11 Transforming Exploitative Land-Based Economy to Reduce …
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but not least, monitoring of carbon stock would be a difficult technical challenge.
In addition to various arguments about verification methods (e.g. carbon leakage
issue), difficulties in understanding the system also cause hesitance of officials to get
involved (Thompson 2018).
With these multiple challenges, creating values for carbon and ES may not truly
benefit the livelihoods of local people at least in short term (Suyanto et al. 2009).
Either top-down prescriptions or bottom-up approaches have received objections
from local stakeholders. Furthermore, it is also unclear how to sustain large-scale
payment in long term once the local communities begin to rely heavily on this for
their livelihoods—can developed countries continue to pay ‘sufficiently’ for the ES
in Borneo for several decades to come? Naturally, long-term economic development
cannot rely solely on voluntary payment from the other countries.
Enhancing Resilience to Natural and Human-Made Disasters
Disasters like fire and haze will inflict enormous damage to environment, economy
and society. Just taking the example of transboundary haze caused by uncontrolled
land fire in Kalimantan and Sumatera in 2015—the amount of CO 2 released into the
atmosphere in just one month is equivalent to the annual emission of Germany and
the direct economic loss is estimated to be USD 16 billion for Indonesia alone (not
yet included are losses for Malaysia and Singapore as well as health damages due
to transboundary haze). These unwanted consequences, with fire and drought as the
main themes for Borneo, are likely to become more pervasive threats due to drastic
alteration of the earth system. In recent years, resilience to these disturbances has
been proposed to be an important economic indicator in addition to productivity due
to the numerous evidences of impacts from harmful disasters on existing production
system (Walker et al. 2010).
A landscape that can supply a broad range of products and ecosystem services
(with rich biodiversity) is deemed less vulnerable to external shocks. It was proven
that the decline of biodiversity as a result of excessive land exploitation in the
past decades has substantially crippled the agro-ecological resilience (Newbold
et al. 2016). A more holistic landscape management, i.e. forging synergies between
different land-use and services throughout the landscape, may avoid unwanted environmental impacts and also create opportunities for restoration (Sayer et al. 2013).
Practically for Kalimantan, this can include for example re-activation of abandoned
monoculture timber plantations by introducing new species in combination with
natural forest regeneration depending on the suitability (Brockerhoff et al. 2008;
Crouzeilles et al. 2017). Having said that, it is not entirely clear how such a landscape approach can be applied to meet different needs optimally. Past experience
shows that its effectiveness is difficult to be monitored and measured (Sayer et al.
2017).
Some had advocated that reforming of the current system with decentralisation and
empowering of indigenous and rural communities may significantly help anchoring
239
but not least, monitoring of carbon stock would be a difficult technical challenge.
In addition to various arguments about verification methods (e.g. carbon leakage
issue), difficulties in understanding the system also cause hesitance of officials to get
involved (Thompson 2018).
With these multiple challenges, creating values for carbon and ES may not truly
benefit the livelihoods of local people at least in short term (Suyanto et al. 2009).
Either top-down prescriptions or bottom-up approaches have received objections
from local stakeholders. Furthermore, it is also unclear how to sustain large-scale
payment in long term once the local communities begin to rely heavily on this for
their livelihoods—can developed countries continue to pay ‘sufficiently’ for the ES
in Borneo for several decades to come? Naturally, long-term economic development
cannot rely solely on voluntary payment from the other countries.
Enhancing Resilience to Natural and Human-Made Disasters
Disasters like fire and haze will inflict enormous damage to environment, economy
and society. Just taking the example of transboundary haze caused by uncontrolled
land fire in Kalimantan and Sumatera in 2015—the amount of CO 2 released into the
atmosphere in just one month is equivalent to the annual emission of Germany and
the direct economic loss is estimated to be USD 16 billion for Indonesia alone (not
yet included are losses for Malaysia and Singapore as well as health damages due
to transboundary haze). These unwanted consequences, with fire and drought as the
main themes for Borneo, are likely to become more pervasive threats due to drastic
alteration of the earth system. In recent years, resilience to these disturbances has
been proposed to be an important economic indicator in addition to productivity due
to the numerous evidences of impacts from harmful disasters on existing production
system (Walker et al. 2010).
A landscape that can supply a broad range of products and ecosystem services
(with rich biodiversity) is deemed less vulnerable to external shocks. It was proven
that the decline of biodiversity as a result of excessive land exploitation in the
past decades has substantially crippled the agro-ecological resilience (Newbold
et al. 2016). A more holistic landscape management, i.e. forging synergies between
different land-use and services throughout the landscape, may avoid unwanted environmental impacts and also create opportunities for restoration (Sayer et al. 2013).
Practically for Kalimantan, this can include for example re-activation of abandoned
monoculture timber plantations by introducing new species in combination with
natural forest regeneration depending on the suitability (Brockerhoff et al. 2008;
Crouzeilles et al. 2017). Having said that, it is not entirely clear how such a landscape approach can be applied to meet different needs optimally. Past experience
shows that its effectiveness is difficult to be monitored and measured (Sayer et al.
2017).
Some had advocated that reforming of the current system with decentralisation and
empowering of indigenous and rural communities may significantly help anchoring