Surprisingly, more people in villages with less seminatural forest responded to droughts with strategies based on forests and trees or on other natural resources than did those with larger areas of such forests (Fig. 4.4). In the Kalimantan villages, from 5 to 7% of the households reported strategies based on forests and trees (V1 and V2, respectively), whereas in the Central Java villages, 44 and 37% of the households reported such strategies (V3 and V4, respectively).
Figure 4.4. Frequency of households reporting response strategies to drought based on forests and trees (e.g., harvesting timber or fuelwood), based on other natural resources (e.g., changing crops or improving water management), or not based on natural resources (e.g., borrowing money or finding off-farm jobs). Source: household surveys.
Most of the strategies based on forests and trees used forest provisioning services to replace sources of food or incomes (“when harvest is low or fails, we can look for other jobs in
the forests” and “we can benefit from selling or using several forest products”). In V1 and V2,
people reported that in response to the drought, they harvested and sold fuelwood or timber from natural forests, collected wild fruits or vegetables for food consumption, and collected rubber and hunted as alternative activities for income. In V3 and V4, people harvested wood from plantations to sell for energy or construction, and collected non-timber forest products (NTFPs) such as tree leaves for animal fodder in order to maintain income sources during drought. In all villages, some people planted trees to replace crops on land that was less productive or at risk of harvest failure due to drought.
Some respondents also reported that, as part of their response strategies to droughts, they were harnessing the regulating services of forests and trees by preserving them in specific areas (“big trees can be kept along the river or hill tops to protect the soil and water sources”, “trees
can be planted or let regrow in critically dry lands”). Trees were part of such strategies especially
for their role in water and soil processes (e.g., water runoff, soil erosion, soil fertility), microclimate regulation (e.g., heat, humidity), and physical protection (e.g., from landslides). For example, in order to anticipate and minimize possible impacts of climate hazards, people
V4). These regulating services maintained land productivity and protected farmer livelihoods in general, but were of particular relevance in times of scarce rainfall.
Similar to tree-based strategies, more households reported strategies to cope with the impacts of drought that were based on other natural resources in V2 than V1, whereas in V3 and V4 the percentages of households were similar (Fig. 4.3). These strategies were specifically targeting agricultural systems that were affected by drought. They included improving water management (e.g., with irrigation in agriculture), managing soil fertility (e.g., with manure), using alternative fodder sources for livestock (e.g., rice straw), or changing crop varieties (e.g., using more drought-resistant “red rice” seeds or replacing rice with other crops such as maize, cassava, and beans).
Other strategies based on socioeconomic adjustments or anthropogenic assets were prevalently adopted in the villages with less forest in Kalimantan (V2) and Central Java (V3-4). These strategies included applying chemical fertilizers to crops or rubber trees, changing harvest times, borrowing money, buying water bottles and food, changing the diet, selling livestock, or finding off-farm sources of income in the villages or by temporarily migrating to other cities.
In addition to individual households’ strategies, communities developed a number of collective initiatives to manage tree and forest cover with the explicit objective of improving water and soil regulation, as well as timber and food provision (Table 4.4). Local authorities or associations had initiatives aimed at protecting or restoring specific forested areas. Climate considerations were part of the reasons for starting these initiatives, together with ensuring livelihoods in a context of market fluctuations, urgent cash needs, limited land availability, low soil fertility, and limited accessibility. For example, the village leader of V2 introduced a formal regulation in 2011, to protect natural forests on hills or along rivers “for maintaining forest
products for our children and protecting us from too hot and wet weather that causes erosion and floods”. In 2004, the farmer association in V3 promoted tree planting in gardens and on
agricultural land which made “abandoned and less productive land become more (economically)
profitable and with the time we also saw benefits for water sources”. In V1 and V4, similar rules
and practices were observed, such as social norms for enforcing forest preservation on some hills and informal logging rules for replanting trees cut in community forests.
Table 4.5. Collective strategies (planned, implemented, and/or controlled by communities in coordination with local authorities or associations) to manage ecosystem services from forests and trees. Source: household surveys and focus group discussions.
Site Extent1 Collective strategies
V1 *
- Apply informal rule to protect trees along rivers and hill tops to control erosion and landslides.
- Establish “village forest” (in process) and introduce ban for outsiders and informal harvest rules to limit logging activities.
- Collect a logging tax (10% of revenue) to be used for public interests (e.g. repair damage to roads, common buildings).
V2 **
- Introduce formal village rule that protects big trees along rivers for NTFP provision and soil stabilization.
- Introduce formal ban of “primary” forest clearing for future uses, maintaining water sources and protecting against heat.
V3 ***
- Plant trees in private gardens and agricultural field and build terraces to protect soil and water (initiative coordinated by farmer association).
- Avoid the use of water-demanding tree species and replace crops with trees in less productive areas (strategy supported by government and farmer associations). V3&
4 ***
- Adopt formal (V3) and informal (V4) rules for sustainable forest management (minimal harvesting tree diameter and age, mandatory replanting) to maintain tree cover and protect water sources.
V4 ** - Replace crops and houses by tree plantations in areas identified as being at risk of erosion and landslides.
(1) Extent was evaluated as being on one of three levels: * small extent, ** medium extent, *** large extent,
assessed qualitatively based on the proportion of land targeted by the actions.
Local people reported that forested landscapes helped to respond not only to drought, but also to other environmental, social, or economic shocks and stresses. In V3-4, several crop fields were afforested with teak plantations because trees were not damaged by wild monkeys and boars looking for food. In addition, teak plantations compared to agricultural cultivation required less labor that was particularly insufficient due to the high migration of young men. Furthermore, trees could be harvested whenever needed, for example serving as natural insurance to pay for hospitalization fees in case of serious illness (in V3-4). The preserved forests represented alternative sources of food or income when crop yields or rubber prices were too low (e.g., deer, birds, wild vegetables, and fruits).