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C. S. Goh and S. H. J. T. Lee
Introduction
In Indonesia, large-scale land exploitation has been regarded as a quick way to jumpstart backward agricultural economies, especially in regions with vast land resources.
It has, however, brought about profound impacts on climate change through terrestrial carbon stock change, including deforestation and peat loss. Kalimantan is a
typical example of such disasters. For decades, Kalimantan has been suffering from
extensive environmental degradation due to rampant timber extraction, uncontrolled
fire and rapid oil palm expansion. In terms of terrestrial carbon stock loss, the island
contributed roughly 400–700 Tg CO 2 /year or 10–17% of global land-use emission
in 2000–2010 (Abood et al. 2015; Agus et al. 2013). These have been accompanied
by not only transboundary disaster like haze, but also mushrooming social conflicts
stemmed from land resource exploitation.
From an economic point of view, over-reliance on export-oriented resource
exploitation for fiscal revenues will unavoidably lead to economic bottlenecks. In
fact, the regional economy has always been exposed to periodic economic crisis due
to fluctuations of commodity prices, such as the recent sharp decline of Crude Palm
Oil (CPO), largely preventing them from building their own secondary and tertiary
industries in a steady manner. While such exploitative activities have generated
quick revenues for the economy, the livelihood of people has indeed been threatened in all aspects from immediate local health risk to long-term global climate
change. Furthermore, it has been plagued by poor governance, corruption, ineffective law enforcement and limited growth in skilled labourers. Low population
density in Kalimantan also encourages large-scale primary land-based activities and
inhibits industrial advancement. These large-scale activities are often accompanied
by social conflicts, largely attributed to rapid (sometimes forceful) changes of local
lifestyle and inequitable distribution of wealth created from resource exploitation
(e.g. Potter 2016; Scheidel et al. 2018). Exploring alternative development strategies
for economic growth to prevent the exacerbation of environmental degradation is
urgently needed.
In this context, advocates for productivity or so-called ‘productivitists’ have been
pushing for the use of cutting-edge biological knowledge and technological innovation to increase overall productivities instead of furthering unsustainable large-scale
land exploitation. These concepts have caught global imagination in producing more
agricultural and forestry products while dealing with exacerbated environmental and
developmental issues of conventional land-based economies (Bugge et al. 2016).
Meanwhile, alternative economic strategies with priorities over conservation have
also been proposed by conservationists. These strategies stress the multifunctionality
of land-based activities, advocating the needs to observe the bio-capacity of the Earth
system when optimising the human use of nature (Marsden and Farioli 2015). These
broad ranges of strategies can lead to different impacts, synergies and trade-offs.
Taking Kalimantan as the case study, this chapter first presents a brief history
of carbon stock change linking to economic development in the region in
C. S. Goh and S. H. J. T. Lee
Introduction
In Indonesia, large-scale land exploitation has been regarded as a quick way to jumpstart backward agricultural economies, especially in regions with vast land resources.
It has, however, brought about profound impacts on climate change through terrestrial carbon stock change, including deforestation and peat loss. Kalimantan is a
typical example of such disasters. For decades, Kalimantan has been suffering from
extensive environmental degradation due to rampant timber extraction, uncontrolled
fire and rapid oil palm expansion. In terms of terrestrial carbon stock loss, the island
contributed roughly 400–700 Tg CO 2 /year or 10–17% of global land-use emission
in 2000–2010 (Abood et al. 2015; Agus et al. 2013). These have been accompanied
by not only transboundary disaster like haze, but also mushrooming social conflicts
stemmed from land resource exploitation.
From an economic point of view, over-reliance on export-oriented resource
exploitation for fiscal revenues will unavoidably lead to economic bottlenecks. In
fact, the regional economy has always been exposed to periodic economic crisis due
to fluctuations of commodity prices, such as the recent sharp decline of Crude Palm
Oil (CPO), largely preventing them from building their own secondary and tertiary
industries in a steady manner. While such exploitative activities have generated
quick revenues for the economy, the livelihood of people has indeed been threatened in all aspects from immediate local health risk to long-term global climate
change. Furthermore, it has been plagued by poor governance, corruption, ineffective law enforcement and limited growth in skilled labourers. Low population
density in Kalimantan also encourages large-scale primary land-based activities and
inhibits industrial advancement. These large-scale activities are often accompanied
by social conflicts, largely attributed to rapid (sometimes forceful) changes of local
lifestyle and inequitable distribution of wealth created from resource exploitation
(e.g. Potter 2016; Scheidel et al. 2018). Exploring alternative development strategies
for economic growth to prevent the exacerbation of environmental degradation is
urgently needed.
In this context, advocates for productivity or so-called ‘productivitists’ have been
pushing for the use of cutting-edge biological knowledge and technological innovation to increase overall productivities instead of furthering unsustainable large-scale
land exploitation. These concepts have caught global imagination in producing more
agricultural and forestry products while dealing with exacerbated environmental and
developmental issues of conventional land-based economies (Bugge et al. 2016).
Meanwhile, alternative economic strategies with priorities over conservation have
also been proposed by conservationists. These strategies stress the multifunctionality
of land-based activities, advocating the needs to observe the bio-capacity of the Earth
system when optimising the human use of nature (Marsden and Farioli 2015). These
broad ranges of strategies can lead to different impacts, synergies and trade-offs.
Taking Kalimantan as the case study, this chapter first presents a brief history
of carbon stock change linking to economic development in the region in