Trapped in the margins of Southeast Asia? Shocks, coping and the swidden-forest socialecological

Transcription

1 Trapped in the margins of Southeast Asia? Shocks, coping and the swidden-forest socialecological system Grace Wong, Moira Moeliono, Indah Waty Bong, Maria Brockhaus, Cynthia Maharani, Shintia Arwida, Khamsing Keothumma IUFRO Vaasa, 11 June 2018

2 Research context Swidden is a prevalent land use in frontier forests and uplands throughout SE Asia Marginalized form of land use, politically and socio-economically Traditionally biologically diverse, locally managed landscape of forest-agriculture mosaics but this is changing Placed within a highly dynamic region - economic growth, trade, finance, migration, and environmental change How are swidden farmers coping, adapting and participating in this agrarian change?

3 Swidden is a backwards type of agricultural practice backwards stage in culture (FAO 1957) Are farmers trapped? Traditional formulation of poverty-environment traps: characterized by a set of mutually-reinforcing mechanisms between poverty and environmental degradation leading to a downward spiral (Cleaver and Shreiber 1994) Ignores adaptive strategies, unexpected feedbacks and institutional factors (Forsyth et al. 1998, Scherr 2000) Changing perspectives: understanding the broader mechanisms of traps (Haider et al. 2017, Boonstra and de Boer 2014) Cross-scale interactions Historical and structural path dependencies External factors Social-ecological linkages and diversity

4 Research sites Sites: West Kalimantan, Indonesia (4 villages) and Houaphan, Laos (3) Swidden communities who are/have been actively managing forestagriculture land use mosaics in frontier regions, near protected areas Data collected between March-August 2016 Focus group discussions: Kalimantan (12) Houaphan (9) Household and social network surveys: Kalimantan (110), Houaphan (125) Partnerships with Universitas Tanjungpura and National University of Laos

5 Changing agriculture landscapes in highly varied political and socio-cultural contexts Kalimantan Swidden is still a prevalent land use, practiced by over 75% of hholds Expanding oil palm and rubber plantations (-23% forests and +430% plantations since 2000) Swidden and fallows maintained as part of a cultural heritage Swidden is enabled with extensive use of fertilizers (50%) and herbicides (83%)

6 Changing agriculture landscapes in highly varied political and socio-cultural contexts Houaphan Swidden is losing hold (32% of hholds), illegality and land reallocation policies have restricted fallows and reinforced degradation Replaced with maize as part of value chain for livestock feed in Vietnam (-16% forests and +77% annual crop fields since 2000) Maize: little inputs but high dependence on commercial seeds Swidden continues in more remote areas

7 How farmers cope with shocks Swidden farmers face a wide range of shocks: market factors (prices!) in Kalimantan environment factors (droughts! pests!) in Houaphan and they occur often 80,00 70,00 60,00 50,00 40,00 30,00 20,00 10,00 Shocks that most affected hholds in past year, % Kalimantan Houaphan 50,00 45,00 40,00 35,00 30,00 25,00 20,00 15,00 10,00 5,00 0,00 Perceived frequency of shock events, % Kalim Houa Prolonged event of over 1 year Regular (seasonally/ annually) More than one occurrence One-time event 0,00

8 How farmers cope with shocks Households use a wide range of coping mechanisms Most prominent is off-farm wage labor (Kalimantan) and increased reliance on forest resources (Houaphan) But these are not always sufficient 100,00 90,00 80,00 70,00 60,00 50,00 Coping strategies Kalimantan Houaphan 100,00 90,00 80,00 70,00 60,00 50,00 40,00 30,00 20,00 10,00 0,00 Are coping strategies adequate? No Yes, partially Yes, fully Kalimantan Houaphan 40,00 30,00 20,00 10,00 0,00

9 Are swidden farmers trapped? Initial evidence that Houaphan farmers appear more vulnerable to perpetual shock-and-coping cycles (Social-ecological) traps refer to persistent mismatches between the responses of people and their social and ecological conditions that are undesirable from a sustainability perspective (Boonstra et al. 2016)

10 What are causing mismatches in Houaphan? An extended view of poverty-environment traps Discourses that constrain, or predefine, possible choices and alternatives: swidden as environmentally destructive and an impediment to progress and development Reinforced through policies of modernization: commodity crop production, foreign investments and capital, taxation which discouraged fallows and forests Cole et al. 2017, Salk et al. 2016, Kallio et al. 2016

11 What are causing mismatches in Houaphan? An extended view of poverty-environment traps External factors that constrain adaptation, options and innovation Development aid are merely old wine in new bottles. In REDD+ projects: we undertake the poverty reduction, shifting cultivation stabilization initiatives, still the old job but with a new concept Continual push of commodity boom-bust crops Cole et al. 2017, Salk et al. 2016, Kallio et al. 2016

12 What are causing mismatches in Houaphan? An extended view of poverty-environment traps Rapid conversion towards landscape homogeneity and restriction of livelihood options loss of ecosystem services, vulnerability to crop diseases and boom-and-bust cycles Transnational investments into commercial crops and crossborder markets Resettlement policies Migration for wage labor and remittances Cole et al. 2017, Salk et al. 2016, Kallio et al. 2016

13 Humanizing poverty-environment traps Lack of adaptive capacity is not the overaching cause of traps Human responses to traps are defined by desires, opportunities and abilities : conformity, resignation, innovation and rebellion (Boonstra et al. 2016) Desires and opportunities are expressed alongside other interacting variables and feedback mechanisms Policies that push for increase in assets and capacities are inadequate by themselves What are development policies that can both tackle the broader mechanisms and enable local agency for innovation and ability to act on different opportunities?

14 Thank you!