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The Location Is Been Selected As: How These Methods Were Developed

The document discusses a landscape assessment research project that studied biological diversity, the environment, and local people's perspectives in forest landscapes in Indonesia. Researchers established 200 research plots and surveyed 7 communities between 1999-2000. They developed survey methods to identify what was important to local communities by using techniques like scoring exercises and mapping natural resources. The project gathered extensive data on the social, economic, and environmental situation to inform forest management and policy.

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rajshree
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42 views3 pages

The Location Is Been Selected As: How These Methods Were Developed

The document discusses a landscape assessment research project that studied biological diversity, the environment, and local people's perspectives in forest landscapes in Indonesia. Researchers established 200 research plots and surveyed 7 communities between 1999-2000. They developed survey methods to identify what was important to local communities by using techniques like scoring exercises and mapping natural resources. The project gathered extensive data on the social, economic, and environmental situation to inform forest management and policy.

Uploaded by

rajshree
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Hello ma’am the topic which I have chosen for research method is landscape assessment and research paper

which I
have studied is multidisciplinary landscape assessment for Exploring biological diversity, environment and local
people’s perspectives in forest landscapes. The researchers worked with seven communities and established two
hundred research plots between November 1999 and November 2000.
So research is a practical method, or indeed a suite of methods, that can reduce the understanding gap, to provide a
comprehensible summary of what actually matters locally: to determine what is important, to whom, how much
and why, and a means to make these local preferences more relevant to the decision making process.
A structured method of landscape assessment-
• linking description
• classification
• analysis
• evaluation
Will provide an integrated framework within which decisions on land use management and advice can be debated.

So first I would like to explain that why this type of research was held as Biodiversity surveys have
Become a major preoccupation of conservation agencies and are increasingly included in impact assessments. The
information generated usually has little impact as most decisions reflect
Other priorities. And much of the global concern about tropical rainforests derives from fears of major impending
extinctions.

The Location is been selected as


When CIFOR was established in 1993, the Indonesian Government committed itself to providing a forest area where
CIFOR could conduct long-term research. An area in East Kalimantan was finally selected
THE AIM of the CIFOR research program in Malinau is to contribute to achieving forest sustainability for a ‘large
forest landscape’ in the humid tropics, where diverse, rapidly changing and often conflicting land use demands exist.
THE OBJECTIVE is to achieve long-term forest management for multiple uses, integrating social, environmental,
biodiversity and silvicultural objectives. The first phase of the project has consisted mainly of gathering baseline
information on the bio-physical, social and economic situation of the area.

As a means to address the multiple interests and values of landscape and natural resources, they developed a suite
of survey methods to identify what is ‘important’ to some local communities in the district of Malinau in East
Kalimantan, Indonesia.

People and the landscape


Malinau watershed consists of several Dayak groups. In certain villages, the number of outsiders is growing rapidly,
due to the reliance of most concession activities on a non-local workforce. Amongst the Dayak groups, traditional
rights relate to land in two different ways involving either individual household holdings or community land.

Three-pronged approach outlined in overall research strategy:


 finding out what occurs where,
 assessing to whom it matters and in what way, and
 Identifying what steps are needed to maintain this biota in the future.

Impact opportunities
Unlike some countries, Indonesia does not have a long history of community involvement in officially sanctioned
forest management. Researcher work clearly implies that local communities have complex dependencies upon forest
landscapes that need to be respected and understood. For Indonesia, this message requires a revolution that must
impact all the institutions and processes related to forest management. At both regional and national levels, CIFOR is
deeply engaged in contributing to policy reform.

How these methods were developed


And also Methods were developed during discussions, workshops, a series of pre-trials, a full-scale pilot study in two
communities with subsequent revisions and finally, application in five additional communities.
Participation were not designed to be a fully participatory approach to doing biodiversity studies. They are,
rather, a first step in seeking a means of increasing the legibility of local priorities and concerns to outsiders.
Participation is relative; it can cover a range of local involvements in defining objectives, selecting methods,
application, analyses and interpretation. The approach makes local preferences more legible and they use this to
make a relatively broad but shallow assessment of local views.
The methods shall start with an overview of the survey and the practicalities involved. This is followed by a fuller
account of the survey activities undertaken in the village, then of those undertaken in the field, and finally some
notes on how the data are handled. Two methods were there first is the scoring approach (pebble distribution
method or PDM) and the variable area sample unit. This is because these methods are novel, requiring a
presentation of the underlying theory.

Operational overview
Team
For most purposes, the team was divided into two: the village team and the field team. The village team collected a
wide range of information about the judgements, needs, culture, institutions and aspirations of the local
communities, and examined their perceptions of and relationship with the local landscape. The field team collected
biophysical and ethnographic data at specific geo-referenced sample points.
Field sample selection
They chose a number of sample sites from the landscape surrounding each community. These were selected to
represent the range of variation in the local environment. While variation in forest was an emphasis, we also
included a wide range of non-forest sites for comparison. Two hundred research plots were established in the
Malinau watershed in four separate data collection periods between November 1999 and November 2000. Each plot
included a wide range of biophysical information and local knowledge. Around 40 trees over 10 cm diameter were
generally recorded using an innovative variable area method, while other vegetation was assessed in a 5 x 40 m
transect. The 200 samples have also been classified into eight categories of land cover.

Village-based activities
The first community meeting was used to introduce the survey, explain the research and the reasons for doing it. In a
second meeting, usually on the following night, all these points were recapped and further questions from the
community were answered. Than Community mapping is done gathering information about natural resources,
special sites and local perceptions within a shared geographical framework. Once the community meetings were
completed, the teams set out to gather their respective data. The village team, along with several local assistants,
was charged with collecting socio-economic and cultural cognitive categories of information. A scoring exercise,
known as the Pebble Distribution Method (PDM), was used to quantify group assessments of the importance of
forest products and landscape units.

Scoring exercises: the Pebble Distribution Methods (PDMs) Introduction: concepts of ‘importance’
One objective of research was to develop practical methods to assess the importance of biodiversity to people who
are partly dependent upon wild resources. A number of techniques were used in the studies, and in all these it was
assumed that local people are the best judge of what is directly important to them. The PDM method include that in
each stage of the exercise, informants were asked to distribute 100 counters (buttons, seeds or pebbles) between
labelled and illustrated cards in proportion to their ‘importance’.

Next is Field-based activities for dis


Site, vegetation and trees
Once the general sampling area was agreed on, the initial stage in establishing the sample plot was to mark out a 40
m long line marked with a strong tape measure. Three separate datasheets were used to record plant information.
One recorded a site description, another recorded smaller plants and a third recorded trees.
Trees
They used a new and versatile sample unit suitable for rapid assessments of tropical forest in heterogeneous areas.
The method used multiple applications of variable area subunits, in which the area was defined by simple and
objective rules.
Plant names, uses and preferencesThe botanist’s group recorded each new plant species and gave it a reference
number.

Data checking and triangulationEfforts were made to ensure that participants represented a broad range of the
community, including all the local informants who were present in the field. Once all the plant data had been
compiled, the allocation of use-categories was revisited in an extra field visit. This review was conducted with a cross
section of each community and clarified the consensus views on which uses fitted in each class, and identified the
small number of miscellaneous values that do not fit.

Soil technical data collection Physical characteristics including soil depth, moisture regime, colour, texture,
structure, consistency, matrix node, pores, and roots were recorded by horizon using standard methods.

Soil as viewed by local informants Field informants were fully briefed about the study and were selected because
they were known to have good knowledge of both soils and cultivation.

PLANT TAXONOMY AND VERIFICATION


The first step was the identification all of vascular plant specimens using the expertise and facilities of the Herbarium
Bogoriense. Around 8000 specimens, mostly infertile, were collected during the four survey periods.
The Malinau area is not well-explored taxonomically and the majority of the plants encountered are not easily
identified. Even when good herbarium matches had made, standardizing nomenclature and synonymy remains a
major task.

CONCLUSION So at the end They have an extensive amount of information to assess what is important for several
communities in Malinau. Also they now recognise critical issues of which researcher were previously unaware.
Especially important as researchers, is the fact that they had now in many cases also place these data in relation to
detailed biophysical information about this previously un-researched region.

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