Ecosystem Services, Surveys and Gender

On Sunday I arrived on the island of Lombok, where I will conducting my research and where I will live for the next two months or so. This week has been a whirlwind of experiences as I have been following a group of international researchers that are working on evaluating schemes of payment for ecosystem services throughout the island to talk to government officials and community groups. There are so many interesting elements to the dynamics between people and the environment that I have never considered before.

For those that do not know,  ecosystem services are the benefits that we receive from ecosystems that are important to us. For example, vegetation in forests slow down water when it rains so that it can seep into the soil slowly and then be slowly transferred to streams, rivers and groundwater. Without forests, rainwater will fall to the ground and it will not be captured by roots, leaves, etc so it will hit the ground directly, will cause erosion and topsoil loss, could cause flooding in an area, and will ruin the flows of streams, rivers and ground water. This means that people will not have consistent access to the water that they used to. Forests provide many other ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration to limit climate change, biodiversity to prevent disease from spreading throughout the ecosystem, cultural services such as spiritual locations for local people, plants that have medicinal potential or purpose, ecotourism opportunities, and much more. All ecosystem provide a variety of different services that humans benefit from.

Now that you know what ecosystem services are, payment of ecosystem services is a way to work with local communities to encourage them to maintain or expand ecosystem services in the ecosystem that they live in. So in the case of Indonesia, groups are trying to work with farmers specifically to work on reforestation efforts to promote and expand the ecosystem services that the forest can give with an emphasis on watershed protection. Government entities and nongovernmental organizations (NGO) are giving money or resources to farmer groups to initiate reforestation efforts, but the success of these initiatives is questionable. This group of researchers is looking into ways that these systems of payment of ecosystem services can be improved.

With this team I have been able to meet with Indonesian forest managers, local farmer groups, NGOs, and researchers. I have had the privilege of going through the forest with all of these individuals and learning about this issues farmers are facing, what the forest is being used for by the community, and the challenges forest managers are dealing with in trying to balance all these different elements with a very small budget. It has been fun to learn and listen.

In addition to learning about the forest with this team, I have been developing my research methods with my advisers to study fuelwood usage on the island. Today I had my first run through with my questionnaire. It is clear I have to practice a few more times and edit the survey itself, but it was wonderful to be able to talk to people about their use of the forest. Indonesians are incredibly friendly, welcoming and wonderful people. I was so happy to be in the field today listening to their stories and thoughts.

I was able to meet with the village head with my professor and a student from the University of Mataram that is helping me with my research, and he introduced us to some of the villagers. We started by interviewing the head of the Hamlet. He was a quiet older man that told us of his garden and the crops that he grows. He let us know about some of the use of the forest, and it was really interesting.

The part that I liked the most was interviewing the women. I never realized how gendered fuelwood collection could be, but it makes sense. The women spend about 4 hours a day collecting fuelwood. They walk 2km and collect two bundles. One they use for their cooking, and the other bundle they sell to a man that collects all the wood and takes it to market. The bundles go for 5,000 Rupiah, or about 50 cents in USD. For four hours of time $1.00 worth of fuelwood is not much to collect. In the focus group that was conducted today most of the women said that was their main source of income. Some were married and others were not so this is their only source of income unless special construction projects are started in the village. The women in this province in general are poorly educated and if their husband leaves them, which is likely (divorce rates are about 50% or more in North Lombok) then they are left with very few options to make a living. So they turn to the forest.  

Granted this is only one focus group in a village that I am not going to be conducting further research in, but it was good to see the social dynamics I am working with and to see how people are using the forest. By no means are these results conclusive. I am excited to see what I will find so that I can make policy recommendations that address some of these underlying issues that we find. Hopefully in the end it can help some of the poorest people on the island while conserving the forest ecosystem.