater than in Sungai Barang. The total area Segar shifting cultivators, unlike those in the Apo cultivated in 1979—80 was about 400 hectares of Kayan, are degrading fairly extensive areas of which 82% or 328 hectares was cleared in 1979 forest land (Kartawinata and Vayda, 1983). from primary forest, the remainder being fields Species found in large, recently made fields were made in secondary forest and fields in a second mainly grasses, climbers, and ferns with only a year of cultivation (Colfer, 1982). few seedlings of woody species. We would expect Not only do people clear more forest per capita this from the large distance that seeds must travel in Long Segar than in Sungai Barang but the size from the edge to the center of the field. Grasses of single clearings is also greater. In both places, a and other woody species tend to have light, wind- single clearing is usually composed of more than borne seeds while tree species (especially those of one family field, that is, several families make the primary forest) generally have heavier seeds their fields adjacent to one another, but in Long and correspondingly shorter ranges of dispersal. Segar the number of families with fields in a Another factor influencing slow recovery may be single clearing is much larger than in Sungai the heat of fire, which is likely to be increased Barang. The steep and broken terrain of the Apo more by convection in larger fields and which Kayan, especially near Sungai Barang, makes it could kill seeds in the soil and stumps and roots difficult for many families to find suitable field that otherwise would resprout. In support of this sites adjacent to one another but this is not an hypothesis we note that farmers in the Apo Kayan obstacle in the plains and low hills near Long say that large fields burn better than small ones Segar. The largest area cleared near Long Segar in and that adjacent fields should be burned at the 1979, for instance, was approximately 300 same time to get a good blaze. Fearnside (1981), hectares, while the largest single clearing made by reporting on shifting cultivators in Brazil, notes Sungai Barang farmers between 1979 and 1981 that large clearings burn better than small ones.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 91 It appears clear that agricultural practices in the Apo Kayan, in an area where villages are well established and where rice is grown mainly for subsistence, are more conservative and less destructive of the forest—particularly of primary forest—than in Long Segar, where previously unexploited forest is being cleared to cultivate rice for sale as well as for local consumption, and where the use of chain-saws and outboard motors lets people clear primary forest more easily and over a wider area than before.

Forest Products In this section we discuss the collection, use, and sale of forest products in Sungai Barang and Long Segar. These include timber and the so- called 'minor' (i.e., non-timber) forest products. Readers interested in the collection and trade of minor forest products in East Kalimantan (not only in the two locations discussed in this paper) should refer to Peluso (1981, 1983) or, for a summary discussion, the Appendix in Kartawi• nata and Vayda (1983). Some commercial timber cutting has been done in and near the Apo Kayan but it has been limited to a few places and, apparently, to times when the price of timber was especially high in relation Fig. 16.2. Long Segar man splitting rattan, a preliminary stage in to the cost of extraction. The fact that the Apo basket construction. A rice basket is standing against the wall at Kayan is isolated by long and dangerous rapids the back of the room. limits access to the timber there. Most of the timber trees that are felled in the Apo Kayan are used locally for buildings (mainly longhouses), a fuel in lamps; medicinal and food plants; game bridges, and canoes. Trees are taken from primary and fish. The most commonly eaten wild foods and old secondary forest, but rarely from young are pig, deer, fish of various kinds (Fig. 16.3), secondary forest because the wood of trees fruit and ferns. Minor forest products are col• growing there is generally not durable enough. lected from both secondary and primary forest; Timber trees in primary forest include Agathis some plants and animals are also taken from old (Araucariaceae), Podocarpus (Podocarpaceae), fields (Roemantyo, 1982; Soedjito, 1982). Lithocarpus (Fagaceae), Eugenia (Myrtaceae), and The only commercial forest product now Shorea (Dipterocarpaceae). Trees are cut selec• collected in any significant quantity in the Apo tively, not clear-cut. Sometimes wood from fallen Kayan is aloe wood, or gaharu (Aquilaria becca- dead trees is used. The rate of felling in primary riana, Thymelacaceae). Bezoar stones, or batu forest near Sungai Barang is difficult to estimate guliga (the gall stones of monkeys and porcu• accurately but it is probably similar to the rate of pines), are collected in small quantities. Some natural tree-falls (Jessup, 1983). rattan is also traded in the form of woven mats Minor forest products in the Apo Kayan, are and baskets. Aloe wood has only been sold in, like timber, collected mainly for local use. The and exported from, the Apo Kayan since 1979, most important are rattan, used for weaving when traders came there in search of the wood. baskets (Fig. 16.2) and mats, for house construc• Most is sold to local 'contractors' who export it tion, and wherever a strong, flexible line is to buyers in Tanjung Selor or Samarinda by small needed; bamboo, used to make water carriers and plane. Some aloe wood is also taken by the conduits, fences, woven mats and baskets, and collectors themselves to towns in Sarawak or East light structures; pandanus and other leaves, used Kalimantan (Peluso, 1981). for roofing and for weaving mats and hats; damar People in Long Segar use fewer forest products (resin), used now to caulk boats, formerly also as than in the Apo Kayan, partly because of the 92 The Environmentalist and steel, at least since the mid-nineteenth centu• ry (Colfer, 1983b; Jessup, 1981; Peluso, 1981; Whittier, 1973). Trade expeditions to Sarawak and the Mahakam River are made by groups of men, and occasionally women, who seek jobs in the lowlands to earn the money they need to buy goods. The round-trip, including the time spent working, often takes a year or more. Timber-cutting is the work most often sought but the collection of minor forest products and other jobs are also done. The difficulty of travel and the hardship, for people in the Apo Kayan, of having men stay away for many months at a time, are reasons why many people have moved to the lowlands where they can find work closer to home. This in turn has made it more difficult for people who stay in the Apo Kayan to organize trade expeditions because the temporary shortage of men is felt more acutely now that villages are smaller. On the other hand, the difficulties of trade have been partly alleviated in recent years by the activities of missionary pilots who, since the early 1970s, have flown between the Apo Kayan and other parts of East and West Kaliman• tan, carrying some goods and passengers. Even more recently, the government has constructed a long (900 m) airstrip at Long Ampung (about 10 km from Sungai Barang) which is to be served by larger planes carrying goods at subsidized Fig. 16.3. Long Segar woman resting from a dip net fishing excur• sion (a community function). The basket in the background opens rates. These efforts and the prospect of con• to carry burdens of different shapes and sizes. tinuing government assistance for economic development have encouraged some people to availability of manufactured (commercial) sub• stay in the Apo Kayan, though others have stitutes and partly because some of the products emigrated just in the last few years. used in the Apo Kayan are not found near Long People in Long Segar and other lowland com• Segar (Colfer, 1983a). The latter include certain munities can work closer to home than can kinds of bamboo, palm, and hardwood (timber). people in the Apo Kayan (Colfer, 1981, 1982). Less time is spent in the collection of forest Men can find work building logging roads and products for local use. However, people in Long camps, transmigration and plantation sites, and Segar spend more time than people in the Apo houses. They can also cut timber on a contract Kayan collecting forest products to sell. The main basis or make ironwood beams and shingles (as commercial forest product collected by people described above). Men and women also earn from Long Segar is Borneo ironwood, or ulin money by selling rice and other cash crops, (Eusideroxylon zwagri, Lauraceae), which is used although the latter are not now widely grown in to make shingles, posts, beams, and railroad ties. Long Segar. The wood is valued because of its durability. It is While Long Segar men need not go as far to find rare in the Apo Kayan but relatively common in work nor stay away as long as men from the Apo the Telen River area, where it can also be sold Kayan, they do often leave the area of their own locally or to traders. Ironwood is also used in village in order to find work. Meanwhile, other Long Segar in the construction of houses. people come to the Long Segar area to work for the timber company there. The reason for this is that company officials prefer to hire people from far away; they say that local men often leave Trade and Wage Labour early to work in their rice fields. Similar hiring practices are said to exist in Sarawak, where People from the Apo Kayan have travelled long Kenyah men from the Apo Kayan are preferred distances to get trade goods such as salt, cloth, over the local Iban (Peluso, pers. comm.). Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 93 Another difference between trade in the Apo the zones are listed below is generally propor• Kayan and that in Long Segar is that men re• tional to their distance from the nearest village. turning to the Apo Kayan bring goods, while (1) Agricultural zones, in secondary forest with those coming home to Long Segar bring money. (at any given time) scattered new and old fields, Cash is more useful in the lowlands where goods the latter in the process of reverting to forest. are cheaper and available in greater quantities These successional communities also provide than in the remote parts of the interior. many useful plant and animal products. The agri• cultural zones should be large enough so that regular fallow periods can be about 20 years and Developing Traditional Agroforestry in the Apo some sites at a given time can be left out of rota• Kayan tion, eventually to reach an age of about 50 years. (2) Exploitation zones, in primary and second• Forest-fallow shifting cultivation is a form of ary forest, where timber and minor forest agroforestry because it combines agriculture with products can be collected fairly intensively. the use of forest resources and maintains a forest Sungai Barang already has a primary forest reserve cover over most of the landscape at any given near the village. It is protected from clearing so as time. In areas of high or increasing population to provide a source of timber and rattan. Our density, or where there are economic incentives proposal would add some secondary forest to this to clear the forest rapidly, or where environmen• partially protected reserve, although this may tal conditions prevent the regrowth of usable turn out to be unnecessary if an ample supply of secondary forest, there shifting cultivation is secondary-forest products is available from likely to be destructive. None of these applies to agricultural zones. the Apo Kayan, however, where population densi• (3) Protected zones, where activities are limited ty (except, in the past, in a few local areas) is low to those which do not significantly disturb the and continues to decline, economic incentives are forest. For example, hunting would be allowed to work in non-agricultural activities such as trade but timber-cutting would not. The main purpose and the collection of a few valuable forest of these zones is to protect and conserve primary products, and secondary forest regenerates rapid• forest species which require a large area of ly in most places. Since the population is smaller unexploited, natural habitat. Ecological research now than in the past and some former village sites could also be conducted here. We would include are uninhabited, some areas of secondary forest some secondary forest as well as primary forest in are now increasing in age without being recleared the protected zones so as to increase their size and these may eventually revert to primary forest. and to provide opportunities to make long-term Because of the special conditions in the Apo studies of succession. The exploitation and agri• Kayan, we focus exclusively on it in this final cultural zones would serve as 'buffers' between section and suggest that development be ap• the protected, natural forest zone and intensive proached in a way that takes advantage of oppor• development such as logging and forest conver• tunities for forest conservation and research sion outside the area as a whole. while, at the same time, meets the real needs and Within the agricultural zones, the development problems of people in the Apo Kayan now. Agri• of small-holder, cash crop plantations may be a cultural development and forest management way to provide people in the Apo Kayan with should be based on existing practices rather than more of a cash income. Government officials on more intensive commercial methods which, we in the area are interested in this possibility, believe, would be inappropriate in a remote area hoping that the new airstrip in Long Ampung will such as the Apo Kayan. Our proposal is set forth permit regular, commercial flights to bring in in greater detail in Kartawinata, Vayda, Jessup goods and export cash crops and, perhaps, some and Wirakusumah (1981). forest products. We recommend that shifting cultivation not be We see no incentive or need to develop inten• prohibited or discouraged in the Apo Kayan as sive agriculture on any large scale in the Apo long as it can be restricted to areas in secondary Kayan. The costs of transportation make it forest. Except in a few cases, this reflects existing uneconomical while the low population density practices. Planning a land-use system for a village makes forest-fallow shifting cultivation an appro• such as Sungai Barang could be based on zones of priate way to produce food for local consump• forest use. The zones need not each be in one tion. Cash crop production on a small scale could continuous area, but could follow the existing benefit people in the area but, again, the margin mosaic or patchwork of primary and secondary of profit after paying for transportation is likely forest communities. However, the order in which to be too low to attract outside investment. We 94 The Environmentalist believe, furthermore, that attempts to reduce Colfer, C. J. P., Soedjito, H. and Azier, A. (1980) On resetlement from the bottom up. Paper presented at the Lokakarya these costs by constructing roads into the Apo Nasional Respen (National Workshop on Population Resettle• Kayan would lead to environmental damage and ment), Samarinda, Indonesia, April, 1980. depletion of forest resources. This might provide Daroesman, R. (1979) An economic survey of East Kalimantan, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies, 15, pp. 43-82. short-term profits for timber companies and Fearnside, P. M. (1981) Burn quality prediction for simulation others but it probably would not benefit local of the agricultural system of Brazil's Transamazon Highway people to the same extent (Kartawinata, Adi- colonists for estimating human carrying capacity. Paper presented at the International Society for Tropical Ecology soemarto, Riswan and Vayda, 1981). We believe Symposium on Ecology and Resource Management in the that a better long-term strategy is to promote Tropics, Bhopal, India, October 5-10,1981. forest conservation with local development, not Jessup, T. C. (1981) Why do Apo Kayan shifting cultivators move? Borneo Research Bulletin, 13, pp. 16-32. rapid over-exploitation. Jessup, T. C. (1983) Interactions between people and forest in Apo Kayan. Unpublished Final Report for IBPF. Acknowledgements Kartawinata, K. and Vayda, A. P. (1983) Forest conversion in East Kalimantan, Indonesia: the activities and impacts of timber companies, shifting cultivators, migrant pepper farmers, and The project on "Interactions between People others. In F. di Castra, F. W. G. Baker and M. Hadley (eds.), and Forests in East Kalimantan, Indonesia" began Ecology in Practice, Vol. 1, Tycooly, Dublin, Ireland, pp. 89-117. in 1979 and ended in 1982 and was funded by Kartawinata, K. Vayda, A. P. and Wirakusumah, R. S. (1978) East the US Forest Service through a grant awarded to Kalimantan and the Man and the Biosphere Program, Borneo the East—West Center in Honolulu by the US Research Bulletin, 10, pp. 28-40. Kartawinata, K., Adisoemarto, S., Riswan, S. and Vayda, A. P. MAB Program's "Consortium for the Study of (1981) The impact of man on a tropical forest in Indonesia, Man's Relationship with the Global Environ• Ambio, 10 (2/3), pp. 115-119. ment". The project was a joint endeavour of the Peluso, M. L. (1981) The trade in forest products in East Kaliman• tan, Indonesia. Unpublished Final Report for IBPF. Indonesian and US MAB programmes and was Peluso, M. L. (1983) Markets and merchants: the forest products carried out with cooperation of Mulawarman trade of East Kalimantan in historical perspective, M.Sc. University in Samarinda, the Provincial Govern• Thesis, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA. Roemantyo, H. M. (1982) Use of wild plants by the people of ment of East Kalimantan, the National Biological Long Sungai Barang in the Apo Kayan. Unpublished Final Institute, the Indonesian Institute of Sciences Report for IBPF. (LIPI), and UNESCO. For preliminary reports on Soedjito, H. (1982) Vegetation and ethnobotany in Long Sungai Barang and Long Segar. Unpublished Final Report for IBPF. the project as a whole, Vayda, Colfer and Broto- Vayda, A. P. (1981) Research in East Kalimantan on interactions kusumo (1980), Vayda (1981), and Kartawinata between people and forests: a preliminary report, Borneo and Vayda (1983) should be consulted. Research Bulletin, 13(1), pp. 3-15. Vayda, A. P. (1982) Project on "Shifting Cultivation and Patch Dynamics in an Upland Forest in East Kalimantan, Indone• sia" (US Forest Service Grant No. 59-PSW-81-003G). Interim References Report, August, 1982. Typescript. Vayda, A. P. (1983) Progressive contextualization: methods for Colfer, C. J. P. (1981) Women, men and time in the forests of East research in human ecology, Human Ecology, 11, in press. Kalimantan, Borneo Research Bulletin, 13, pp. 75-85. Vayda, A P. and Jessup, T. C. (1980) Shifting cultivation and Colfer, C. J. P. (1982) Kenyah Dayak tree cutting in context. patch dynamics in an upland forest in East Kalimantan, Unpublished Final Report for IBPF. Indonesia. Research proposal submitted to the "Consortium Colfer, C. J. P. (1983a) Change and indigenous agroforestry in for the Study of Man's Relationship with the Global Environ• East Kalimantan, Borneo Research Bulletin, 15(1), pp. ment". Typescript. 3-20. Vayda, A. P., Colfer, C. J. P. and Brotokusumo, M. (1980) Inter• Colfer, C. J. P. (1983b) On circular migration ... from the distaff actions between people and forests in East Kalimantan, side: Women left behind in the forests of East Kalimantan. Impact of Science on Society, 33, pp. 179-190. (In preparation for Labour Circulation, G. Standing (ed.) Whittier, H. L. (1973) Social organization and symbol of social International Labour Organization, Geneva; Published as a differentiation: An ethnographic study of the Kenyah Dayak Population and Labour Policies Programme Working Paper of East Kalimantan (Borneo), Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan No. 132, ILO, Geneva.) State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 95 17. The Talun-Kebun System, a Modified Shifting Cultivation, in West Java

OTTO SOEMARWOTO Institute of Ecology, Padjadjaran University, Bandung, Indonesia

trees and planting the crops. There is no need for Summary soil cultivation and there are no chemical inputs, The talun is a man-made forest consisting of a mixture such as fertilizers and pesticides. After two or of economic tree species, usually with an undergrowth of three harvests, when soil fertility has declined, a mixture of annual plants. It has a multistorey structure and weeds and pests have become difficult to and gives good protection to the soil against the erosive control, the people leave the garden and clear forces of rain, as well as being a genetic resource. The talun is privately owned and on the average a family has another plot of forest land. In the new plot the 1 to 2 hectares. process is repeated. After many years the people In the talun a shifting cultivation is practised by rotat• return to the first plot which in the meantime has ing a garden, called the kebun, which is planted with a regenerated into a secondary forest. From this mixture of cash crops. The cycle of the rotation is about brief description it is clear that the forest is an 8 years. The opening for the kebun is created by harvest• integral part of the shifting cultivation system. ing the trees and bamboo by clear or selective cutting and Although at any one time only a small garden is heavy pruning. Hence, the talun-kebun system is essen• maintained, its sustainability depends on a large tially shifting cultivation in a man-made forest. Because area of forest. Hence, only a low human popula• of the high economic returns, it is capable of carrying a tion density can be supported by the shifting high population density on a sustainable basis. cultivation system. In many places, the popula• tion density of shifting cultivators is increasing because of decreasing death rates, and increasing birth rates, a result of better health care and the Introduction elimination of tribal warfare. If at the same time Shifting cultivation is practised in many parts large tracts of forest land become unavailable for of Indonesia. In West Java it is called huma, in shifting cultivation because of logging concessions, which upland rice is one of the crops. Shifting mining, or development of National Parks, the cultivation is usually considered as a subsistence cycle of the shifting cultivation will have to be system. The crops are mostly food or other shortened. If the cycle becomes too short, the plants which are used by the cultivators them• forest can no longer regenerate and environmental selves. There is little or no surplus to sell and degradation sets in. Furthermore, under increas• many shifting cultivators live in remote areas, far ing population pressure, land on steep slopes will away from economic activities. However, there be brought under cultivation, and this in turn are exceptions. For example, there is a form of exacerbates the problem. shifting cultivation in which commercial crops are an integral part of the system (e.g., Kunstadter et at, 1978; Pelzer, 1945; Spencer, 1966). In another case, the shifting cultivators gather forest The Talun-Kebun System products to be sold to traders who frequent their Java is generally densely populated with an areas (Spencer, 1966), a system dating back more average population density of close to 700 people than 2000 years. The Deli tobacco in North per km2. West Java, which still has shifting culti• Sumatra can be considered as an extreme case of vation or huma, has an average population density commercial shifting cultivation with a cycle of of almost 600 people per km2. Because of this 8 years, and which uses the latest developments high population density the huma is also practised of agricultural technology. outside the designated area, the so-called huma In general terms, shifting cultivation consists block. Even so, the cycle has been very much of clearing a small plot of land, burning the felled shortened, in many cases to the extent that the 96 The Environmentalist fallow period is only limited to the dry season. the people. The bamboo stalks, jeungjing trees, As a result, there is no forest regeneration. At fruits and other products are harvested and the most, there are only shrubs or a poor green mostly sold either at the local market or to mid• cover of some shrubs and grasses. Consequently, dlemen. In some places, home industries to soil erosion, floods in the wet season, and water process the products have also developed, e.g., shortages in the dry season have become com• bamboo handicrafts. At the transition period monplace. Fortunately, under this difficult con• between the dry and the wet season the people dition of high population density a new type of clear an opening in the talun by clear-cutting the shifting cultivation has developed which we call bamboo without disturbing the rhizomes, selected the talun kebun system. Its development was not cutting of the jeungjing and heavy pruning the based on scientific research, but on the tradition• fruit and other trees. The cutting of bamboo and al knowledge and experience of the people. Since, jeungjing is actually harvesting, while heavy as we will see shortly, it has many positive envi• pruning produces fuel wood. The opening is ronmental effects, it can be called traditional about 500 m2 to 1500 m2. The leaves and small ecological wisdom. twigs are dried in the sun for several days and The talun is a mixture of perennial trees, under then burnt. The ash is mixed with stable manure which may be found an undergrowth of annual which is brought in from the village. Soil prepara• species. The canopy is characteristically multi- tion is very minimal, usually consisting only of layered. The species composition differs from making small ridges along the contours. From place to place, being influenced by such factors the soil conservation point of view this is not as climate, soil and markets. Some examples of adequate to control erosion, but since the plot is the species grown are jeungjing (Albizia falca- small and surrounded by a large area of talun, taria), several bamboo species (e.g., Bambusa the overall effect is small. The opening is called spp., Dendro calamus and Gigantochloa spp.), kebun. coconut, sugar palm (Arenga pinnata), clove and Planting is done by making holes in the soil fruit trees (e.g., mango, mangostene and durian), with a wooden stick, in which the seeds or the while species of the undergrowth are, among seedlings are planted. The major crop depends others, pineapple, taro, and cassava. It is not un• on various factors, like climate, soil and markets. usual to find a talun dominated by a species, e.g., In the area of Soreang and Ciwidey, southwest of bamboo or jeungjing in which case it is called Bandung, the major crops are lablab beans (Doli- talun bambu or talun jeungjing. In a talun bambu chos lablab) and cucumber, while in Majalaya, the canopy is dense and closed, so that there is no southeast of Bandung, they are tobacco and undergrowth. The bamboo forms the lowest onion. Other crops include sweet basil (Ocimum canopy and above it are found the canopies of basilicum), chilli pepper, egg plant, black night• fruit trees, jeungjing, coconut and other trees. shade (Solanum nigrum), tomato and cassava. Because of the high density of the trees and the Cassava is usually planted along the edges of the multilayered structure of the canopy, the talun kebun. When lablab beans are grown, the tops has the appearance of a forest. Some species were of the harvested bamboo are used as poles to selected from the forests whence the talun orig• support the vines. Manuring is done at planting inated, others being introduced later. time with the mixture of manure and ash. Later The talun is privately owned. On the average on, the plants are fertilized once more with urea. a family owns 1 to 2 hectares. It is usually found Harvesting is carried out during an extended outside the village. Moving from low to high period as leaves and fruits become ready for ground rice fields occur in the river valley, the vil• harvest. By this time, the regrowth of bamboo lage being situated on the higher parts of the and other trees, which were pruned, has closed valley, and above it on the lower slopes of the the opening. The kebun has become talun again. hills the talun, with the forest on the higher Another plot of talun is cleared and the process slopes. The forest is usually government owned. is repeated. The cycle lasts about 8 years. Although the talun occupies the slopes, which Essentially the talun-kebun system is shifting sometime are very steep, there is little erosion, cultivation in a man-made forest. The talun is because of the multistorey structure of the analogous to the forest stage in shifting cultiva• canopy and the layer of litter on the talun floor. tion, but gives more economic returns to the The talun is also a genetic resource, because of people, while just like the forest, it protects the the multispecies composition. Some species are soil against the erosive forces of the rain. It is wild or semi-wild. also a genetic resource. The harvesting of bamboo The talun which is essentially a man-made and jeungjing is analogous to the clearing of the forest, has an important economic function for forest, but the cut bamboo and jeungjing have

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 97 economic value. The kebun in the talun is also Since the talun-kebun system retains the essen• geared to the market economy, while the garden tial features of shifting cultivation, it should be in the shifting cultivation is generally for subsis• useful to consider it as a possibility for the resett• tence production. lement of shifting cultivators who need a large Another difference is that in the talun-kebun area of forest to make their practice sustainable. system many minerals are exported from the sys• With increasing population density on the one tem with the sale of the products, while in the hand, and the increasing use of forest land for subsistence shifting cultivation there is more or development projects on the other, shifting culti• less a closed mineral cycling. The export of vation cannot possibly survive without causing minerals is compensated by the import of stable serious environmental degradation. However, the manure from the village, and urea from the talun-kebun system in West Java can survive with market. Since the talun-kebun system has been only about 2 hectares per family. in existence for a long period, it seems that it is sustainable. Because of its high economic returns, it is capable of carrying a high population density of people who live in a market economy. Of course, the rice fields also play an important role References in determining the carrying capacity of the area. Kunstadter, P. and Chapman, E. C. (eds.) (1978) Farmers in the If agro-forestry is defined as a system which Forest. Part IV. Commercially orientated forest farming resembles a forest in structure and combines the systems, University Press of Hawaii, Honolulu, pp. 201-286. Laan, P. A. van der (1949) Deli tobak. In C. J. J. van Hall and C. functions of fulfilling the socio-economic needs van den Koppel (eds.) De Landbouw in de Indischen Orchi- of the people with the needs of a natural forest pel, W. van Hoeve, 's Gravenhage, Netherlands. for soil protection and maintenance of the water Pelzer, K. J. (1945) Pioneer Settlement in the Asiatic Tropics, International Secretariat Institute of Pacific Relations, New cycle, the talun-kebun system can be regarded York, 288 pp. as a good example of a traditional agro-forestry Spencer, J. E. (1966) Shifting Cultivation in Southeast Asia, system. University of California Press, Berkley, USA, 247 pp.

98 The Environmentalist 18. Ecological Guidelines and Traditional Empiricism in Rural Development Acknowledgements L. J. WEBB Previously: Rainforest Ecology Section, CSIRO Laboratories, Inclooroopilly, Queensland 4068, Australia. Present address: PO Box 338, Alderley, Brisbane, Queensland 4051, Australia and D. M. SMYTH Environmental Research Under Sail (ER US), PO Box 338, Alderley, Brisbane, Queensland 4051, Australia

Summary research in the tropics; and, secondly, to examine the role of traditional 'knowledge' (= science) in Ecological science, as a science in its own right and as applying and refining these guidelines. Our a link between the natural and social sciences, is now premise is that modern ecologists possess no undergoing rapid development. This is partly due to chal• monopoly for knowledge of predictive value in lenges to ecological methods raised by developing coun• tries over the last decade since the Stockholm Conference rural development. We argue that an integration through the activities of UNEP, IUCN, MAB etc.. of modern and traditional science makes sense In the developed countries, the general ineffectiveness both ecologically and culturally. We urge practical of environmental impact assessment can be traced to attention to recording and using empirical knowl• failure to apply a holistic approach to the study of the edge as a priority for future guidelines. total (human and biophysical) environment. In the developing countries, analytical scientific methods have also been found to be ineffective in understanding and What are Ecological Guidelines? communicating traditional ecological wisdom, despite some attention to eco-development etc.. Despite these Ecological guidelines are rules for management deficiencies, the seeds for formulating holistic approaches based on ecological principles, on a knowledge of already exist in different countries, and ways must be found to germinate them. the ecological consequences of different kinds of It is now realized that there is confusion and controver• disturbance of the environment everywhere and sy about definitions of conservation. For example, some in the widest sense. This disturbance, if done definitions seem to put a higher priority on the welfare of systematically with a purpose (food production, wildlife than of people. There is also dissatisfaction among irrigation, health improvement etc.) is called people in all countries with value systems that distort the development, and should be economically feasible, man-nature relationship. This relationship seems to profitable, and sustainable. Ecological guidelines remain one of the most contentious issues in conservation can range from land use to family planning. and development. Earlier interpretations of the philoso• Some ecological principles may be summarized phy of conservation and associated ecological guidelines as: were derived from developed countries, and these are now in the melting-pot. Some key questions raised by a brief assessment of (1) Interaction and interdependence existing IUCN ecological guidelines for tropical rural For example, in a forest the tall trees cause development will be presented for detailed discussion, to shade, and some small plants grow on the ground assist decisions about future priorities and directions for in the shade. They become adapted to shade, and ecological research in the new area. depend on trees for this kind of habitat. Plants that climb, or perch on trees, also become inter• dependent. In a tropical rainforest there are Introduction infinite examples of this interaction and inter• dependence among all forms of life, large and This paper aims firstly to identify the main small, as well as with the soil, climate (and of ecological guidelines for development that have course human beings that are always 'insiders' in emerged through the recent decades of 'scientific' ecosystems!). An ecosystem is a forest, lake, Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 99 river, city or any other place, that is a self-con• if the annual cut exceeds the annual growth incre• tained part of the environment, and in which ment of timber logs in a forest, the forest will ecological processes are interdependent. become depleted of commercial logs, the advance Disturbance of ecosystems causes 'chain reac• growth of young trees will be destroyed by tions'—changes in biological, physical and social logging, and the seedlings will not grow because values. These changes must be observed and the parent trees are no longer there to provide understood in space and time. Changes may have seeds for germination. Wise management avoids influences far away in space e.g., cutting a forest excessive cutting, and thus conserves the forest in the mountains may cause sediments to be resource. However, there are many more values of deposited downstream and affect the fish in forests besides wood (e.g., wildlife, conservation estuaries, or cutting may have a delayed effect in of water and soil, hunting and recreation, gene time, so that a particular bird or plant species pools, minor forest products, cultural values), so may not be able to breed or reproduce itself at that management must also consider them that place, and will disappear. Thus the effects of according to a proper plan. (Remember the long- disturbance have to be assessed not just here and term benefits, not just the short-term economi• now, but also in the long-term, and in relation to cally profitable ones!) other places. This kind of thinking of the 'total environ• (4) Resources are finite ment' is the basis of holism. It means not just 'Trees do not grow to the sky!' Every kind of looking at one bit of an ecosystem, or even just living thing and ecosystem has its limits. Living one ecosystem, but trying to understand what resources are renewable, depending on the type of happens within the ecosystem as a whole, and the disturbance, and the form of management, but if interrelationships between ecosystems. It must they are badly dealt with, they may become non• also be remembered that 'the whole is greater renewable: irreversible changes occur (e.g., than the sum of its parts'. So a forest, for massive soil erosion from slopes, removal of seed example, has many properties (emergent proper• trees from an area). A corollary is therefore: do ties) that trees do not have as individuals. not destroy what you cannot recreate, when you are using a renewable resource. There are, of course, non-renewable resources (2) Continuity and change that are not living (but sometimes, like coal or oil, Accept change! You cannot cross the same were once living e.g., fossil fuels from plants). stream twice! Change is often uncomfortable, Mining of minerals and fossil must therefore but inevitable. With sufficient ecological science exhaust finite resources. So there are limits to and other knowledge (economics, psychology economic growth in more ways than one. But anthropology etc.) the type, direction and rate of enough of ecological principles for the present: change may be predicted, and thus allowed for in these are a few important examples that should development. Perhaps the particular development enter all thinking. has to be avoided, or altered, if the change is There are, so far, two main kinds of ecological regarded as undesirable. (This involves judgement guidelines. Firstly, those of western science, at different levels: by the ecologist, the econo• which have been fairly well recorded in the mist, and ultimately the government and the scientific literature, although they have had a politician who must make the decision.) We shall restricted distribution among the community at have more to say later about the standard on large. We shall later examine some examples from which 'desirability' or 'acceptability' of a parti• IUCN meetings at Bandung and Caracas, both in cular development is to be judged. 1974, of ecological guidelines. Secondly, those Change also involves biological (non-human) from traditional knowledge and life-styles—so- processes that are now being studied intensively called 'wisdom of the people'. These have not yet by ecologists e.g., forest succession and com• been satisfactorily recorded in any kind of litera• munity development, rainforest recovery, habitat ture, and have until very recently been ignored by degradation etc.. western science. Our present meeting aims to do something about this; to extend the significant studies of traditional life-styles already begun by (3) 'Take out nothing but the income' ecologists such as Professor Soemarwoto; and to Imagine you have much money in the bank, spread the understanding of how these indigenous like thousands of hectares of virgin forest. If you people's guidelines can be used, developed, and keep on spending the capital, not living on the hopefully married somehow to the relevant interest, you will soon have no money. Similarly, ecological guidelines from western science. 100 The Environmentalist Fig. 18.1. 'Statesmanship' seems to have been powerless to moderate deforestation (the conversion of tropical moist forest) which some authors claim has reached an average rate of between 20 and 40 hectares a minute. Burning the jungle, Pahang, Malaya. (Photo credit: WWF/Oliver Milton.)

of irreplaceable natural resources, and it was Guidelines and Western Science asserted that 'Tropical forests provide a fine op• Firstly, let us look at the ecological guidelines portunity for statesmanship' to restrain unwise of western science, that have been derived largely exploitation of the 'great expanses' of forests that if not entirely apart from traditional knowledge— remained in the tropics. a separation that must surely .be ended as a result 'Statesmanship' seems to have been powerless of what comes out of this symposium! to moderate deforestation (the conversion of Ten years ago there was the Stockholm tropical moist forest) which some authors claim Conference on the Human Environment. Eight has reached an average rate of between 20 and 40 years ago there were the IUCN meetings at hectares a minute (Fig. 18.1). Bandung and Caracas that produced Ecological The IUCN Guidelines, noted as 'the fruits of a Guidelines for Development in Tropical Rain long period of consultation' at the international Forests, and the Man and the Biosphere (MAB) level, and apparently mainly produced by authors meetings at Kuala Lumpur that began the plan• in the First World, are now recognized as having ning of MAB pilot projects in the South-east Asia had too limited impact at most levels of decision• region. Since then we have witnessed many making in developing countries. A recent brief changes and much uneven development in the use evaluation (by L.J.W.) of the impact of the of natural resources. In the Preface to Duncan Ecological Guidelines concluded that, while the Poore's summary of the IUCN Guidelines in Guidelines were an excellent set of ecological 1976, it was noted that 'balanced development' principles, they lacked operational design for was needed to solve or alleviate the pressure of specific users and specific problems: target groups population on resources. It was hoped that the had not been defined, and dissemination of the Guidelines would help to ensure the very best use Guidelines was inadequate; translation into local

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 101 working languages, plus local 'vernacular' examples, diagrams, visual aids etc., would have Guidelines and Traditional Empiricism been desirable; analysis of existing laws, rules, institutions and other bodies relevant to resource Now for the guidelines of traditional science. A development and environmental management was promising beginning to identify and review them now essential; and traditional knowledge should was made at a meeting in Papua New Guinea in have been tapped, with consultation 'at the October 1980, and is reported in the book Tradi• bottom' as well as 'at the top'. tional Conservation in Papua New Guinea: Impli• We can now identify some further problems cations for Today, edited by Louise Morauta et that go beyond the Ecological Guidelines as they al. (1982). The overview of the conference were formulated nine years ago. There have been covered three broad areas: (1) the general context many significant changes since then. Here are just of environmental policy in PNG today; (2) the a few relevant observations: extent and nature of traditional conservation knowledge and practice; and (3) the relevance of (1) Recognition of the handicaps implicit in re• these in contemporary PNG. commendations about environmental manage• The discussions revealed the strengths and the ment by a body such as IUCN which emphasises limitations of traditional knowledge, and showed nature conservation and protection. This has ap• for the first time the enormous diversity of parently been partly responsible for the dichoto• practice and knowledge that exist. (Variations can my between what has been called 'conservation sometimes be correlated with obvious physical, for its own sake' (i.e., nature conservation sensu biological, and social ecological features—some• stricto) and 'conservation for the sake of develop• times not.) The meeting also showed that the data ment', (i.e., primarily the material well-being of available were very uneven. One of the main man). questions that arose at the conference was: "How (2) Neglect of holism i.e., of a total environ• far do traditional practices provide for the mental approach. continued exploitation of resources on a sus• (3) Crystallization of national initiatives and tained yield basis!" This question is very relevant aspirations e.g., desires for more relevant in situ for us at this meeting, as was the conclusion that research and training; and for understanding and the relationships between man and environment using the ecological wisdom of the people and tra• in PNG are never static (remember the ecological ditional life-styles. (There has been a widespread principle of 'continuity and change'). 'western' prejudice against so-called 'non- Although it was difficult, the conference was scientific' versus 'scientific' methods of land use.) able to begin to identify a large number of (4) Growth of indigenous scientific and techno• practices that resulted in the conservation of logical expertise since 1974. resources e.g., gardening techniques, soil conser• (5) A new focus in developing countries on vation, ditching and irrigation, mounding and human welfare rather than 'the manipulation of composting, conserving certain plants in the things'. It is claimed that development should forest, protecting sacred groves in the forest, ideally start with the 'aim of human health and conserving certain species of wildlife, preserving education and the careful husbanding of re• quality of water in streams for domestic village sources' rather than with the 'assumption purposes, and so on. What also emerged was a that growth is good and that resources are glimpse of the very detailed knowledge equivalent infinite'. to what western science labels under the headings (6) Slow clarification during forestry opera• of plant taxonomy, animal taxonomy, ecology tions of the values of different kinds of forest etc.. Of course, traditional knowledge may often reserves, e.g., (a) stream bank reserves and restric• be incomplete. It may be distorted in some way tion of logging to certain soil types and topogra• by magical beliefs, and it easily becomes cor• phy, (b) reserves to reduce impact of forestry rupted by recent European contact, and by the operations on village life, (c) benchmark reserves impact of modern technology, near and afar. for use as controls to monitor changes in logged It is useful for our present and future efforts areas, (d) preservation of certain species or asso• to note that the PNG meeting did not end 'in ciations of flora and/or fauna. mid air'. It was realised that publication of a (7) Need for techniques (that are not energy- book (although satisfying for academics) may be intensive) for rehabilitation of degraded lands, for of little value to the people in the villages. There salvage of endangered species or communities, for are so many barriers to be crossed or broken mixed tree plantings instead of solely mono• down—barriers between scientific disciplines, cultures, and for agroforestry. between scientists and non-scientists, between 102 The Environmentalist research and government, village and government, When 'civilized science' (or western science) bureaucrat and bureaucrat, and so on. So the arrived in Australia about 200 years ago, it had meeting resolved: long lost its identifiable cultural origins, and its mechanisms for cultural integration of new "In the conference we tried to overcome these knowledge. Small wonder then, that the settler- barriers for a few days and in relation to a specific scientists chose to ignore indigenous science. topic. In the longer term, the success of this conference Nowhere did there appear an appreciation of the depends upon continued cooperation and communica• local culture and its success in maintaining man tion between government, research institutions, and in balance with the difficult Australian environ• villagers. If nothing more happens about traditional conservation, it will not be simply the fault of one ment for over 40 000 years. party. It is the job of all involved to keep on finding From the beginning, the 'exploration' sciences out, talking and planning, particularly across institu• of geology, botany and zoology had (and still tional boundaries, if even the simplest recommenda• have) an ambivalent attitude to Aboriginal knowl• tion of this conference is to become a reality." edge. Early naturalists (as well as modern researchers) interrogated Aborigines about land- We are also familiar with some of the work— forms and the native fauna and flora, then as yet inadequate—that is going on in Northern frequently ignored the information gained. It Australia about Aboriginal traditional knowledge seems that Aboriginal knowledge was (and is) and perceptions of the environment. In this, one regarded as merely another parameter of the of us (D.M.S.) has spent the last five years in natural world, rather than as fundamental data regular field work with Aboriginal informants, about the natural world collected by human and collaboration witgh anthropologists and other beings, and with an authenticity on par with the ecologists. What we term 'Aboriginal Science' is data of more recent human science. An example: simply Aboriginal knowledge of the natural during the early controversy about the authentici• world. It is an integral part of culture, and is ty, and later the life-style (now called ecology) of transmitted through culture in all its forms. Its that unique animal the platypus, Aboriginal infor• analogy with western science comes from its mation was recorded as just another item in the focus on natural phenomena, and from its power confusing story, rather than as an accurate source and predictive value in dealing with the local of data. It is common to find reports that environment. Further, Aboriginal science is reac• Aborigines had stated that the platypus laid eggs tive: it incorporates new knowledge by processes on river ledges in nests of twigs and leaves, and of both cultural adaptation and cultural rationali• later in the same paper to read that a white sation. These processes are similar to the re• naturalist had found platypus eggs in a burrow, sponses of the western scientific community to and that therefore all platypusses dig burrows— new information and ideas. totally ignoring the original evidence. What seems to have happened during the Another example: the northern Australian emergence of so-called 'civilization' is that knowl• water lilies are divided into distinct 'species' by edge of the natural world became increasingly the Aborigines on the basis of habitat, colour, stem province of specialists, who developed science width, and taste. Yet the taxonomy of this group into a sub-culture. (It is claimed by some people of plants is still being sorted out by botanists, that science has become acultural, and even anti- who have over the last couple of years begun to cultural.) Specialization was not unique to accept (independently) the Aboriginal species. science, but science paid, or extracted, the highest The same could be said for many of the botani- cultural price. No other aspect of the human com• cally undescribed species of plants in the northern munity, except religion, developed such an rainforests and monsoon thickets. Many of these invasive and exclusive force! do have Aboriginal names and specific qualities An essential part of the egalitarianism of and uses. hunter-gatherers (and of hunter-gardeners else• A final example is the Sarus Crane—supposed• where) is equal access to working knowledge. ly a very recent bird immigrant, but in fact named Knowledge, including new discoveries, thus and recognized in the Cape York Aboriginal remains part of an integrated culture. New knowl• languages (Fig. 18.2). edge is not anti-cultural or heretical in the way So there does seem to have been double that many scientific breakthroughs have been. standards in the use and non-use of the traditional This is because new ideas, techniques, and forms knowledge, the natural history, and the science, of self-expression emerge not from specialist sub• of the Aborigines. sections of the community, but from within and There is a growing scientific awareness, how• across the community. ever, of the role of Aboriginal occupation of

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 103 The challenge then is to harness this rediscovered knowledge to help manage the human landscape, in the widest sense. But a nurturing of Aboriginal science, and its equivalents the world over, means a tolerance of the culture of which it is part. In this lies a greater challenge, and one which is fundamental to all the issues of traditional life• styles and conservation: to create the social, political, and economic environment that allows and encourages diverse cultures everywhere to survive and flourish. This leaves us with at least two questions that we cannot but leave open. Firstly, why didn't the Guidelines work, when most of the skills, expertise, and experience are already available in many parts of the developing tropical world? (Reasons such as 'political will', public education, economic pressvires etc. have been advanced.) Secondly, what is the 'most appropriate' standard against which biological and social changes, resulting from disturbance of tropical forest ecosystems, can be assessed? We suggest one such standard, derived from Duncan Poore (1976): "The lasting effects on human well-being". How can this standard be made less vague and abstract? We do not propose any solutions, because we Fig. 18.2. The Sams Crane (Grus antigone)—supposedly a very believe that the solutions must come—probably recent bird immigrant, but in fact named and recognized in the Cape York Aboriginal Languages. (Photo credit: WWF/Willi in quite unexpected forms—from practical Dolder.) efforts, in rural areas, to (1) identify and under• stand traditional guidelines, and (2) try to arrange a 'marriage' between them and the ecological guidelines of western science. Australia in the biological and physical landscape, We shall end by some remarks that you may mainly in relation to fire. For a recent review that think are strange coming from western-style critically examines the Aborigines as 'pyroma- science. As ecologists we strongly believe in the niacs' or 'fire-stick farmers', see Horton (1982). importance of fostering the emotional attachment (Let us hope that the Aborigines do not become of people to various elements of their natural a scientific as well as a political 'football'.) environment—what Dwyer (in the PNG Confer• Recently there has been a reawakening in the ence, October 1980, mentioned above) called wider human society that specialization and 'the conservation of sentiment'. Dwyer found remoteness of science may not be desirable, and that the Papua New Guineans, over thousands of are in fact dangerous. There have been calls for a years, had discovered not only that animals were community voice in the destiny of science in 'good to eat', but also that they were 'good to fields such as genetic engineering and nuclear think'. So for them, and for all people who live research and application. It could be argued that close to nature, there is more to a natural hunter-gatherer societies would never have resource than its material benefit. developed the atomic bomb, not because of We return to nature, to vital importance of technological difficulties, but because no society nature conservation in the management of our fully aware, and fully participating in the work, environment everywhere to sustain man in all his would tolerate it. Such 'breakthroughs' rely on needs: material, mental, and spiritual. Without the existence of inaccessible sub-cultural (and enough unpolluted and undisturbed nature, acultural) specialists. without enough wild landscapes that are virgin, So if there is now a cry from within the the spirit of man must surely die. We are not 'civilized' world to return science to the bosom of alone in these thoughts. Dr Salleh, Director of the culture, then perhaps there will be a new appre• Forest Research Institute at Kepong, Malaysia, ciation of a science such as Aboriginal science, had this to say at the Man and the Biosphere which has never abandoned its cultural origins. Workshop at Serdang in January 1982:

104 The Environmentalist Fig. 18.3. The post-war generation of foresters has witnessed the most savage and fast destruction of forests in the entire history of man's work in the world. Quite often foresters are taking part in such destruction. Rainforest destruction in Ghana. (Photo credit: WWF/Claude Martin.)

"There is a moral obligation of society to provide must be based on ethical principles of responsibility ... the necessary environment to maintain the myriad of Forestry and its research have to return to nature, floral and faunal species of the world. Any loss and which so far has not been done. Tomorrow will take ultimate extinction of plant and animal life is a loss man back to nature, because there is no other way." of human society." This is what we mean by appealing to this And this is what the President of the Inter• Symposium for a fresh, urgent approach to the national Union of Forestry Research Organiza• integration of modern and traditional science. tions (IUFRO) said in the 1982 issue of the IUFRO Newsletter: "The post-war generation of foresters has witnessed the most savage and fast destruction of forests in the References entire history of man's work in the world (Fig. 18.3). Horton, D. R. (1982) The burning question: Aborigines, fire and Quite often foresters are taking part in such destruc• Australian ecosystems, Mankind, 13, pp. 237-251. tion ... Research has become a part of those economic Morauta, L., Pernetta, J. and Heaney, W. (eds.) (1982) Traditional conservation in Papua New Guinea: Implications for today, concepts which aim towards exploitation ... More than Institute of Applied Social and Economic Research, Mono• any other economic branch, forestry has been sat on graph No. 16, Boroko, Papua New Guinea. the dock of the world, accused of destroying nature, Poore, D. (1976) The values of tropical moist forest ecosystems, for which it is only partly to be blamed ... Research Unasylva, 28, pp. 127-146.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 105

9. Acknowledgements

The Commission on Ecology wishes to express The Commission on Ecology is greatly in• its sincere thanks to Prof. O. Soemarwoto and Dr debted to Prof. J. Hanks for the preparation of E. Brotoisworo and their staff, who organized the proceedings of the Symposium and for the the Symposium on Traditional Life Styles, Con• final editing of the manuscripts. servation and Rural Development at the Institute Last but not least the Commission wishes to of Ecology of the Padjadjaran University in express special thanks to Minister Dr Emil Salim Bandung and ensured its success. of Indonesia and Mr Maurice Strong, Canada for The assistance of the United Nations Environ• their closing addresses and to all the scientists ment Programme (UNEP) in making the atten• who made contributions to the Symposium and dance of several participants possible is very its Proceedings. gratefully acknowledged.

Vol. 4 (1984) Supplement No. 7 107

The following papers of the IUCN Commission on Ecology have been published: No. 1 Ocean Trench Conservation by Dr. M. V. Angel, Chairman of the Working Group on Ecology of the Oceans of the IUCN Commission on Ecology. No. 2 Ecological Mismanagement in Natural Disasters by Prof. L. D. Pryor of the IUCN Commission on Ecology in cooperation with the League of Red Cross Societies. No. 3 Global Status of Mangrove Ecosystems edited by Dr. P. Saenger, E. J. Hegerl and Dr. J. D. S. Davie of the Working Group on Mangrove Ecosystems of the IUCN Commission on Ecology in cooperation with the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Wildlife Fund. No. 4 Impact of Oil Pollution on Living Resources by Dr. J. M. Baker, Chairman of the Working Group on Oil Pollution of the IUCN Commission on Ecology in cooperation with the World Wildlife Fund. No. 5 Ecological Structures and Problems of Amazonia Proceedings of a Symposium organised by the Department of Biological Sciences of the Federal University of Sao Carlos, and the IUCN Commission on Ecology at Sao Carlos, Brazil, the 18th of March 1982. No. 6 Future Hazards from Pesticide Use by Ir. F. Balk and Prof. Dr. J. H. Koeman, Chairman of the Working Group on Envi• ronmental Pollutants of the IUCN Commission on Ecology in cooperation with the World Wildlife Fund. No. 7 Traditional Life-styles, Conservation and Rural Development Proceedings of a Symposium organised by the Institute of Ecology, of Padjadjaran University, Bandung, and the IUCN Commission on Ecology held in Bandung, Indonesia, on the 4th and 5th of October 1982. Commission on Ecology Occasional Papers: No. 1 Changes and Development in the Science of Ecology and other Reports. No. 2 Precipitation and Water Recycling in Tropical Rain Forests (with Special Reference to the Amazon Basin) and other Reports. No. 43 WhPopulatioy Conservationn and Natura? l Resources and other Reports. With the support of The World Wildlife Fund The United Nations Environment Programme The Netherlands Government The Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service The French Government Norwegian Agency for International Development