Carol J. Pierce Colfer

The BAG: basic assessment guide for human well-being

Basic Assessment Guide for Human Well-Being he AG — Basic Aessm nt Gide or H um an W elBeing 5The Criteria & Indicators Toolbox Series The Basic Assessment Guide for Human Well-Being (or The BAG) focuses on the social criteria and indicators for sustainable forest management, a topic that has been the subject of considerable controversy and uncertainty. It is designed for people interested in assessing sustainable forest management, but who do not have a high degree of expertise in social sciences. The six simple methods described in this manual are designed for use by biophysical scientists with a college education. They can also be used by assessors with higher levels of expertise in social sciences, but they are presented in a ‘cookbook’ format. The Scoring and Analysis Guide, meant to be used with The BAG, provides additional help in making assessments of human well being, including a specific scoring method. It also provides increasingly detailed levels of guidance in analysis. 5

Hunting primates and managing forests: the case of Iban forest farmers in Indonesian Borneo

Hunting by Iban forest farmers in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, is an important part of their subsistence economy, and as such became a focus of study as part of a conservation project in the Danau Sentarum Wildlife Reserve. In this paper, we examine Iban hunting of nonhuman primates with comparison to other large mammals. We analyze rates of encounter and capture, comparing encounters, hunting trips, and animal numbers. Information on habitats hunted shows the importance of secondary and old growth forest. Also examined are Iban attitudes, game preferences, and taboos. The significance of these findings is discussed with regard to the threats to wildlife from increases in the use of shotguns, human population, and habitat destruction, showing that conservation may be aided by promoting or enhancing certain aspects of the traditional Iban agroforestry system.

Review of the legal ownership status of national lands in Cameroon: A more nuanced view

This paper revisits the legal status of land tenure in Cameroon in response to many publications which claim that 97% of land belongs to the State. In fact, the current Cameroonian land-tenure system is based on the distinction between public/State lands; private lands and national lands. Therefore, the review of the legislation in force and the theory of constitutional law show that a more nuanced interpretation of the legal status of land and forests in Cameroon leads to the conclusion that the State does not have sole and absolute ownership over land and forests, as many studies claim. From this viewpoint, distinction should be made between State ownership of public land and State administration of national lands which really belong to the Cameroonian Nation or People. However, the current legal (vague) status granting sole and absolute powers to the State as custodian of national lands no longer meets local communities’ and indigenous peoples claims on land inherent in the global REDD+ impetus and land grabbing. Hence, there is need to initiate policy and legal reforms so as to provide for land belonging to local communities and indigenous communities, distinct from the national lands domain.

Infectious Ideas: Modelling the Diffusion of Ideas across Social Networks

Will the practice of collecting wild honey wearing no clothes become a widespread practice in Zimbabwe? Or will beekeeping take over as the main way that people acquire honey? Both practices impact on forest resources; how can the foresters influence the uptake of these ideas? This paper describes an exploratory modelling study investigating how social network patterns affect the way ideas spread around communities. It concludes that increasing the density of social networks increases the spread of successful ideas whilst speeding the loss of ideas with no competitive advantage. Some different kinds of competitive advantage are explored in the context of forest management and rural extension.

Participation and Model-building: Lessons Learned from the Bukittinggi Workshop

FLORES (the Forest Land Oriented Resource Envisioning System) was initially constructed by 50 people during a multidisciplinary workshop in Bukittinggi, Sumatra, in 1999. It proved that a model of a complex system could be constructed in a participatory way by a diverse team; that it could be done with a graphically-based package such as Simile; and that the resulting model could remain reasonably accessible to all participants, and could run on an ordinary notebook computer. Many useful insights can be gained through building such a model, and subsequent experience has demonstrated that modelling in this way can foster continuing interdisciplinary collaboration. Participants founded the FLORES Society, a loose collective open to all researchers interested in pursuing the development and use of such models. The Society conducts an e-mail discussion group on FLORES@cgnet.com (subscription requests to JV anclay@scu.edu.au).

Gender and natural resource governance indicators: a need to assess and address ‘sensitive and taboo’ topics

Gender and governance or management are topics that have been inadequately addressed by researchers, with resulting very slow progress towards gender equity globally. A collaborative landscape management project in South and Southeast Sulawesi (Indonesia) has been trying to strengthen womens voices in local management and governance and to encourage more equitable benefit distribution throughout the landscape. The need for a simple assessment of the projects success presented an opportunity for us to develop a set of indicators that we believe can be adapted and used more widely. Our indicators, presented below, differ from other indicator sets available, most fundamentally in their foci on (1) gender and governance/forest management, (2) a combination of production and other more sensitive issues central to womens lives, and (3) intra-household decision-making.

Forest research and gender: a review of available methods for promoting equity

Recognising widespread uncertainty about how to address gender within the forestry world (researchers, as well as natural resource, development and conservation practitioners), this paper strives to provide targeted guidance. We divide gender methods into three main approaches, based on the availability of resources. In the first section, we provide a brief discussion of theory and method. Then, after discussing some all-purpose methods, we classify methods loosely into the ‘quick and (more or less) dirty’ studies, ‘academic’ studies and collaborative studies. We argue that although there is legitimate space for all three approach, the last is most likely to result in meaningful and long-term improvements in forest and human well-being.

Preparing the ground for better landscape governance: gendered realities in southern Sulawesi

In recognition of the importance of effective and equitable governance at the landscape scale in enhancing human and environmental well-being, we use a recently developed framework for assessing mens and womens involvement in local governance. These results set the stage for an ongoing examination of the success of the AgFor project in southern Sulawesi in achieving this goal. Our findings establish a baseline on gender and governance in five communities with landscapes that include forestry, agroforestry, and agriculture: Bonto Tappalang and Tana Toa in South Sulawesi, and Tawanga, Ladongi, and Wonua Hua in Southeast Sulawesi. These indicators, which we complement with ethnographic insights, fall into two categories: (1) level of public involvement and (2) skills relevant for political action, each of which is assessed for both women and men. Our findings reflect what we believe to be a comparatively equitable gender situation in Sulawesi, with hopeful prospects for enhancing womens (and mens) public involvement in governance. We conclude with some practical and ethnographically informed suggestions for enhancing collaboration with women and men in these (and similar) communities.