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GIS and participatory management of a protected forest in east Kalimantan, Indonesia
David Craven1
Abstract
The River Wain Protected Forest is the last remaining area of Borneo lowland dipterocarp forest on the coastal plain of East Kalimantan in Indonesia. Located within the city limits of Balikpapan, the province's oil-rich commercial center, the protected forest is refuge to incredibly diverse plant and animal communities. It occupies two small river basins that serve as the city's principal sources of fresh water, and it has great potential as a resource for education and recreation. But the River Wain Protected Forest is under severe threat from farmers, road-builders and developers. More than half of its 10,000 hectares was severely damaged by the catastrophic fires of 1997/98. Realizing that they could lose their little gem in the very near future if they sit back and do nothing, the people of Balikpapan have begun to take action. First steps have included forming a multisectoral management board for the protected area, conducting awareness-raising campaigns in schools, mosques and shopping centers, stepping up security patrols, and mobilizing local villagers to participate in forest management activities. Several groups have begun to develop computer mapping and GIS applications to support all these efforts. Unlike most of Borneo's remaining primary forest, the River Wain Protected Forest is small, accessible and well mapped. These attributes make it a good candidate for developing an accurate and rich GIS database. Still in the early stages of development, a GIS database developed at a local university has already been put to good use by several groups of stakeholders. For example, the system is proving to be an effective means of managing the complex sets of spatial data used by planners, regulators and enforcers of the community's land use policies. Scientists and researchers are using the GIS to plan fieldwork and store and analyze survey data. Maps and charts generated from the system have been used very effectively to communicate information in large meetings in the spirit of transparency and accountability. And environmentalists are using similar maps to document and monitor changes in forest cover caused by conversion to agricultural land, road building, fire and other causes. The people of Balikpapan are very proud of their forest, and they are committed to finding practical solutions to the problems that threaten it. GIS is playing a key role in that search and providing some of the solutions the stakeholders are looking for.
1. Introduction
Until three years ago most of Indonesia's local authorities had little or no experience regulating the use of natural resources. Now, as the country struggles to reform its governance model and decentralize public authority and responsibilities from Jakarta to the provinces, local authorities are having to shoulder more
1 The author works for Development Alternatives, Incorporated, 7250, Woodmont Avenue, Suite 200, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. Tel: (++1) 301-718-8212; Fax: (++1) 301-718-7968;
E-mail: david_craven@dai.com
Mr. Craven worked as a GIS and Spatial Planning Specialist with USAID's Natural Resources Management Program in Samarinda from May 2000 - March 2001.
and more of the burden of government. The province of East Kalimantan on the island of Borneo is playing a leading role in this new movement, pioneering new institutional arrangements, writing strong local laws and regulations, and adopting innovative technologies to help meet its new responsibilities. GIS is one such technology, and this paper describes how, in one very small corner of the province, stakeholders are using GIS to help them manage and conserve a unique and threatened resource—the River Wain Protection Forest.
2. Background - The River Wain Protection Forest
The River Wain Protection Forest occupies 10,000 hectares of land within the city limits of Balikpapan, East Kalimantan's oil-rich commercial center (Figure 1). It is one of the last patches of primary Borneo lowland dipterocarp forest left on East Kalimantan's heavily exploited coastal plain. Because of its rich
Figure 1 - Existing and Proposed Roads in Balikpapan, Indonesia
diversity of plant and animal life and because it is the catchment area for 75% of city's fresh water, the River Wain Protection Forest is extremely important to the physical, social and economic well-being of the people of Balikpapan. During the last 10 years a number of scientists, environmentalists and conservationists have used the forest to rehabilitate orangutans and sun bears, study the effects of fire on plant and animal ecology, engage local communities in forest management initiatives, and conduct inventories of the forest's unique plant and animal communities. Thanks to awareness-raising campaigns in schools, mosques and shopping centers, local recognition of the value of the River Wain Protection Forest as a living laboratory and an educational resource is also growing.
But the protected area is also under threat from a number of sources, including encroachment, illegal logging, road-building and fire. For several years farmers living along a 4km stretch of road that runs along the northeast edge of the protected area have been converting the forest to agricultural land. Problems associated with human encroachment include loss of biodiversity, degradation of water quality from household waste, sewage and increased run-off, and added pressure on endangered species such as orangutan and sun bears from poisons and traps set to catch other animals. In addition to clear-cutting to convert natural forest to fields and gardens, selective illegal logging is also a big problem in the protected area. Thousands of bangkirai, ulin and meranti trees have been extracted for their high-grade timber, and more than 500 gaharu trees have been felled by collectors of gaharu resin, a product that commands a high price for its medicinal and cosmetic properties (Fredriksson and de Kam, 1999). The third major threat comes from plans to build a road skirting the protected area to the south and west. Construction has already begun on the road, and if it is completed according to the current plan, not only will a large area of mangrove forest outside the protected area be destroyed, but access to the protected area will be opened up and encroachment will almost certainly increase.
Finally, fire represents an ever-present threat to any forest, and in the case of the River Wain Protection Forest, the risk is increased because of the human activity in the area and significant coal deposits at or near the earth's surface. Out-of-control fires from slash-and-burn activities are quite common, a problem that is exacerbated when natural vegetation is cut and large amounts of dead, dry litter are left on the ground. More than 50% of the protected area was damaged by fire in 1997/98, and unless encroachment, illegal logging and general access to the forest are controlled, the probability of further destruction remains very high.
Increasingly the people of Balikpapan and East Kalimantan are recognizing the River Wain Protection Forest as an asset worth taking care of. Management and conservation efforts have been stepped up in recent months as more people have come to appreciate the value of the forest and understand the threats to its long-term viability. This has largely been in response to the worldwide clamor generated by the devastating 1997/98 fires, but it is also a sign of the serious commitment in the region to doing a good job of taking over responsibility for managing forests and other natural resources from central government authorities. Six months after its inception, the River Wain Protection Forest Management Board 2 meets regularly to discuss issues affecting the reserve and evaluate options for addressing those issues. It has recently been in consultation with the Balikpapan Legislative Assembly (DPRD), the Environmental Impact Control Agency (BAPEDALDA), the city's mayor, local security officials (police and military intelligence) and representatives of the NGO community. Key items on the agenda have included securing funds to pay for forest management activities, drafting local regulations to define roles and responsibilities for the various stakeholder groups, looking for ways to support and step up environmental education efforts, and defining procedures for establishing a more permanent security presence in the
2 Established by a mayoral decree issued on October 6th, 2001, the River Wain Management Board (Badan Pengelola Hutan Lindung Sungai Wain), a multisectoral planning and management body, is the first local institution established in Indonesia with a mandate to oversee management of a protected area. The board held its first meeting on November 14th, 2001.
forest. The local GIS community has also been playing an active role, engaging and informing decisionmakers and other stakeholders, documenting recent changes in and around the protected area, and proposing options for addressing forest management and regional development issues.
3. GIS Support for the River Wain Protection Forest
A number of individuals and institutions are collaborating to support the development of GIS applications for the River Wain Protection Forest. Representing a broad cross-section of both providers and users of geographic information, the main proponents include staff and students from local educational establishments, independent scientists and researchers, consultants with foreign-assisted development programs, and representatives of local government agencies. Several small GIS units in Balikpapan and the provincial capital, Samarinda, are providing technical services, including digitizing, map compilation, spatial analysis and printing. Local community leaders, researchers and the media are using outputs from these units with increasing frequency to make plans, inform the public and explore options for addressing resource management issues.
In May 2001, staff from Mulawarman University's Department of Forestry in Samarinda digitized an excellent 1:35,000-scale base map of the River Wain Protection Forest. This data set now represents one of the most accurate and detailed digital spatial databases for any part of East Kalimantan (NRM Program, 2001). In recent months several groups have provided layers of thematic data to enrich the database. Contributors include USAID's Natural Resources Management (NRM) Program, Gabriella Fredriksson's sun bear research team and GTZ's Integrated Forest Fire Management Project. As well as providing data for input to the GIS, these groups also play an important role in making sure information generated by GIS technicians reaches the people who need it—the local residents, government officials, students, researchers, the media, and other stakeholders in the region. Maps, charts and tables generated from the GIS are making increasingly frequent appearances at planning meetings in Balikpapan and Samarinda, at local and international conferences, and in East Kalimantan's newspapers and other print media. The following section describes recent applications of GIS to address issues in the Wain River Protection Forest.
4. Applications, Tools and Techniques
The River Wain Protection Forest is under severe pressure from encroachment, illegal logging, road building and fire, but though these have long been recognized as threats to the long-term viability of the forest's rich and valuable natural resource base, few people have moved to do anything to relieve the pressure. The issues were poorly documented and received little publicity, especially among local stakeholders. Debate was often centralized and secretive, and it was informed more by anecdotes and generalizations than by hard facts and documentary evidence. Not everybody stood idly by watching the forest disappear. Heroic efforts from people living near the protection forest, supported by groups like Gabriella Fredriksson's sun bear research team, USAID's NRM Program and the Wanariset Orangutan Reintroduction Project, have done much in recent years to preserve the dipterocarp forest ecosystem and introduce sustainable, environmentally sensitive management practices.
Monitoring Encroachment—A 4km stretch of the protected area boundary runs alongside the main road from Balikpapan to Samarinda, 120 km to the north (Figure 2). This stretch of the road makes access to the forest very easy, and over a period of time a settlement has grown there as people move in to make a living from the abundance of resources it has to offer. Originally happy to take animal and plant products from their natural habitat, the settlers eventually began to clear the forest to make it easier to farm. Initially the encroachment was limited to the land immediately adjacent to the road; by the mid-1990s the area cleared was only 200 hectares. Since 1997, a weak economy and political instability have been the main causes of rapid acceleration in the rate of encroachment. By 1998, 364 hectares had been cleared (Fredriksson and de Kam, 1999), a year later the converted area had grown to 730 hectares, and at the beginning of 2001 approximately 2,000 hectares was gone. This means that in less than 5 years, 20% of the protected area was converted to agricultural land (Figure 2). What are the underlying causes behind the rapid depletion of such a valuable and unique resource? And why has the rate of encroachment accelerated so rapidly since 1997?
Figure 2 - Encroachment into the River Wain Protection Forest, 1995 - 2000
Economic crisis and political instability are the fundamental causes behind the problem. Low incomes and few job opportunities have led people to seek alternative sources of income. Because the River Wain Protection Forest is only a few kilometers from downtown Balikpapan, and because a 4km stretch of the main Balikpapan- Samarinda road runs right alongside the protected area, access to the forest is very easy for a large number of people. The road makes it easy for people to get into the forest and easy for them to transport and sell the products they get from the forest or the recently converted farmland.
Political instability and uncertainty meant that there was no effective management structure for the protected area and the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholder groups were not clearly defined or well understood. The laws and regulations governing access to and uses of protection forests in Indonesia are quite clear: no one is permitted to enter a protection forest, to build anything there or to take anything from it. Protection forests are strict conservation areas. But in the River Wain Protection Forest, enforcement, comprised of irregular and infrequent patrols by poorly trained, ill-equipped and unmotivated forest guards or policemen, has historically been very weak and ineffective. Not only have hunters and loggers had free rein to go in to take wildlife and fell trees, but settlers have been allowed to move in, clear-cut the forest and build their homes within the boundaries of the protected area. Recent efforts to publicize the issues, improve management structure, strengthen enforcement and increase accountability bode well for the future of the River Wain Protection Forest, and GIS is playing a small but significant role in those efforts.
Members of the sun bear research team, some of whom have been working in the forest since 1994, have diligently monitored the advance of the farmland and surveyed its boundary with GPS receivers on a regular basis. Accurately mapping encroachment over time, measuring the number of hectares being lost, and communicating this information to a wide range of stakeholders is putting increased pressure on the authorities to act to keep people out of the protected area. During the last 12 months, the mayor of Balikpapan and representatives of the River Wain Protection Forest Management Board, Balikpapan Legislative Council and the East Kalimantan Regional Planning Agency have all seen maps and charts like the ones shown in Figure 2. They have seen very clearly that, unless they take action now, the forest will disappear completely within a very short period of time.
Evaluating the Impact of Forest Fires—Fire is another serious threat, and more than 50% of the River Wain Protection Forest was damaged to some degree by fires that raged across 5 million hectares of East Kalimantan in 1997/98 (Figure 3). The fires completely removed vegetative cover from a large part of the 5,300 hectares that were burned in the reserve. It took villagers six weeks to extinguish fires on the surface, but subsurface coal seams continued to burn, and it was not until three years later that the last underground fire was put out. Residents of local villages and members of the sun bear research team extinguished more than 70 coal fires during this period (Figure 4).
Figure 3 - Extent of Damage from 1997/98 Forest Fires
All forests are at some risk of being damaged or destroyed by fire, but the nature of human activities and land use practices in and around the River Wain Protection Forest increases substantially the likelihood of serious fire damage there. The inherent capacity of the natural forest to withstand the most intense fires has been significantly weakened by encroachment and selective logging in the protected area and by clear-cutting by the state logging company (INHUTANI I) along its northern border. Removing living plants and trees and leaving behind large quantities of dead, dry, highly combustible litter creates ideal conditions for fires to start and spread. It is conditions like these to the north and east of the protected area that led to such a large area being damaged in 1997/98.
Conservation and environmental groups working to improve natural resources management and governance in the region are using a number of innovative ways to raise awareness about risks associated with fire and promote measures that people can take to mitigate those risks. Some of them are using GIS and related technology to prepare maps and images that convey the extent and seriousness of the damage caused by recent fires. The images clearly show the relationship between land use patterns outside and fire damage inside the protected area. Maps showing the locations of the coal fires extinguished by villagers will be particularly useful for future fire-fighting efforts. Shown in conjunction with photographs of the fire and its aftermath on posters, in newspapers and in presentations at public meetings, these maps convey a powerful message about the vulnerability of the forest and the need to take strong actions to safeguard its future (Figure 4).
Assessing the Impact of Fire on Sun Bear Habitat—From spending five years working with sun bears and conducting research in the River Wain Protection Forest, Gabriella Fredriksson and her team have gained expert knowledge about sun bears and the habitats they live in. The team knows where sun bears sleep, what they eat, where they go and how they behave. It also knows that fire completely devastated what was pristine sun bear habitat when it destroyed half of the forest in the protected area in 1997/98. Using GIS techniques, the team recently expanded the scope of its investigations to look at the effects of fire (and other factors) on sun bear habitat throughout East Kalimantan. It defined potential sun bear conservation areas as meeting the following four conditions:
Identifying Options for a New Road—Even during this period of economic depression and political upheaval, the area around Balikpapan remains relatively prosperous and continues to grow. The city has abundant offshore oil and gas reserves to thank for its prosperity. Like any other boomtown, Balikpapan is constantly on the lookout for new land on which to build factories, offices, shops, hotels and houses. It is also looking to improve transportation both in and around the city itself, and between Balikpapan and other major settlements in the region. This means building new roads, and one proposal routes a new road right alongside the southern and western boundaries of the River Wain Protection Forest. The route for the road to the south has already been cleared, and the plan now is to swing north and clear a route along
Figure 4 - Villager Extinguishing a Sub-Surface Coal Fire in the River Wain Protection Forest
a 15km length of the western edge of the reserve. Completing this road will make access to the forest easier and put its future in even greater jeopardy.
The value of the road is that it will greatly improve surface transport routes linking Samarinda, Balikpapan and Banjarmasin. The main (and perhaps the only) argument in favor of building the road along the proposed route is that this will use Balang Island as a stepping stone and thus cost significantly less than bridging Balikpapan Bay further to the south away from the forest. Opponents to the plan point out that, although savings might be made on the Balikpapan Bay bridge, at least five other bridges would have to be built across the bay's tributaries. Building bridges in swampy mangrove forest is difficult and expensive, and on-going maintenance costs are very high. The financial advantages of the Balang Island route are not nearly so clear cut as the road planners suggest they are, and indeed, the long-term costs of building and maintaining the proposed route may turn out to be much higher than those associated with a more southerly route.
Aside from financial considerations, environmentalists are presenting a long list of arguments against the Balang Island route and in favor of an alternative route that would be less threatening to the River Wain Protection Forest and to other natural ecosystems in the region. Mangrove forest occupies the area between the protection forest and Balikpapan Bay, and the road builders would have to destroy much of this rich habitat to construct the new road. If it is built as planned, the new road will provide open access to the areas, significantly increasing the exposure of both the mangroves and the forest reserve to the damage caused by illegal loggers, poachers and settlers. And finally, the road will drive a wedge between two closely related ecosystems—Balikpapan Bay to the west and the River Wain Protection Forest to the east—further isolating the reserve and increasing the fragmentation that is already threatening the wellbeing of many migratory bird and mammal species.
Opponents are fighting the development of the new road on a number of fronts, and again geographic information technology is playing a small but important role in the battle. Some groups are using maps like the one in Figure 1 to show how closely the road passes to the protection forest and how it passes right through the sensitive mangrove forest. With GPS data from the field, these groups have shown that the planned route passes to within 70 meters of the protected area boundary, a clear contravention of the 500-meter buffer zone proscribed in national legislation. Others are using GIS to explore alternatives to the proposed route. One option is to build a bridge further south, linking to the already-cut new route south of the protected area; a second option is not to build a bridge at all, but to increase the capacity of the existing ferry service across the bay.
5. The Contribution of GIS to Improved Governance and Resource Management
Who is benefiting from the use of geographic information technology and the applications described above? Are the citizens of Balikpapan gaining anything by knowing how rapidly the forest is being lost to encroachment, how much of it was damaged by fire four years ago, and how its disappearance will be accelerated if current plans to build the new road go ahead? The signs are quite clear that the citizens of Balikpapan are indeed gaining something very positive by having access to this kind of geographic information. As Indonesia moves towards a more decentralized model of governance, local communities are clamoring to be informed and involved in all aspects of governance, including natural resources management. GIS and related mapping technologies are proving to be extremely powerful tools for communicating information to large, disparate groups of stakeholders. The technology holds great potential for informing and engaging people. It can also provide a means for capturing input from participants in public consultations, and for holding officials and decision-makers accountable once they have committed to a course of action.
Cartographers, planners and land managers in Balikpapan are also benefiting from geographic information technology and the opportunities it brings for improved data management and powerful spatial analysis. They are able to be more responsive to requests for information coming from members of the public or media representatives. The information they present is often more credible because it is drawn on accurate base maps that are consistent with earlier editions of the same plan or report. Computer routines for measuring distances and areas, printing maps and images, and archiving important data can help improve the accuracy of information, reduce human error, increase access to information and improve data security.
One very important message GIS is helping to get across in Balikpapan is how crucial good, integrated regional planning is to the prosperity and long-term well-being of the region. People are beginning to realize that sectoral approaches to development and governance do not work. The management of a protected area cannot be left solely in the hands of foresters; people from the transportation, agriculture, water and health sectors must also be involved. Similarly, engineers and economists cannot plan the development of new roads without consulting with forest managers, environmentalists, conservationists and other concerned stakeholders. The integrating powers of GIS make it a very useful tool for examining the plans and aspirations of special interest groups in the context of broader, multisectoral, communitydriven goals and objectives.
Interest in a more coordinated approach to addressing local governance issues was evident at a recent meeting of Balikpapan's GIS community. Technicians, managers and users got together under the auspices of the USAID NRM Program's coastal component (Proyek Pesisir) to discuss ways of working more closely together. The group discussed proposals for forming a user group, sharing data and technical resources, developing standards for software and data accuracy, holding regular meetings and seminars, and, most importantly, preparing a "GIS development plan that managers, staff and decision-makers [in Balikpapan] can confidently support" (Knight, M., Headline News, NRM Program, October 2, 2001). This is a very encouraging development for the city of Balikpapan and for the River Wain Protection Forest. Following through with this initiative will enable the GIS community to play a much more effective role in planning, resource management, public consultation and other aspects of local governance, and it will represent another positive step along Indonesia's path towards a decentralized model of governance.
Acknowledgements
This paper draws largely on the work of three groups—Gabriella Fredriksson and her team of researchers who live with the sun bears in the River Wain Protection Forest; Graham Usher and the NRM/EPIQ Program team in Samarinda; and Mr. Redahari's GIS unit at Mulawarman University's Center for Social Forestry in Samarinda. Thanks to all for their contributions to this paper and for their on-going efforts to strengthen the management of the River Wain Protection Forest.
References
GIS and participatory management of a protected forest in east Kalimantan, Indonesia
David Craven1
Abstract
The River Wain Protected Forest is the last remaining area of Borneo lowland dipterocarp forest on the coastal plain of East Kalimantan in Indonesia. Located within the city limits of Balikpapan, the province's oil-rich commercial center, the protected forest is refuge to incredibly diverse plant and animal communities. It occupies two small river basins that serve as the city's principal sources of fresh water, and it has great potential as a resource for education and recreation. But the River Wain Protected Forest is under severe threat from farmers, road-builders and developers. More than half of its 10,000 hectares was severely damaged by the catastrophic fires of 1997/98. Realizing that they could lose their little gem in the very near future if they sit back and do nothing, the people of Balikpapan have begun to take action. First steps have included forming a multisectoral management board for the protected area, conducting awareness-raising campaigns in schools, mosques and shopping centers, stepping up security patrols, and mobilizing local villagers to participate in forest management activities. Several groups have begun to develop computer mapping and GIS applications to support all these efforts. Unlike most of Borneo's remaining primary forest, the River Wain Protected Forest is small, accessible and well mapped. These attributes make it a good candidate for developing an accurate and rich GIS database. Still in the early stages of development, a GIS database developed at a local university has already been put to good use by several groups of stakeholders. For example, the system is proving to be an effective means of managing the complex sets of spatial data used by planners, regulators and enforcers of the community's land use policies. Scientists and researchers are using the GIS to plan fieldwork and store and analyze survey data. Maps and charts generated from the system have been used very effectively to communicate information in large meetings in the spirit of transparency and accountability. And environmentalists are using similar maps to document and monitor changes in forest cover caused by conversion to agricultural land, road building, fire and other causes. The people of Balikpapan are very proud of their forest, and they are committed to finding practical solutions to the problems that threaten it. GIS is playing a key role in that search and providing some of the solutions the stakeholders are looking for.
1. Introduction
Until three years ago most of Indonesia's local authorities had little or no experience regulating the use of natural resources. Now, as the country struggles to reform its governance model and decentralize public authority and responsibilities from Jakarta to the provinces, local authorities are having to shoulder more
1 The author works for Development Alternatives, Incorporated, 7250, Woodmont Avenue, Suite 200, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. Tel: (++1) 301-718-8212; Fax: (++1) 301-718-7968;
E-mail: david_craven@dai.com
Mr. Craven worked as a GIS and Spatial Planning Specialist with USAID's Natural Resources Management Program in Samarinda from May 2000 - March 2001.
and more of the burden of government. The province of East Kalimantan on the island of Borneo is playing a leading role in this new movement, pioneering new institutional arrangements, writing strong local laws and regulations, and adopting innovative technologies to help meet its new responsibilities. GIS is one such technology, and this paper describes how, in one very small corner of the province, stakeholders are using GIS to help them manage and conserve a unique and threatened resource—the River Wain Protection Forest.
2. Background - The River Wain Protection Forest
The River Wain Protection Forest occupies 10,000 hectares of land within the city limits of Balikpapan, East Kalimantan's oil-rich commercial center (Figure 1). It is one of the last patches of primary Borneo lowland dipterocarp forest left on East Kalimantan's heavily exploited coastal plain. Because of its rich
Figure 1 - Existing and Proposed Roads in Balikpapan, Indonesia
diversity of plant and animal life and because it is the catchment area for 75% of city's fresh water, the River Wain Protection Forest is extremely important to the physical, social and economic well-being of the people of Balikpapan. During the last 10 years a number of scientists, environmentalists and conservationists have used the forest to rehabilitate orangutans and sun bears, study the effects of fire on plant and animal ecology, engage local communities in forest management initiatives, and conduct inventories of the forest's unique plant and animal communities. Thanks to awareness-raising campaigns in schools, mosques and shopping centers, local recognition of the value of the River Wain Protection Forest as a living laboratory and an educational resource is also growing.
But the protected area is also under threat from a number of sources, including encroachment, illegal logging, road-building and fire. For several years farmers living along a 4km stretch of road that runs along the northeast edge of the protected area have been converting the forest to agricultural land. Problems associated with human encroachment include loss of biodiversity, degradation of water quality from household waste, sewage and increased run-off, and added pressure on endangered species such as orangutan and sun bears from poisons and traps set to catch other animals. In addition to clear-cutting to convert natural forest to fields and gardens, selective illegal logging is also a big problem in the protected area. Thousands of bangkirai, ulin and meranti trees have been extracted for their high-grade timber, and more than 500 gaharu trees have been felled by collectors of gaharu resin, a product that commands a high price for its medicinal and cosmetic properties (Fredriksson and de Kam, 1999). The third major threat comes from plans to build a road skirting the protected area to the south and west. Construction has already begun on the road, and if it is completed according to the current plan, not only will a large area of mangrove forest outside the protected area be destroyed, but access to the protected area will be opened up and encroachment will almost certainly increase.
Finally, fire represents an ever-present threat to any forest, and in the case of the River Wain Protection Forest, the risk is increased because of the human activity in the area and significant coal deposits at or near the earth's surface. Out-of-control fires from slash-and-burn activities are quite common, a problem that is exacerbated when natural vegetation is cut and large amounts of dead, dry litter are left on the ground. More than 50% of the protected area was damaged by fire in 1997/98, and unless encroachment, illegal logging and general access to the forest are controlled, the probability of further destruction remains very high.
Increasingly the people of Balikpapan and East Kalimantan are recognizing the River Wain Protection Forest as an asset worth taking care of. Management and conservation efforts have been stepped up in recent months as more people have come to appreciate the value of the forest and understand the threats to its long-term viability. This has largely been in response to the worldwide clamor generated by the devastating 1997/98 fires, but it is also a sign of the serious commitment in the region to doing a good job of taking over responsibility for managing forests and other natural resources from central government authorities. Six months after its inception, the River Wain Protection Forest Management Board 2 meets regularly to discuss issues affecting the reserve and evaluate options for addressing those issues. It has recently been in consultation with the Balikpapan Legislative Assembly (DPRD), the Environmental Impact Control Agency (BAPEDALDA), the city's mayor, local security officials (police and military intelligence) and representatives of the NGO community. Key items on the agenda have included securing funds to pay for forest management activities, drafting local regulations to define roles and responsibilities for the various stakeholder groups, looking for ways to support and step up environmental education efforts, and defining procedures for establishing a more permanent security presence in the
2 Established by a mayoral decree issued on October 6th, 2001, the River Wain Management Board (Badan Pengelola Hutan Lindung Sungai Wain), a multisectoral planning and management body, is the first local institution established in Indonesia with a mandate to oversee management of a protected area. The board held its first meeting on November 14th, 2001.
forest. The local GIS community has also been playing an active role, engaging and informing decisionmakers and other stakeholders, documenting recent changes in and around the protected area, and proposing options for addressing forest management and regional development issues.
3. GIS Support for the River Wain Protection Forest
A number of individuals and institutions are collaborating to support the development of GIS applications for the River Wain Protection Forest. Representing a broad cross-section of both providers and users of geographic information, the main proponents include staff and students from local educational establishments, independent scientists and researchers, consultants with foreign-assisted development programs, and representatives of local government agencies. Several small GIS units in Balikpapan and the provincial capital, Samarinda, are providing technical services, including digitizing, map compilation, spatial analysis and printing. Local community leaders, researchers and the media are using outputs from these units with increasing frequency to make plans, inform the public and explore options for addressing resource management issues.
In May 2001, staff from Mulawarman University's Department of Forestry in Samarinda digitized an excellent 1:35,000-scale base map of the River Wain Protection Forest. This data set now represents one of the most accurate and detailed digital spatial databases for any part of East Kalimantan (NRM Program, 2001). In recent months several groups have provided layers of thematic data to enrich the database. Contributors include USAID's Natural Resources Management (NRM) Program, Gabriella Fredriksson's sun bear research team and GTZ's Integrated Forest Fire Management Project. As well as providing data for input to the GIS, these groups also play an important role in making sure information generated by GIS technicians reaches the people who need it—the local residents, government officials, students, researchers, the media, and other stakeholders in the region. Maps, charts and tables generated from the GIS are making increasingly frequent appearances at planning meetings in Balikpapan and Samarinda, at local and international conferences, and in East Kalimantan's newspapers and other print media. The following section describes recent applications of GIS to address issues in the Wain River Protection Forest.
4. Applications, Tools and Techniques
The River Wain Protection Forest is under severe pressure from encroachment, illegal logging, road building and fire, but though these have long been recognized as threats to the long-term viability of the forest's rich and valuable natural resource base, few people have moved to do anything to relieve the pressure. The issues were poorly documented and received little publicity, especially among local stakeholders. Debate was often centralized and secretive, and it was informed more by anecdotes and generalizations than by hard facts and documentary evidence. Not everybody stood idly by watching the forest disappear. Heroic efforts from people living near the protection forest, supported by groups like Gabriella Fredriksson's sun bear research team, USAID's NRM Program and the Wanariset Orangutan Reintroduction Project, have done much in recent years to preserve the dipterocarp forest ecosystem and introduce sustainable, environmentally sensitive management practices.
Monitoring Encroachment—A 4km stretch of the protected area boundary runs alongside the main road from Balikpapan to Samarinda, 120 km to the north (Figure 2). This stretch of the road makes access to the forest very easy, and over a period of time a settlement has grown there as people move in to make a living from the abundance of resources it has to offer. Originally happy to take animal and plant products from their natural habitat, the settlers eventually began to clear the forest to make it easier to farm. Initially the encroachment was limited to the land immediately adjacent to the road; by the mid-1990s the area cleared was only 200 hectares. Since 1997, a weak economy and political instability have been the main causes of rapid acceleration in the rate of encroachment. By 1998, 364 hectares had been cleared (Fredriksson and de Kam, 1999), a year later the converted area had grown to 730 hectares, and at the beginning of 2001 approximately 2,000 hectares was gone. This means that in less than 5 years, 20% of the protected area was converted to agricultural land (Figure 2). What are the underlying causes behind the rapid depletion of such a valuable and unique resource? And why has the rate of encroachment accelerated so rapidly since 1997?
Figure 2 - Encroachment into the River Wain Protection Forest, 1995 - 2000
Economic crisis and political instability are the fundamental causes behind the problem. Low incomes and few job opportunities have led people to seek alternative sources of income. Because the River Wain Protection Forest is only a few kilometers from downtown Balikpapan, and because a 4km stretch of the main Balikpapan- Samarinda road runs right alongside the protected area, access to the forest is very easy for a large number of people. The road makes it easy for people to get into the forest and easy for them to transport and sell the products they get from the forest or the recently converted farmland.
Political instability and uncertainty meant that there was no effective management structure for the protected area and the roles and responsibilities of various stakeholder groups were not clearly defined or well understood. The laws and regulations governing access to and uses of protection forests in Indonesia are quite clear: no one is permitted to enter a protection forest, to build anything there or to take anything from it. Protection forests are strict conservation areas. But in the River Wain Protection Forest, enforcement, comprised of irregular and infrequent patrols by poorly trained, ill-equipped and unmotivated forest guards or policemen, has historically been very weak and ineffective. Not only have hunters and loggers had free rein to go in to take wildlife and fell trees, but settlers have been allowed to move in, clear-cut the forest and build their homes within the boundaries of the protected area. Recent efforts to publicize the issues, improve management structure, strengthen enforcement and increase accountability bode well for the future of the River Wain Protection Forest, and GIS is playing a small but significant role in those efforts.
Members of the sun bear research team, some of whom have been working in the forest since 1994, have diligently monitored the advance of the farmland and surveyed its boundary with GPS receivers on a regular basis. Accurately mapping encroachment over time, measuring the number of hectares being lost, and communicating this information to a wide range of stakeholders is putting increased pressure on the authorities to act to keep people out of the protected area. During the last 12 months, the mayor of Balikpapan and representatives of the River Wain Protection Forest Management Board, Balikpapan Legislative Council and the East Kalimantan Regional Planning Agency have all seen maps and charts like the ones shown in Figure 2. They have seen very clearly that, unless they take action now, the forest will disappear completely within a very short period of time.
Evaluating the Impact of Forest Fires—Fire is another serious threat, and more than 50% of the River Wain Protection Forest was damaged to some degree by fires that raged across 5 million hectares of East Kalimantan in 1997/98 (Figure 3). The fires completely removed vegetative cover from a large part of the 5,300 hectares that were burned in the reserve. It took villagers six weeks to extinguish fires on the surface, but subsurface coal seams continued to burn, and it was not until three years later that the last underground fire was put out. Residents of local villages and members of the sun bear research team extinguished more than 70 coal fires during this period (Figure 4).
Figure 3 - Extent of Damage from 1997/98 Forest Fires
All forests are at some risk of being damaged or destroyed by fire, but the nature of human activities and land use practices in and around the River Wain Protection Forest increases substantially the likelihood of serious fire damage there. The inherent capacity of the natural forest to withstand the most intense fires has been significantly weakened by encroachment and selective logging in the protected area and by clear-cutting by the state logging company (INHUTANI I) along its northern border. Removing living plants and trees and leaving behind large quantities of dead, dry, highly combustible litter creates ideal conditions for fires to start and spread. It is conditions like these to the north and east of the protected area that led to such a large area being damaged in 1997/98.
Conservation and environmental groups working to improve natural resources management and governance in the region are using a number of innovative ways to raise awareness about risks associated with fire and promote measures that people can take to mitigate those risks. Some of them are using GIS and related technology to prepare maps and images that convey the extent and seriousness of the damage caused by recent fires. The images clearly show the relationship between land use patterns outside and fire damage inside the protected area. Maps showing the locations of the coal fires extinguished by villagers will be particularly useful for future fire-fighting efforts. Shown in conjunction with photographs of the fire and its aftermath on posters, in newspapers and in presentations at public meetings, these maps convey a powerful message about the vulnerability of the forest and the need to take strong actions to safeguard its future (Figure 4).
Assessing the Impact of Fire on Sun Bear Habitat—From spending five years working with sun bears and conducting research in the River Wain Protection Forest, Gabriella Fredriksson and her team have gained expert knowledge about sun bears and the habitats they live in. The team knows where sun bears sleep, what they eat, where they go and how they behave. It also knows that fire completely devastated what was pristine sun bear habitat when it destroyed half of the forest in the protected area in 1997/98. Using GIS techniques, the team recently expanded the scope of its investigations to look at the effects of fire (and other factors) on sun bear habitat throughout East Kalimantan. It defined potential sun bear conservation areas as meeting the following four conditions:
- Less than 1,000 meters above sea level
- Not damaged by the 1997/98 fires
- Not inside a logging concession
- Not part of land allocated for non-forest uses (agricultural land, settlements, commercial, industrial and military complexes, etc.).
Identifying Options for a New Road—Even during this period of economic depression and political upheaval, the area around Balikpapan remains relatively prosperous and continues to grow. The city has abundant offshore oil and gas reserves to thank for its prosperity. Like any other boomtown, Balikpapan is constantly on the lookout for new land on which to build factories, offices, shops, hotels and houses. It is also looking to improve transportation both in and around the city itself, and between Balikpapan and other major settlements in the region. This means building new roads, and one proposal routes a new road right alongside the southern and western boundaries of the River Wain Protection Forest. The route for the road to the south has already been cleared, and the plan now is to swing north and clear a route along
Figure 4 - Villager Extinguishing a Sub-Surface Coal Fire in the River Wain Protection Forest
a 15km length of the western edge of the reserve. Completing this road will make access to the forest easier and put its future in even greater jeopardy.
The value of the road is that it will greatly improve surface transport routes linking Samarinda, Balikpapan and Banjarmasin. The main (and perhaps the only) argument in favor of building the road along the proposed route is that this will use Balang Island as a stepping stone and thus cost significantly less than bridging Balikpapan Bay further to the south away from the forest. Opponents to the plan point out that, although savings might be made on the Balikpapan Bay bridge, at least five other bridges would have to be built across the bay's tributaries. Building bridges in swampy mangrove forest is difficult and expensive, and on-going maintenance costs are very high. The financial advantages of the Balang Island route are not nearly so clear cut as the road planners suggest they are, and indeed, the long-term costs of building and maintaining the proposed route may turn out to be much higher than those associated with a more southerly route.
Aside from financial considerations, environmentalists are presenting a long list of arguments against the Balang Island route and in favor of an alternative route that would be less threatening to the River Wain Protection Forest and to other natural ecosystems in the region. Mangrove forest occupies the area between the protection forest and Balikpapan Bay, and the road builders would have to destroy much of this rich habitat to construct the new road. If it is built as planned, the new road will provide open access to the areas, significantly increasing the exposure of both the mangroves and the forest reserve to the damage caused by illegal loggers, poachers and settlers. And finally, the road will drive a wedge between two closely related ecosystems—Balikpapan Bay to the west and the River Wain Protection Forest to the east—further isolating the reserve and increasing the fragmentation that is already threatening the wellbeing of many migratory bird and mammal species.
Opponents are fighting the development of the new road on a number of fronts, and again geographic information technology is playing a small but important role in the battle. Some groups are using maps like the one in Figure 1 to show how closely the road passes to the protection forest and how it passes right through the sensitive mangrove forest. With GPS data from the field, these groups have shown that the planned route passes to within 70 meters of the protected area boundary, a clear contravention of the 500-meter buffer zone proscribed in national legislation. Others are using GIS to explore alternatives to the proposed route. One option is to build a bridge further south, linking to the already-cut new route south of the protected area; a second option is not to build a bridge at all, but to increase the capacity of the existing ferry service across the bay.
5. The Contribution of GIS to Improved Governance and Resource Management
Who is benefiting from the use of geographic information technology and the applications described above? Are the citizens of Balikpapan gaining anything by knowing how rapidly the forest is being lost to encroachment, how much of it was damaged by fire four years ago, and how its disappearance will be accelerated if current plans to build the new road go ahead? The signs are quite clear that the citizens of Balikpapan are indeed gaining something very positive by having access to this kind of geographic information. As Indonesia moves towards a more decentralized model of governance, local communities are clamoring to be informed and involved in all aspects of governance, including natural resources management. GIS and related mapping technologies are proving to be extremely powerful tools for communicating information to large, disparate groups of stakeholders. The technology holds great potential for informing and engaging people. It can also provide a means for capturing input from participants in public consultations, and for holding officials and decision-makers accountable once they have committed to a course of action.
Cartographers, planners and land managers in Balikpapan are also benefiting from geographic information technology and the opportunities it brings for improved data management and powerful spatial analysis. They are able to be more responsive to requests for information coming from members of the public or media representatives. The information they present is often more credible because it is drawn on accurate base maps that are consistent with earlier editions of the same plan or report. Computer routines for measuring distances and areas, printing maps and images, and archiving important data can help improve the accuracy of information, reduce human error, increase access to information and improve data security.
One very important message GIS is helping to get across in Balikpapan is how crucial good, integrated regional planning is to the prosperity and long-term well-being of the region. People are beginning to realize that sectoral approaches to development and governance do not work. The management of a protected area cannot be left solely in the hands of foresters; people from the transportation, agriculture, water and health sectors must also be involved. Similarly, engineers and economists cannot plan the development of new roads without consulting with forest managers, environmentalists, conservationists and other concerned stakeholders. The integrating powers of GIS make it a very useful tool for examining the plans and aspirations of special interest groups in the context of broader, multisectoral, communitydriven goals and objectives.
Interest in a more coordinated approach to addressing local governance issues was evident at a recent meeting of Balikpapan's GIS community. Technicians, managers and users got together under the auspices of the USAID NRM Program's coastal component (Proyek Pesisir) to discuss ways of working more closely together. The group discussed proposals for forming a user group, sharing data and technical resources, developing standards for software and data accuracy, holding regular meetings and seminars, and, most importantly, preparing a "GIS development plan that managers, staff and decision-makers [in Balikpapan] can confidently support" (Knight, M., Headline News, NRM Program, October 2, 2001). This is a very encouraging development for the city of Balikpapan and for the River Wain Protection Forest. Following through with this initiative will enable the GIS community to play a much more effective role in planning, resource management, public consultation and other aspects of local governance, and it will represent another positive step along Indonesia's path towards a decentralized model of governance.
Acknowledgements
This paper draws largely on the work of three groups—Gabriella Fredriksson and her team of researchers who live with the sun bears in the River Wain Protection Forest; Graham Usher and the NRM/EPIQ Program team in Samarinda; and Mr. Redahari's GIS unit at Mulawarman University's Center for Social Forestry in Samarinda. Thanks to all for their contributions to this paper and for their on-going efforts to strengthen the management of the River Wain Protection Forest.
References
- Fredriksson, G. M. and de Kam, M., 1999. Strategic Plan for the Conservation of the Sungai Wain Protection Forest, East Kalimantan. The International Ministry of Forestry and Estate Crops - Tropenbos Kalimantan Project, Wanariset Samboja, Balikpapan.
- NRM Program, 2001. Spatial Information for NRM in East Kalimantan. USAID/Natural Resources Management Program, Jakarta.
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