East Asia and Pacific

Quelques réussites dans la réduction de la déforestation: Des pays tropicaux où les politiques de protection de la forêt et de reboisement ont fonctionné

This report highlights successes of developing countries and their strategies for reducing deforestation and as a result, their emissions of greenhouse gases. The authors note that decreases in deforestation are primarily a result of REDD+ programs, including payments for ecosystem services, better law enforcement, governance reforms, moratoria on deforestation practices, and incorporating the environment in development efforts. Other successes come from policy changes and programs that have had intended and unintended positive impacts on forests.

 

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Collaborative Efforts On Mangrove Restoration In Sedari Village, Karawang District, West Java Province

background

Many communities are undertaking mangrove restoration projects to try to return some of the ecosystem services provided by mangrove forests, with mixed success.

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Restoration of native forests from Japan to Malaysia

Background

This paper describes the "Miyawaki method" to afforestation and its application in an urban setting in Malaysia. This method, which relies on a densley planted mix of seedling species from seeds collected in neighboring forests, has been utilized throughout Japan and is gaining momentum in new tropical locations as well.

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Restoration Ecology of Lowland Tropical Peatlands in Southeast Asia: Current Knowledge and Future Research Directions

Background

While there has been extensive research on northern peatlands, there has been limited studies that have studied tropical peatlands. Southeast Asia in particular has experienced significant deforestation and degradation of peatlands, thus resulting in a rise of landscape-scale restoration projects. 

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Does Tree Planting Change Minds? Assessing the Use of Community Participation in Reforestation to Address Illegal Logging in West Kalimantan

background

Gunung Palung National Park in West Kalimantan, Indonesia has experienced illegal logging and fires that led to degradation and conversion of forests to grasslands in a state of arrested succession. A local NGO named Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI) began a restoration effort to restore degraded forest areas and provide jobs to local community members that might otherwise participate in illegal logging.

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Forest Fragmentation and its Correlation to Human Land Use Change in the State of Selangor, Peninsular Malaysia

Background

This paper uses a simple fragmentation index comprising three landscape metrics-  non-forest area, forest edge bordered by human land use, and patch size coefficient of variation- to study changes in forest fragmentation in the state of Selangor, in peninsular Malaysia between 1966, 1981 and 1995.

Research Goals & Methods

The study utilized  digitized land use maps developed by the Soil Management Division of the Department of Agriculture, Malaysia, to study changes in land use over time.

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"Where's our development?" Landowner aspirations and envrionmentalist agendas in Western Solomon Islands

Background

This article is an evaluation of a five-year conservation and development project, "The Solomon Islands Community Resource and Development Project" initiated by the World Wide Fund for Nature (formerly the WWF). The project was intended to educate local landowners on the importance of biodiversity, the rainforest, and on protecting these resources from logging. The focus of the project was primarily educational but also provided assistance and incetives to pursue more sustianable "ecotourism" projects.

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Mangrove restoration without planting

Background

Mangrove planting is the most common method of restoring mangrove forests. However, this approach is not often successful, especially when the causes of mangrove degradation were not removed prior to planting new seedlings or propagules. A successful mangrove restoration project may not necessarily include a planting phase. When the stressors are removed and suitable environmental conditions are present, natural regeneration processes could recover mangroves from degradation.

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Canal blocking strategies for hydrological restoration of degraded tropical peatlands in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia

Background

In the 1990s, the Government of Indonesia sponsored the construction of thousands of km of canals in 1 million Ha of peatlands of Central Kalimantan to drain the peatlands for conversion to agriculture. The project over-drained the peatlands, leaving it unusable agriculturally and subject to fires and subsidence. Existing efforts to dam the canals to return the water table to previous levels have failed.

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The Political, Social, and Ecological Transformation of a Landscape

Background

In 1951 the Chinese Government issued the Decision on Cultivating Rubber Trees, which resulted in the establishment of large-scale rubber plantations in the tropical regions of China, including Xishuangbanna in southern Yunnan. These rubber plantations, worked by relocated Han Chinese, were a manifestation of state power on the landscape.

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