Askarinta Adi, Indonesia

[#1]

Mr Askarinta Adi, Indonesian Conservation Community – WARSI (KKI-WARSI)

x2013Scholar x2013Talk  xDeforestation  xProtected Area  xForest  xIndigenous  xRemote  xTribal Sovereignty

2013 Conference Paper:

"Deforestation in Bukit Duabelas Area"

Presenter(s): *Askarinta Adi, Indonesian Conservation Community—WARSI, Indonesia

This paper examines the threat and rates of deforestation in Bukit Duabelas National Park (TNBD), located in Jambi province. This lowland forest area is still inhabited by more than one thousand Orang Rimba, an indigenous people, who rely on the natural forest as a source of livelihood and who continue to experience social, cultural, and economic marginalization. Deforestation in the TNBD area began in the 1980s with transmigration and has continued because of oil palm plantations, illegal logging, and the need for agricultural land by local and recent communities. Currently, economic interests are the biggest deforestation threat to this area of 60,500 hectares.

The writer tries to analyze the rate of deforestation by using remote sensing to classify or separate between the vegetation that is wide apart and close (forest and nonforest). The data analyzed was Landsat TM 5 satellite images from 1989 to 2008. This analysis shows the highest deforestation rates occurred between 1989 and 1993 and deforestation rates remained constant from 1993 to 2008.

If this deforestation rate continues without action from communities or governments, the paper predicts TNBD will just be a memory by 2034. This forest loss will certainly have an impact on rare flora and fauna, microclimate change, increase the intensity and frequency of flooding, loss of wellsprings and water sources, and of course the loss of livelihood for the Orang Rimba.

2013 Scholar Profile:

Your direct email address(es): aska@warsi.or.id, adiaska@yahoo.com
*-Your job title or role in the organization: GIS Coordinator
*-Your own interest keywords: alternate energy, hydrology, mitigation, climate change

Organization name: Indonesian Conservation Community – WARSI (KKI-WARSI)
*-Organization full street address: Jl. Inu Kertapati No.12 Pematangsulur, Telanaipura, Jambi. 36124
*-Organization full mailing address:
*-Country: INDONESIA
*-Work phone: +62-741-66678
*-Work fax: +62-741-670509
*-Main email: office@warsi.or.id
*-Organization Web site URL: http://warsi.or.id
*-Organization subject keywords: advocacy, agriculture, alternate energy, analysis, anthropology, biodiversity, climate, climate change, conservation, education, envir education, envir justice, envir law, forest, health, hydrology, landscape analysis, mitigation, sustainable development, vegetation

Overview: "I work in KKI-WARSI as the GIS Coordinator. WARSI is an NGO that works to revive the principles of conservation xof indigenous people and encourage the development of a model of conservation, in particular in Sumatra and in general in Indonesia. WARSI’s goal is to strive for the creation and development of the principles of just community-based conservation based on equivalence, participation, openness and sustainability so as to meet the needs of human life and welfare of the present without threatening the life and needs of the next generation.
One of our major activities is work in Bukit Duabelas National Park, located in central Jambi province, with the Orang Rimba community. The Orang Rimba are an indigenous Jambi tribe who live in secondary forests and are quite dependent on natural resources. There are about 3,800 Orang Rimba scattered throughout Jambi province in small groups. One living area for the Orang Rimba is Bukit Duabelas National Park lowland forest. Initially, this area was a 37,000 hectares (ha) biosphere reserve. Areas around the biosphere reserve were already provisioned for plantation companies, but this region was also the living place for the Orang Rimba. Since 1997, WARSI has worked together with the Orang Rimba to fight for their living area. Through a long struggle, the Minister of Forestry revoked plantation licenses in the region and changed the area into Bukit Duabelas National Park, specifically earmarked for Orang Rimba communities with a broad reach of 60,500 ha. At present, Bukit Duabelas National Park is inhabited by 1,700 Orang Rimba under the leadership of 9 Tumenggungs (Tumenggung is the supreme leader of the Orang Rimba).
The Ministry of Forestry manages the park and established a technical implementation unit of Bukit Duabelas National Park Authority. WARSI works together with this unit to make areal management plans, that accommodate Orang Rimba existence, and to continuously monitor the rate of forest deforestation. Even as an area designated for the Orang Rimba, Bukit Duabelas National Park did not escape the efforts of others to occupy it, either for illegal logging activities or occupation of land by outsiders. This leads to high rates of deforestation in the Bukit Duabelas National Park. Therefore, WARSI continues to advocate for strengthening the life of the Orang Rimba and is also advocating to prevent illegal logging and forest encroachment.
WARSI also supports advocacy efforts to protect the roaming areas of Sumatran tigers, orangutans and elephants in Bukit Tigapuluh National Park, and assists villages to gain official community management rights of forest areas. WARSI successfully supported the Lubuk Beringin village, in Bathin II Ulu subdistrict, Bungo District, to gain the first Village Forest governance rights in Indonesia. At present, WARSI continues activities to support and facilitate the community managing the forest governance rights. The Minister of Forestry has issued 23 decrees granting community forestry rights of the other forest villages in three districts, namely, 17 villages in Merangin district, three in Bungo district and three in Batanghari district.

describe the history of your personal work in conservation and GIS: I have been working at WARSI since 1997. I am the coordinator of WARSI’s GIS and Mapping division. I am involved in support of all the WARSI activities. It started from collecting data in the field, to process them to produce maps for WARSI studies and advocacy efforts. I manage a GIS team of 5 full-time staff. We directly support Bukit Duabelas National Park Authority to develop management zoning that accommodates the existence of the Orang Rimba. The National Park is divided into several zones and areas such as the core zone must be fully managed as conservation areas. The core zone location is determined based on the area of forest protection by Orang Rimba customs. These areas are traditionally managed by the Orang Rimba and consist of jungle rubber, agro-forest area, and fruit trees like durian.
We have also taught local government staff how to use GIS and have assisted with data and knowledge transfer among local governments and other environmental NGOs.

describe what is the most unique and the most challenging about the conservation/GIS work that you do: The most interesting is the participatory mapping conducted jointly with local communities and indigenous people like Orang Rimba. Besides the GIS and mapping studies, we also teach villagers and Orang Rimba to operate GPS units to determine the location of their traditional area and then it will be included into a Bukit Duabelas National Park management plan. These GPS points will also be used to obtain clear boundaries as reference to determine the zoning of the Bukit Duabelas National Park.
The most challenging is that GIS equipment and software is expensive and advances quickly. It is difficult to keep up with recent products and the latest techniques. WARSI wants to increase our GIS capacity, but we are limited by finances and knowledge of all the different and most recent products/techniques.