Doctoral Dissertation Research: Indigenous Agroforestry and Industrial Timber Plantations in West Kalimantan, Indonesia

9404722哈特-梅耶尔国际关注的重点是东南亚的森林砍伐危机，并强调了在商业采伐、新定居点和沿该地区森林边界的农田开垦之后为保护古代热带雨林所做的努力。印尼政府和木材公司正在响应要求更可持续地利用森林的呼声，在土著社区长期以来根据独特的农林复合传统管理的景观上叠加木材种植园。印尼政府声称，木材种植园通过减少采伐天然林的压力来保护生态价值，通过种植园就业来促进农村发展，并促进围绕木材加工设施的城市发展。环保人士反驳说，木材种植园破坏了当地生态系统的生物多样性，使当地社区和被带到种植园工作的移民流离失所、排放和受害。这项研究将调查在扩大种植园附近发生的复杂变化，它们对当地居民自己使用土地和森林资源的影响，以及土地和森林本身生态条件的变化。这项研究将包括对位于印度尼西亚木材种植园周围和内部的村民、社区领袖、商人和其他受影响的个人进行密集采访。还将对过去和现在的土地用途进行调查，并将在实地使用手持全球定位系统绘制详细地图，以准确确定位置。GPS还将用于构建植被和土地利用样带，以描述村庄农林战略。这项研究将有助于从理论和实践上理解商业利益、国家政策和土著居民之间在生物敏感地区保护问题上的紧张关系。它将加深我们对政治生态、社会制度和边疆发展的理论理解。它将进一步为印度尼西亚的具体情况提供宝贵的见解，印度尼西亚是世界上最重要的热带雨林区之一。作为博士论文研究改进奖，该项目也将为有前途的学生建立独立的研究生涯提供强有力的支持。

9404722 HART-MAYER International attention has focused on the crisis of deforestation in Southeast Asia, and highlighted efforts to conserve ancient rain forests in the wake of commercial logging, new settlements, and agricultural land clearing along the region's forest frontiers. The Indonesian state and timber companies are responding to calls for a more sustainable forest use by superimposing timber plantations on landscapes that indigenous communities have long managed according to distinctive agroforestry traditions. The Indonesian government asserts that timber plantations protect ecological values by reducing pressure to log natural forests, generate rural development through plantation employment, and promote urban development around wood processing facilities. Environmentalists counter that timber plantations destroy the biological diversity of native ecosystems and displace, emiserate, and victimize both local communities and migrants brought in for plantation work. This study will investigate the complex transformations taking place in the vicinity of expanding plantations, their effects on local populations' own uses of land and forest resources, and the changing ecological conditions of the land and forests themselves. The research will involve intensive interviews with villagers, community leaders, business people, and other affected individuals located around and within an Indonesian timber plantation. A survey of past and present land uses will also be conducted and detailed maps will be constructed in the field using a hand-held global positioning system (GPS) to identify locations accurately. The GPS will also be used to construct vegetation and land use transects to describe village agroforestry strategies. This research will contribute to both theoretical and practical understandings of the tension between commercial interests, state policy, and indigenous populations over the preservation of biological sensitive regions. It wi ll add to our theoretical understanding of political ecology, social institutions, and frontier development. It will further provide valuable insights into the specific situation in Indonesia, one of the world's most important tropical forest regions. As a doctoral dissertation research improvement award, this project will also provide strong support to enable a promising student to establish an independent research career.