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The Roles of GIS/RS in the National Movement of Forest Land Rehabilitation Development of a GIS-based monitoring and evaluation system – the next step
Wardoyo
Head of the Office for Forest Land Gazettement Region V South/Central Kalimantan - Banjarbaru Indonesia
Tel: 0511-772587, Fax: 0511-772208
Email: wwardoyo@hotmail.com
I. Introduction
In year 2003, the Ministry of Forestry of the Republic of Indonesia (MoFRI) introduced a national program to improve condition of degraded forest and land called a national movement in forest and land rehabilitation (Namfor). Namfor is a moral movement in forest and land rehabilitation to drive and encourage all Indonesian citizen to get involve in the movement, and gradually do forest land rehabilitation on their own. This program is parts of the MoFRI five policies: combating illegal logging, controlling/preventing forest fire, restructuring forest industry, and strengthening decentralization of forestry sector in the regional autonomy.
Indonesia forests have not been as good as they were in the past, some parts of forests are now heavily degraded. Interpretation of Landsat imageries 1999/2000 indicated that 55 million hectares forest lands (45% of total forest lands) are degraded. This condition is mainly because of forest exploitation, illegal logging, forest fires, and forest encroachment.
The five policies specifically the Namfor program is expected to improve and recover forest condition and functions so that forests could provide sustainability of ecological, economic and social benefits for the people well being. In five years (2003-2007), MoFRI planned to rehabilitate 3 million ha (300,000 – 900,000 ha per year) degraded forest and land across the country.
At the very outset, establishment of Master Plans of forest and land rehabilitation (MP-FLR) was firstly carried out. Master Plan is a five year macro plan describing general policies, strategies and activities of FLR including distribution of locations where FLR should be implemented. The master plan is translated into technical plan – an annual plan describing operational activities on the ground such as field preparation, nursery development, seed deployment, tree planting, weeding/thinning etc.
Identification of FLR locations was important step to ensure that the project is directed to the right target locations. Therefore, FLR locations was essential data/information in the master plan establishment. Identification of FLR locations involved the use of GIS/RS technologies specifically in obtaining data of degraded forests, and setting priority of forest lands to be rehabilitated. This paper described the process of this identification, highlighted problems encountered, and proposed a GIS based monitoring and evaluation system as further roles of GIS/RS in order for this national movement could be successfully achieved.
II. Identifying locations of forest and land rehabilitation
GIS/RS techniques were applied in identification of spatial distribution of FLR locations for the Master Plan establishment. The following paragraphs describe the process of identification.
1. Criteria
Criteria for FLR was firstly determined in identification of spatial distribution of FLR locations. As the criteria has been defined, the use of GIS/RS in the identification process was straightforward.
Rehabilitation of forest and land should be aimed at critical lands. Critical land is a land that was degraded or in danger of degradation due to inappropriate land use and deforestation. Critical lands may be categorized into four levels: very critical, critical, rather critical, and potentially critical lands (the Directorate General of Land Rehabilitation and Reforestation/ DGLRR – MoFRI, 1998). Four parameters determining critical lands are land cover, slope, erosion and management. From four parameters, range values are calculated by summing up multiplication of weight and score of each parameter. Criteria of critical lands based upon range values are illustrated in Table 1.
Table 1. Criteria of critical lands.
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Range Values |
| Level | Description | Protected areas inside forest lands | Agriculture Area | Protected areas outside forest lands |
| 1 | Very critical | 120 – 180 | 115 – 200 | 110 – 200 |
| 2 | Critical | 181 – 270 | 201 – 275 | 201 – 275 |
| 3 | Rather critical | 271 – 360 | 276 – 350 | 276 – 350 |
| 4 | Potentially critical | 361 – 450 | 351 – 425 | 351 – 425 |
| 5 | Uncritical | 451 – 500 | 426 –500 | 426 – 500 |
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