 ASB and ICRAF SEA Lecture notes 
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Towards
integrated natural resource management in forest margins of the humid tropics: local
action and global concerns
Meine van Noordwijk, Sandy Williams and Bruno Verbist
(Editors)
. Humanity stands at a defining moment in history. We are
confronted with a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of
poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the
ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being. However, integration of environment and
development concerns and greater attention to them will lead to the fulfilment of basic
needs, improved living standards for all, better protected and managed ecosystems and a
safer, more prosperous future. No nation can achieve this on its own; but together we can
- in a global partnership for sustainable development. (Preamble to the United
Nations’ Agenda21 on Sustainable Development; http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/agenda21chapter1.htm).
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| Background to the series of lecture notes |
| Much of the international
debate on natural resource management in the humid tropics revolves around forests,
deforestation or forest conversion, the consequences it has and the way the process of
change can be managed. These issues involve many actors and aspects, and thus can benefit
from many disciplinary perspectives. Yet, no single discipline can provide all the
insights necessary to fully understand the problem as a first step towards finding
solutions that can work in the real world. Professional and academic education is still
largely based on disciplines – and a solid background in the intellectual capital
accumulated in any of the disciplines is of great value. If one wants to make a real
contribution to natural resource management issues, however, one should at least have some
basic understanding of the contributions other disciplines can make as well. Increasingly,
universities are recognising the need for the next generation of scientists and
policymakers to be prepared for interdisciplinary approaches. Thus, this series of lecture
notes on integrated natural resource management in the humid tropics was developed for use
in university and professional training at graduate level.
The lecture notes were developed on the
basis of past training and education activities and on the experiences of the
Alternatives to Slash and Burn (ASB) consortium. This consortium was set up to gain a
better understanding of the current land use decisions that lead to rapid
conversion of tropical forests, shifting the forest margin, and of the slow process
of rehabilitation and development of sustainable land use practices on lands deforested in
the past. The consortium aims to relate local activities as they currently exist to the
global concerns that they raise, and to explore ways by which these global concerns can be
more effectively reflected in attempts to modify local activities that stabilise forest
margins.
The Rio de Janeiro Environment
Conference of 1992 identified deforestation, desertification, ozone depletion, atmospheric
CO2 emissions and biodiversity as the major global environmental issues of
concern. In response to these concerns, the ASB consortium was formed as a system-wide
initiative of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
(CGIAR),
involving national and international research institutes. ASB’s objectives are the
development of improved land-use systems and policy recommendations capable of alleviating
the pressures on forest resources that are associated with slash-and-burn agricultural
techniques. Research has been mainly concentrated on the western Amazon (Brazil and Peru),
the humid dipterocarp forests of Sumatra in Indonesia, the drier dipterocarp forests of
northern Thailand in mainland Southeast Asia, the formerly forested island of Mindanao
(the Philippines) and the Atlantic Congolese forests of southern Cameroon..
This
series of ASB Lecture Notes (ASB-LN 1 to 14) enlarges the scope and embeddes the earlier
developed
ICRAF-SEA
lecture notes
(SEA 1-6) in a
larger framework. These lecture notes are accessible on
ICRAF’s website in Southeast Asia: http://www.worldagroforestrycentre.org/sea/
In this series of lecture notes we want to help young
researchers and students, via the lecturers and professors that facilitate their education
and training, to grasp natural resource management issues as complex as that of land use
change in the margins of tropical forests. We believe that the issues, approaches,
concepts and methods of the ASB program will be relevant to a wider audience. We have
tried to repackage our research results in the form of these lecture notes, including
non-ASB material where we thought this might be relevant. The series of lecture notes can
be used as a basis for a full course, but the various parts can also ‘stand
alone’ in the context of more specialised courses. |
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| Acknowledgement |
| A
range of investors (or
‘donors’) have made the work of the ASB consortium possible over
the past years, some by supporting specific parts of the program, others
by providing core support to the
program as a whole. These lecture notes build on all these investments, but
were specifically supported by the ASB Global Steering Group, with funds
provided by the Asian
Development Bank, the World Bank via the CGIAR, by ICRAF core funds, by the
Netherlands' Government through the Direct Support to Training Institutions
in Developing Countries
Programme (DSO)-project and by the Flemish Office for Development Cooperation
and Technical Assistance (VVOB). Both biophysical
and policy research was supported by a Regional Technical Assistance Grant
from the Asian Development
Bank. Many researchers and organisations have contributed to the development
of ideas, collection and synthesis of data, and otherwise making the program
what it is today. A
team at the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF), consisting
of Kurniatun Hairiah, Pendo Maro Susswein, Sandy Williams, SM Sitompul, Marieke
Kragten,
Bruno Verbist and Meine van Noordwijk developed these lecture notes. A first
test of their
suitability was provided by a course on ‘Ecology for Economists’ organised
by the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA) program
- we thank David Glover, Hermi Francisco and all participants to that course
for
their suggestions.
Key researchers within the consortium provided support and agreed to act
as co-authors on the various chapters. Editorial comments on draft forms
of the various lecture notes were
obtained from Fahmuddin Agus, Georg Cadisch, Min Ha Fagerström, Merle
Faminow, Roeland Kindt, Chun Lai, Ard Lengkeek, Jessa Lewis,
Chin Ong, Per Rudebjer, Goetz Schroth, Douglas Sheil, Fergus Sinclair, Sven
Wunder and others. Overall responsibility for any
shortcomings in the lecture notes remains with the editorial team. |
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| ASB-consortium members |
| Details of the ASB consortium
members and partner organisations can be found at: http://www.asb.cgiar.org/ |
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| Copyright |
| This material is considered to be
an international public good that can be freely copied for use in an educational,
non-commercial context, provided that the source is acknowledged. |
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| ICRAF SEA Lecture notes
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| ICRAF's
"Lecture notes" have been developed by its scientific staff in support of
various group training activities organised by the Centre. Views expressed are those of
the author(s) and should not be taken to represent the views of ICRAF or any other
organisation. Comments and suggestions are invited and can be addressed to the editors,
Kurniatun Hairiah and Bruno Verbist or to the author(s) themselves. These notes are
periodically reviewed and updated to reflect advances in agroforestry research and
development. They are made available to ICRAF trainees, collaborators, lecturers, …. These lecture notes were written in support of the
training-of-trainers
course on ‘Agroforestry for improved land use
and livelihood systems in Southeast Asia’, which was held in Chiang Mai from 8-20
March 1999, and its follow-up activities. However the materials are also meant to respond
to the need for teaching materials of universities and technical colleges in the region
and beyond.
The development of these lecture notes was mainly supported
by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands Directorate General International
Cooperation (DGIS) Cultural Cooperation, Education and Research Department Education and
Developing Countries Division (DCO/OO). Other collaborators and donors were the University
of Brawijaya (UNIBRAW) and the Flemish Association for Development Cooperation and
Technical Assistance (VVOB). Their generous support is
hereby acknowledged. |
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