Community Logging in the Buffer Zone of Gunung Palung National Park in West Kalimantan, Indonesia

by Harvard University Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology

What's at Stake?

From coastal mangroves, through swamp and lowland forests up to the epiphyte rich montane and cloud forests of Mt. Palung, Gunung Palung National Park contains a complete gradient of tropical rain forest habitats. The 90,000 hectare park is home to a vast diversity of plants and animals including endemic proboscis monkeys and the largest remaining population of orangutans.

The greatest threats to this park come from villagers in search of high value timber which can be marketed, albeit illegally, to nearby sawmills. The recent completion of an asphalt highway along the coast improves village access to outside markets and allows outsiders easier entry into previously remote areas. Poor villagers, often recent immigrants to the area, also clear park border areas for wet rice cultivation. Increasingly the park is an island constantly nibbled at the edges.

To counter these threats, the Harvard Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology (LTFE) will establish a small community-managed and owned enterprise in a 5000 hectare buffer zone adjacent to the park in an area that was formerly a timber concession. Rather than being driven by their economic needs to log illegally inside the park, the local villagers will now have alternative employment opportunities outside. The type of logging will demonstrate important technical modifications that reduce damage to the residual forest, encourage forest recovery and logging efficiency. A small sawmill will add value to primary processing and the proceeds will remain in the local villages instead of being exported with the raw timber.

In addition to timber extraction, the enterprise will include patrolling the park border and rehabilitating previously disturbed lands. This project, the first of its kind in Indonesia, has important potential to affect policies regarding community resource management and forestry practices throughout the country.

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