园林设计英文文献

Forests, Trees and Livelihoods, 2010, V ol. 19, pp. 319–340

© 2010 A B Academic Publishers—Printed in Great Britain

Which role for the non farm-sector

in a forested landscape? lessons

from Krui, indonesia

Koen Kusters*

University of Amsterdam and Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR)

abstract

this article explores two interrelated premises. the first is that the non-farm sector is of increasing importance to rural household. the second is that non-farm growth reduces the pressure on natural resources. the article reports on an analysis of income trends in three villages in the Krui area, sumatra, Indonesia, by comparing household survey data from 1995 and 2004. Between these two years, neither the farm sector nor the non-farm sector showed sustained growth.Although the contribution of remittances to local incomes remained marginal, migration of unemployed and unmarried youngsters to urban areas has a positive effect on per capita incomes in the Krui area by decreasing the household size. With regard to the second premise the analysis shows that increased engagement in local non-farm activities does not automatically result in smaller landholdings. Increased engagement in ex-situ non-farm activities, however, helps to reduce pressure on local forest resources.

introduction

the mainstream debate on conservation and development is based on the assumptions that agriculture is both the main threat to conservation and the main engine for rural development. Consequently, a large body of literature exists on the possibilities to reform agriculture in such a way that it better fits conservation goals. two main approaches are promoted. the first is to support environmentally friendly agricultural systems such as agroforests, in addition to protected areas (scherr and Mcneely, 2003; Ashley et al., 2006). the second approach is to encourage agricultural intensification and to decrease pressure on protected areas by increasing the returns on existing agricultural land (Mellor, 2002; Green et al., 2005). Both approaches have practical problems. Agricultural systems with high biodiversity tend to be less productive than intensive agricultural systems (Van noordwijk et al., 1997) and may not be competitive when the opportunity cost of land and labour increases (Belcher et al., 2005). on the other hand, increasing the income per hectare of land through intensification can act as an incentive for agricultural expansion (Angelsen and Kaimowitz, 2001) and may create other environmental damage as well, for example through the overuse of

*e-mail address: K.Kusters@uva.nl