Natural disasters are commonly found in densely populated areas such as Denpasar City, Badung Regency and Gianyar. The contributing factor is the development of settlements which eliminates green open space a lot. Laws, Ministerial Regulations and Regional Regulations of the Province of Bali have not been able to control the availability of green open space. These various government efforts are in line with the concept of Bali madya traditional layout. The existence of a separate building arrangement and green open space provides space for natural ventilation and lighting to enter the interior. This study has the aim of knowing and understanding the form of green open space in residential homes with Bali madya traditional layout. This research uses descriptive qualitative method. The data were collected using a purposive sample method with the main criteria which a house that uses a traditional Bali madya layout and has green open space. From 37 residential houses, 24 houses had a temperature range of 25°C-27°C and 28 houses had cool and slightly cool air conditions. These data show that green open space in residential homes through plant and pavement elements has an important role in the interior related to natural ventilation and lighting.
Can democratic processes favour conservation outcomes in the tropics? This study focuses on local viewpoints within a forested landscape of high conservation significance in East Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo). Stakeholders received posters displaying results from a previous study; these posters emphasised local priorities and views regarding local biodiversity. We assess local attitudes to this information, and consider some implications. Knowledge of, and agreement with, poster content increased among villagers, towns people and civil servants after they received posters. All respondents appreciated the posters and all supported some form of forest conservation. All respondents agreed that biodiversity conservation and local views are vital in land-use planning. All agreed that logging companies need to be better controlled, while 80% consider them a ''major environmental threat''. These results bolster our belief that involving communities is not only an ethically defensible way to achieve conservation outcomes, but also a pragmatic opportunity to do so.
This research is a collaboration between Conservation International (CI) Indonesia, the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), and the Centre de coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (CIRAD) with funding from Agence Française pour le Développement (AFD) and has been implemented for two years since May 2010. The fieldwork was conducted in 6 villages in the jurisdiction of Mamberamo Raya Regency namely Burmeso, Yoke, Kwerba, Metaweja, and Papasena 1 and 2. Mamberamo was chosen because its 8 million hectare watershed contains a high level of biodiversity and a large number of plant and animal species endemic to Papua. It is also a designated low carbon development area. The research objective was to support the formulation of the land use plan through a participatory approach, taking into consideration local developmental needs as well as forest conservation. The methods used comprised interviews with key resource persons (village head, customary and clan leaders), focus group discussions (FGD), household and demographic surveys, participatory mapping and ground checks. Data was analyzed using SPSS, ArcGIS and Max QDA. The research objective also included developing current and future land use maps based on the perceptions of the local communities in the six research villages. However, information contained in the maps - especially related to village boundaries - needs to be corroborated with neighboring villages not included in the research. In addition to the maps, this research also provides information on the background of local communities (history of the villages, population, number of clansand groups, etc.) including the local perspectives on changes occurring in Mamberamo. We document how local perceptions compare with 10 years ago, what the local livelihoods are and how important the forest and natural resources are for fulfilling local people's needs. We also tried to understand how the local people guard and manage their natural resources and their territories, what activities and events endanger the forest and their livelihoods and how they cope with these perceived threats. Villagers have a diverse perspective on forest and natural resources including forest dynamics that are important for their livelihoods. Despite this diversity, all six villages agreed that forest is vital for their livelihoods. In Burmeso, to give an example, the villagers' perceptions are largely influenced by ongoing changes in-line with the development of a regency administrative capital. A comprehensive view of all six research sites has been summarized and compared with the perspectives of the local government authorities, i.e., the Public Services Units working on the regency's development planning. We would like to synergize and link ideas from the local government (Pemerintah Daerah, or Pemda) on land use planning with local community perceptions of the forest, natural resources, and traditional land use. We expect that the result of the discussions and negotiations between local government and local communities can be used for further development projects that would look at the financial, social, and ecological feasibility of a proposal related to infrastructure development (i.e., access to isolated villages). These issues were discussed in more detail during the final project workshop in Kasonaweja and could be discussed further with potential donors (AFD, USAID, Norway government).
People everywhere experience changes and events that impact their lives. Knowing how they perceive, react, and adapt to climatic changes and events is helpful in developing strategies to support adaptation to climate change. Mamberamo in Papua, Indonesia, is a sparsely populated watershed of 7.8 million hectares possessing rich tropical forests. Our study compares scientific and traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) on climate, and analyzes how local people in Mamberamo perceive and react to climatic variations. We compared meteorological data for the region with local views gathered through focus group discussions and interviews in six villages. We explored the local significance of seasonality, climate variability, and climate change. Mamberamo is subject to strikingly low levels of climatic variation; nonetheless local people highlighted certain problematic climate-related events such as floods and droughts. As our results illustrate, the implications vary markedly among villages. People currently consider climate variation to have little impact on their livelihoods when contrasted with other factors, e.g., logging, mining, infrastructure development, and political decentralization. Nonetheless, increased salinity of water supplies, crop loss due to floods, and reduced hunting success are concerns in specific villages. To gain local engagement, adaptation strategies should initially focus on factors that local people already judge important. Based on our results we demonstrate that TEK, and an assessment of local needs and concerns, provide practical insights for the development and promotion of locally relevant adaptation strategies. These insights offer a foundation for further engagement.
Reconciling conservation and livelihoods is a concern wherever forests are important in local people's lives. We plead for engaging these people in survey activities to clarify what is important to them, as a first step in conservation planning. This will help to address their priorities and gain their guidance and support for interventions. This paper presents the results of such a survey with the community of Kwerba in Mamberamo, a remote and little known part of Indonesian Papua. Views and priorities were explored through interviews, scoring exercises, community mapping and a field survey. Whereas small gardens provided most staple food, culture and livelihoods were linked to the forest. People scored primary forest highest for nearly all use categories. Primary forest was particularly highly valued as a source of construction materials, ornaments and rituals, and as a hunting place. We developed a list of the overall most important plants and animals. Many natural resources were used, but few were commercially exploited. The community had rules to control access to certain areas and resources. Taboos to restrict access to sacred places were also maintained. Our evaluation identified opportunities to achieve conservation outcomes jointly with the Kwerba people. In follow-up activities, the community presented local government with a land-use plan for their territory. The government recognized the value of our approach and requested training to implement it more widely in the region.
Reconciling conservation and livelihoods is a concern wherever forests are important in local people's lives. We plead for engaging these people in survey activities to clarify what is important to them, as a first step in conservation planning. This will help to address their priorities and gain their guidance and support for interventions. This paper presents the results of such a survey with the community of Kwerba in Mamberamo, a remote and little known part of Indonesian Papua. Views and priorities were explored through interviews, scoring exercises, community mapping and a field survey. Whereas small gardens provided most staple food, culture and livelihoods were linked to the forest. People scored primary forest highest for nearly all use categories. Primary forest was particularly highly valued as a source of construction materials, ornaments and rituals, and as a hunting place. We developed a list of the overall most important plants and animals. Many natural resources were used, but few were commercially exploited. The community had rules to control access to certain areas and resources. Taboos to restrict access to sacred places were also maintained. Our evaluation identified opportunities to achieve conservation outcomes jointly with the Kwerba people. In follow-up activities, the community presented local government with a land-use plan for their territory. The government recognized the value of our approach and requested training to implement it more widely in the region.
