Fire, deforestation, and land tenure in the North Eastern fringes of Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, Lampung

CIFOR, ICRAF, and the US-Forest Service are studying the underlying causes and impacts of land and forest fires in Indonesia. The main questions to be addressed in thisproject are why, what, who, where, and how much burned. This study will apply three levels of spatial analysis: island-wide, province, and site level. In this project, we use a combination of remote sensing/GIS techniques and social-economic research to provide the answer. We conducted eight studies at the site-specific level analysis in Sumatra and Kalimantan. The first site, Sekincau, is located in the mountainous area of westernLampung. It represents a case study of the dynamics of fire in a National Park area and villages on the fringe of that National Park. In this site, land tenure conflicts arise between farmers and the National Park managers. We focus on understanding arelationship between fire, deforestation and land tenure. As population pressure has increased, pressures to convert natural forest to non-forest uses have also increased. The population of Lampung has increased dramatically since the 1970s. The population of Lampung in 1971 was 2.8 million people and population density was 78 person per km2. In 1997, the population of Lampung was 6.9 million people (almost 2.5 times1971) and population density was 209 person per km2 (increasing by almost 2.7 times). According to RePPProt (1988), 50% of migrants who went to Sumatra since the beginning of the 20 th Century settled in Lampung. As the population increased, forest cover in Lampung has declined. Forest cover in Lampung in 1982 was only 18%(Fraser 1998).

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