The forest as income: testing the economic resilience of swidden farmers in the Lower Sugut, Sabah (1). (Research Notes).

The forest as income: testing the economic resilience of swidden farmers in the Lower Sugut, Sabah (1). (Research Notes). I. INTRODUCTION In these sunny garden scenes, man is the Adam of a modem Eden ...in the Bornean forests Nature still reigns supreme. Here with us manwrests his sustenance SustenanceAmalthaeagoat who provided milk for baby Zeus. [Gk. Myth.: Leach, 41]ambrosiafood of the gods; bestowed immortal youthfulness. [Gk. Myth. from her--there she is lavish in the bestowal be��stow?tr.v. be��stowed, be��stow��ing, be��stows1. To present as a gift or an honor; confer: bestowed high praise on the winners.2. ofgifts unsought (Burbridge 1880: vii-viii). This paper examines the economic linkages between swidden swid��den?n.An area cleared for temporary cultivation by cutting and burning the vegetation.[Dialectal alteration of obsolete swithen, from Old Norse svidhna, to be burned.] farmersand the forest in Lower Sugut, Sabah. In rural societies throughout thedeveloping world, the forest has been documented to be both a source ofincome and an insurance mechanism to buffer against shocks such as croplosses, illness and weather or price fluctuations (Pattanayak and Sills Sills? , Beverly Originally Belle Silverman. Born 1929.American operatic soprano and manager who joined the New York City Opera in 1953 and was its general director from 1980 to 1989.Noun 1. 1999, Godoy, Jacobson and Wilkie 1998, Falconer Falconerprison where former professor Farragut, who had killed his brother, witnesses the torments and chaos of the penal system. [Am. Lit.: Cheever Falconer in Weiss, 151]See : Imprisonment and Arnold 1989). Theforest provides several forms of benefits to rural households.Non-timber products are relatively liquid assets Cash, or property immediately convertible to cash, such as Securities, notes, life insurance policies with cash surrender values, U.S. savings bonds, or an account receivable. that can be sold forcash income or used for household consumption, and can be capitalizedquickly during crisis. In addition, the forest is a storage of soilnutrients and in a sense, can be regarded as a form of longer-terminsurance by maintaining soil fertility for future swidden fields. Timber extraction and forest clearing for human settlement orlarge-scale agriculture place severe pressures on indigenous forestpeoples. As such, any current research about people and forests intropical developing countries is inevitably about change and adaptation.The Lower Sugut, Sabah, provides a useful case study. First, the LowerSugut is distanced from Kota Kinabalu Kota Kinabalu(kōt`ə kĭn'əbəl`), formerly Jesselton,town (1991 pop. (where the management institutionsare located) and suitably isolated from the market economy (although thefarmers have varying degrees of assimilation with the market). As such,the links between the people and the forest are defined more clearly.Second, traditional livelihood systems in the area are threatened byconflicting land-uses championed by the logging and plantationcompanies, bringing into question the long-term sustainability of aswidden cultivation system Cultivation Systemor Culture SystemRevenue system in the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) that forced farmers to pay revenue to The Netherlands in the form of export crops or compulsory labour. which requires a multiple of the amount ofland used in a given year and requires fire as an integral part of sitepreparation. Sugut farmers adapt to the external pre ssures bymanipulating the forest resources to suit their needs. In addition, thedynamism with which farmers use the forest resources must also beunderstood in the context of a constantly changing forest environmentdriven by unpredictable weather patterns and fires. The interplay of habit and habitat (Sauer 1963) -- that is, ofnatural ecosystems and learned patterns of behavior--is central to anappreciation of adaptive human ecology Human ecologyThe study of how the distributions and numbers of humans are determined by interactions with conspecific individuals, with members of other species, and with the abiotic environment. . We have to understand itslinkages to be able to develop appropriate resource management policiesthat can achieve dual objectives of improving rural livelihoods whileconserving the forest as an intact ecosystem. This approach which linkstogether external socio-economic trends, climatic events andenvironmental conditions is also known as the systems approach(elaborated in the following section). The plan of this paper is as follows. It begins with a summary ofthe basic systems philosophy which underlies the empirical analysis. Adescription of people and forest linkages in Lower Sugut follows. Themain bulk of the paper is the empirical analysis. Economic methodologyis used to demonstrate the adaptiveness of Sugut swidden farmers tounexpected shocks. Adaptiveness and resilience in people-forestrelationships have important implications for successful community-basedconservation Community-based conservation is a response to older conservation movements that emerged in the 1980s through escalating protests and subsequent dialogue with local communities affected by international attempts to protect the biodiversity of the earth. . The average Sugut household income, based on subsistencefarming subsistence farmingForm of farming in which nearly all the crops or livestock raised are used to maintain the farmer and his family, leaving little surplus for sale or trade. Preindustrial agricultural peoples throughout the world practiced subsistence farming. and freshwater fishing, is closely linked to climatic changes Climatic Change is a journal published by Springer.[1] Climatic Change is dedicated to the totality of the problem of climatic variability and change - its descriptions, causes, implications and interactions among these. .This paper is novel in that it employs econometric e��con��o��met��rics?n. (used with a sing. verb)Application of mathematical and statistical techniques to economics in the study of problems, the analysis of data, and the development and testing of theories and models. techniques to examinethe impact of changes in weather patterns and large scale forest fires This is a list of notorious forest fires: North AmericaYear Size Name Area Notes1825 3,000,000 acres (12,000 km2) Miramichi Fire New Brunswick Killed 160 people. on the Sugut household economy and their livelihood decisions regardingtheir use of forest resources. Data for the analysis was collectedduring field research in the summer of 1998 (see Lye and Wong (1999) fordetails on the methods used in collecting data). Finally, a discussionof the empirical results and their implications forconservation-development strategies concludes the paper. 2. THE SYSTEMS APPROACH There are two central rudiments in the systems approach: one isrecognition of the many different elements in an ecosystem, (2) andsecond is recognition of the complexity of interaction between thoseelements. An ecosystem is considered to be a relatively stable set of organicrelationships in which energy, material and information are incontinuous circulation, and in which all processes are seen in terms oftheir system-wide repercussions repercussionsnpl → r��percussions fplrepercussionsnpl → Auswirkungen pl(Ellen 1982, Holling 1978). Changeswithin the system trigger adjustment and re-adaptation among theelements. Thus, a systems approach to the study of people and forests isbroadly concerned with the interactions between human behaviour andenvironmental variables in their adaptation process to each other. Resilience The people-forest relationship is a two-way adaptation process andincludes the process of adapting human needs and resource use tocomplement the features of the forest on one hand, and manipulating theresource base to accommodate the demands of the former on the other(Jodha 1995). The composition of these adaptive measures representssociety's responses to the objective circumstances created by theresource base and driving socio-economic forces. Whenever social systemsbehave independent of consequences to the essential cyclical functionsof the ecosystem, the two-way adaptation process becomes a one-wayadjustment process where the resource base is increasingly manipulatedand stretched to meet growing demands (Jodha 1995, Holling 1978). Thiscan lead to a breakdown of the resource's resilience, itsregenerative re��gen��er��a��tive?adj.1. Of, relating to, or marked by regeneration.2. Tending to regenerate.re��gen capability, and productive systems. Following Holling (1986), "resilience" is the"property that allows a system to absorb and utilise (or evenbenefit from) change". This paper defines "resilience" inits description of the economic linkages between the human and forestsystems. These linkages are embedded Inserted into. See embedded system. within a variety of socio-economicand institutional complexities. The ability of rural farming householdsin the Lower Sugut to rebound from income shocks resulting from forestfires is limited by constraints such as lack of land ownership andmarket inaccessibility, for example. Understanding the objectivecircumstances that induce rural swidden farmers to adopt measures thatmay not be conducive to the long-term sustainability of the forestallows conservation managers to identify functional substitutes oralternatives that would restore the people-forest resiliency whileprotecting swidden farmers from being vulnerable to shocks. The Institutional Linkage The institutional aspect in people-forest relationships relates tothe system of property rights through which people interact with theirenvironment. North (1990) defined institutions as "the rules of thegame in a society, or more formally, they are the humanly hu��man��ly?adv.1. In a human way.2. Within the scope of human means, capabilities, or powers: not humanly possible.3. devisedconstraints that shape human interaction." In this study ofpeople-forest systems, the institutional linkage includes issuesrelating to relating torelate prep → concernantrelating torelate prep → bez��glich +gen, mit Bezug auf +acccommunal property rights, land ownership and tenure There are a great variety of modes of land ownership and tenure: Traditional land tenure. For example, most of the indigenous nations or tribes of North America had no formal notion of land ownership. , andlocal knowledge. State imposed forest policies can inadvertently causeforest degradation because they dissolve the local management systems.These feedback mechanisms (local autonomy, communal enforcement,proximity to, and functional knowledge of, the resource) are balancingmechanisms for maintaining the two-way adaptive process in people-forestrelationships (Jodha 1995, Watson 1989). Thus, effective property rightsregimes must reflect not only their functional and structuralattributes, but also the specific social and ecological contexts in which they are applied (Ostrom 1990). Most current methods of reactive resource management typicallyignore the concepts of ecosystem resiliency and feedback linkages bybeing too focused on problem-solving. Jodha (1995), Light (1995) andRolling (1986) suggest that problem-solving management may provideshort-term successes, but it inevitably leads to a pathology of lessresilient and more vulnerable ecosystems, more rigid and unresponsive unresponsiveNeurology adjective Referring to a total lack of response to neurologic stimuli management agencies, and more dependent societies. The systems approachadvocates an adaptive environmental management process by integratingknowledge of the environmental with the economic and social systems, andunderstanding that the interplay between those systems is neither staticnor pre-determined (Rolling 1978). The uncertainties intrinsic in thesesystems are not recognized in traditional resource management policies.This paper contributes towards the process of adaptive management Adaptive managementAn approach to management of natural resources that emphasizes how little is known about the dynamics of ecosystems and that as more is learned management will evolve and improve. bymapping out the economic linkage between Lower Sugut swidden farmers andthe surrounding forests, and depicting the adaptiveness of this linkage. 3. PEOPLE AND FORESTS Among the Tsimane' Indians of the Bolivian rain forest, Godoy,Jacobson and Wilkie (1998) found that misfortunes such as deaths andcrop losses induce households to clear larger areas of old growth forestfor swidden fanning. The results were even more prevalent when theanalyses were controlled for the households' level of autarky AutarkyAbsence of a cross-border trade in models of international trade. (Godoy et al. 1997). Households will resort to using the forest asinsurance only when alternative forms of self-insurance are unavailable(Kochar 1995, Townsend 1995). Households closer to market were morelikely to rely on salary advances or market credit to cope withshort-term income shocks. Similarly, households in the Knuckles NationalWilderness Area Broadly, a wilderness area is a region where the land is left in a state where human modifications are minimal; that is, as a wilderness. It might also be called a wild or natural area. (Very low or immaterial human impact or "footprint. of Sri Lanka Sri Lanka(srē läng`kə)[Sinhalese,=resplendent land], formerly Ceylon,ancient Taprobane, officially Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, island republic (2005 est. pop. showed significant increases in theirextraction of non-timber forest products Non-timber forest products or NTFPs comprise all goods derived from forests of both plant and animal origin other than timber. NTFPs contribute to household income and subsistence and are of cultural importance in many rural societies. when faced with income risksassociated with price uncertainties (Hegde et al. 1993). The swidden farming system in the Lower Sugut begins with burningof the forest in June-July (3) and ends with harvesting in March orApril. The preference is for a swidden in a forest with growth between10 and 20 years old. Primary forest is preferred for a swidden if oneintends to use the same plot for longer than a single planting season.As population and logging pressures dramatically increase the demand forland, secondary forests are often cleared for fanning after only 5 yearsof fallow fallowa pale cream, light fawn, or pale yellow coat color in dogs. . The soil is rarely farmed with drainage or irrigation irrigation,in agriculture, artificial watering of the land. Although used chiefly in regions with annual rainfall of less than 20 in. (51 cm), it is also used in wetter areas to grow certain crops, e.g., rice. and islargely dependent on the short-term nutrient supply provided by fallowbiomass. Swiddens typically endure from one to three seasons. Althoughlimited swidden cultivation could arguably ar��gu��a��ble?adj.1. Open to argument: an arguable question, still unresolved.2. That can be argued plausibly; defensible in argument: three arguable points of law. be considered ecologicallybeneficial by promoting habitat diversity, inappropriately short fallowperiods inevitably lead to soil impoverishment or erosion. Swidden harvests are rarely bountiful Bountiful,city (1990 pop. 36,659), Davis co., N central Utah; inc. 1892. It is a residential suburb N of Salt Lake City with some farming and floral nurseries; machinery and motor vehicles are produced. Bountiful was settled by Mormons in 1847. (4), the average yield in theLower Sugut was only 477 kg/ha for the 1997-98 season, less than half ofthe harvest obtained in an "average" year. Most householdssuffered significant crop losses due to the forest fires that raged indrought-stricken Sabah in early 1998. Harvests are largely consumed bythe household, although between 10-20% of yields may be traded withinthe community in bumper crop In agriculture, a bumper crop refers to a particularly good harvest yielded for a particular crop.Example: "With all the rain we've had over the last few months, we are expecting a bumper crop this year. seasons. Villagers in Lower Sugut continue to access the forests for timberand non-timber products although these activities have graduallydeclined in recent years as accelerated logging affects the abundanceand availability of these products. Households here depend mainly onfish and prawns from the Sugut River for their protein needs, andfreshwater fishery is an important source of cash income. The droughthas also significantly impacted this livelihood by causing saltwaterintrusion Saltwater intrusion is a natural process that occurs in virtually all coastal aquifers, where they are in hydraulic continuity with sea water. It consists in salt water (from the sea) flowing inland in freshwater aquifers. and affecting spawning rates. Although most forest harvesting now is on subsistence scale only,that doesn't imply that there is little value to the activity. Allthe surveyed households collect firewood for their fuel needs. The barkof the kapur tree, for example, is used for constructing fish and prawn prawn:see shrimp. traps and thus plays an important role in maintaining thehousehold's livelihood. Non-timber food products, such as wildfruits (most common are durians, tarap, and bananas), nuts, bambooshoots, wild yams wild yam (wīldˑ yamˑ),n Latin name:Dioscorea villosa L. , and a variety of fern fern,any plant of the division Polypodiophyta. Fern species, numbering several thousand, are found throughout the world but are especially abundant in tropical rain forests. The ferns and their relatives (e.g. vegetables are harvested tocomplement the household's daily diets. Rattan rattan(rătăn`), name for a number of plants of the genera Calamus, Daemonorops, and Korthalsia climbing palms of tropical Asia, belonging to the family Palmae (palm family). , bamboo and nipah palm leaves are indispensable materialsfor a variety of household uses. Various hardwoods are also harvestedfor construction although these are now somewhat of a rarity given theextensive logging practices in the surrounding forests, forcing localsto use lesser woods. In addition, a wide variety of plants and herbs arecollected for their medicinal properties Many plants have traditional medical uses. Ethnobotanists and pharmacognacists catalog and study these plants and uses. This is a list of some of the more common medicinal properties that are ascribed to plants. although this study did notadequately capture this information. 4. EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS As mentioned earlier, this study of swidden farmers in the lowerSugut, Sabah demonstrates the adaptiveness of the household economicsystem to forest fires. It is now known that local climate cycles arenot monotonous--periodic long-term droughts followed by subsequentextensive forest fires have always been part of the natural environmentof Borneo over the last thousand years, although their impact over thepast 10 years has been much more devastating dev��as��tate?tr.v. dev��as��tat��ed, dev��as��tat��ing, dev��as��tates1. To lay waste; destroy.2. To overwhelm; confound; stun: was devastated by the rude remark. than any time in at leastthe previous 100 years (Brookfield et al. 1995, Mayer 1996). Humanadjustment is under pressure as well--increased logging and growingdemands on the forest lead to forest fragmentation Forest fragmentation is a form of habitat fragmentation, occurring when forests are cut down in a manner that leaves relatively small, isolated patches of forest. The intervening matrix that separates the remaining woodland patches can be natural open areas, farmland, or developed , thus creating aninherently unstable and combustible com��bus��ti��bleadj.Capable of igniting and burning.n.A substance that ignites and burns readily. forest, a situation made worse withevery drought. The section begins with a brief description of the local economyand data. This is followed by an explanation of the econometric model Econometric models are used by economists to find standard relationships among aspects of the macroeconomy and use those relationships to predict the effects of certain events (like government policies) on inflation, unemployment, growth, etc. and the rationale behind the model structure. Finally, a discussion ofresults concludes the section. The local economy The information presented here was gathered from a survey offifty-one households (about 65% of all households) in the Kaliaga andPantai Buring hamlets in June 1998, using both structured interviews andinformal discussions. Lye and Wong (1999) provide a description of thegeo-physical landscape in the Lower Sugut, ethnographic eth��nog��ra��phy?n.The branch of anthropology that deals with the scientific description of specific human cultures.eth��nog account of theOrang Sungai The Orang Sungai (Malay for River People) are a group of indigenous people native to the state of Sabah, Malaysia. Groups of communities live along the rivers of Kinabatangan, Paitan, Labuk and also Kudat. External linksProfile from SabahTourism. and their livelihood patterns. The tables and figure belowbriefly encapsulate en��cap��su��latev.1. To form a capsule or sheath around.2. To become encapsulated.en��cap some of the critical information for the economicanalysis that follows. Most of the lands surrounding the study area are currently underapplication by individuals within or linked to the communities, or arelicensed for logging and oil palm plantations. As of June 1998, novillager has obtained title to land. The one distinct difference betweenthe two villages is their accessibility to markets--Pantai Buring is the More market-integrated of the two. There are two small villagestores, and it is reasonably close (15 km) to Terusan, the nearestvillage with trading and market facilities (and source of boat fuel).There is also a prawn trader and an extension office of the RuralDevelopment Cooperative in the village. The agency supplies agriculturalinputs like seeds and fertilizers (but not for free) and provides aready market for village crops. The Data Table 4 provides the summary statistics of data used in theeconomic analysis. Dependent variables The dependent variable, labeled Hachange, is a limited dependent(or dummy) variable representing the area of forest cleared for the 1998season, as compared to the 1997 season. Hachange=1 if a householdcleared a larger area of forest for their swidden field in 1998 thanthey did in 1997 and Hachange=0 if the area was less or the same. 37households (72%) cleared more area of forest in 1998 than they did inthe previous year. Explanatory variables AgLoss attempts to measure the extent to which forest fires actedas a driver in influencing greater deforestation deforestationProcess of clearing forests. Rates of deforestation are particularly high in the tropics, where the poor quality of the soil has led to the practice of routine clear-cutting to make new soil available for agricultural use. by households. TheAgLoss variable is the value of rice crops burnt in the forest fires of1997. I asked villagers about their rice yields for the two seasonsprior to 1997, and took that mean to be the household's"average" yield. Thus, AgLoss is measured as [(averageyield--1997 yield) * village price) + estimate of secondary crop (9)losses]. In this way, the impact of forest fires is expressed in theform of an income shock to the household. Wealth is the depreciated Depreciated may refer to: Depreciation, in finance, a reference to the fact that assets with finite lives lose value over time Depreciated is often confused or used as a stand-in for "deprecated"; see deprecation for the use of depreciation in computer software value of physical goods (such aschainsaws, power generators, televisions, boats and motors, vehicles),and livestock (chickens) owned by the household. Its main purpose is notto simply provide a measure of the household's level of affluence,rather the information lets us examine a household's capacity toparticipate in resource exploitative activities. Are wealthierhouseholds less likely to clear more forests during uncertainty becausethey are better able to cope with losses? Or are they more likely toclear larger areas of forest because they have the capability to do so?Studies from Latin America Latin America,the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. have shown that affluent households tend topractice more efficient resource extractive extractive/ex��trac��tive/ (-tiv) any substance present in an organized tissue, or in a mixture in a small quantity, and requiring extraction by a special method. ex��trac��tiveadj.1. activities by eitherinvesting in better technology (i.e. chainsaws over axes), and/or hiringpoorer households to help them carry out their extractive activities. The Forest variable measures the household's dependence on theforest, it is the total value of forest and fishery products extractedby the household for both consumption and sale. Income represents thetotal cash income per month. Primary sources of wage income are thelogging companies or oil palm estates. Cash can also be obtained fromthe occasional sale of secondary crops (corn or vegetables) to nearbylogging camps. Income can be considered as an approximate measure of thehousehold's level of integration with markets. This is appropriatesince the average income in Pantai Buring (the more market-integratedvillage) is over twice that in Kaliaga (see Table 3). Depend measuresthe dependency ratio Dependency RatioA measure showing the number of dependents (aged 0-14 and over the age of 65) to the total population (aged 15-64). Also referred to as the "total dependency ratio".Calculated by: (number of children under the age of 15 to adults)in a household, and controls for the decision-making based on availablelabor in a household and nutritional needs. The variables Forest, Wealth and Income were transformed into thenatural logarithms Natural logarithmLogarithm to the base e (approximately 2.7183). to facilitate interpretation of the results. Thecoefficients for these variables can then be translated as percentageswith respect to the probability of change in Hachange. The Probit Model In statistics, a probit model is a popular specification of a generalized linear model, using the probit link function. Probit models were introduced by Chester Ittner Bliss in 1935. The probit model, also known as the rational choice perspective onbehavior (refer to Gujarati 1995, Maddala 1983 for more details),explains the behavior of a dichotomous di��chot��o��mous?adj.1. Divided or dividing into two parts or classifications.2. Characterized by dichotomy.di��chot dependent variable. In this case,the dependent variable (Hachange) is based on the household'sdecision to clear areas of forests for their 1998 swidden rice fields. Aprobit model was used here because of the high number of households(almost 30%) who decided to clear lesser areas of forest, i.e.Hachange=0. Thus, a household's decision to clear more forests, ornot, depends on an unobservable utility index, [I.sub.i], that isdetermined by a number of explanatory variables, [X.sub.i] (Gujarati1995). It is also assumed that there is a critical or threshold level Noun 1. threshold level - the intensity level that is just barely perceptibleintensity, intensity level, strength - the amount of energy transmitted (as by acoustic or electromagnetic radiation); "he adjusted the intensity of the sound"; "they measured the ofthe index, [I.sup.*.sub.i]; such that if [I.sub.i], is larger than[I.sup.*.sub.i], the household will clear more forests (Hachange=1),otherwise they will not (Hachange=0). I draw this analogy of the utility threshold, [I.sup.*.sub.i], tothe concept of system resiliency. The [I.sup.*.sub.i] threshold is ameasure of the household system's resiliency to changes, such thatif [I.sub.i], is larger than [I.sup.*.sub.i], the household has to clearmore forests to cope with those changes. This threshold level obviouslydiffers for all households, the stability properties of a household aredependent on a range of explanatory variables. Keeping in mind that thisstudy is at the household level, all the explanatory variables arehousehold-level characteristics. AgLoss reflects the effects of theforest fires on the household's [I.sup.*.sub.i]. Hypotheses and model Hypothesis 1: Households that suffered higher agricultural lossesfrom forest fires (AgLoss) are more likely to clear more forests thanhouseholds with lesser losses. Hypothesis 2: Households that are wealthier and have strongerintegration with market systems (as characterized by cash income fromwage labor and crop sales) are less likely to clear more forests thanhouseholds with weak market links. Model (10): Hachange = f(AgLoss, Income, (+) (-) Wealth Depend) (-) (-) Forest, (+) The probit model tests the significance of the key explanatoryvariables in affecting the household's threshold, [I.sup.*.sub.i]to clear more forests. The key variables for explaining the hypothesesare AgLoss (+), Income (-) and Wealth (-). The signs inside theparentheses See parenthesis. parentheses - See left parenthesis, right parenthesis. show how the explanatory variables are expected to influencethe household's decision to clear more forests. The rationale behind Hypothesis 1 is that households with higherlosses due to an unexpected shock (i.e. drought and fires) are morelikely to increase their swidden field size to compensate for thoselosses (following Godoy, Jacobson & Wilkie 1998, Godoy et al. 1997,Falconer & Arnold 1989). Unexpected climate events from normalweather patterns are expected to drive higher deforestation among ruralhouseholds. Hypothesis 2 tests the effect of markets on the householdsystem, the intuition being that the market system provides thehousehold with cash-oriented alternatives for their adaptive strategies The expression adaptive strategies is used by anthropologist Yehudi Cohen to describe a society’s system of economic production. Cohen argued that the most important reason for similarities between two (or more) unrelated societies is their possession of a similar and replaces the subsistence economy A subsistence economy is an economy in which a group generally obtains the necessities of life, but do not attempt to accumulate wealth. In such a system, a concept of wealth does not exist, and only minimal surpluses generally are created, therefore there is a reliance on renewal (Godoy et al. 1997, Kochar 1995,Townsend 1995, Morduch 1994). A similar rationale is used to explain thepredicted negative effect for Wealth. Wealthier households are betterable to buffer against shocks and hence, less likely to clear moreforests as an insurance mechanism. The probabilities of a household clearing more forests areestimated at the mean value of the explanatory variables. The dF/dxcoefficients in Table 5 can be read as the change in probability ofclearing more forests when all other variables are held at their meanvalue and the variable of interest increases by one unit. Hence, themodel estimates the marginal effect of a change in [X.sub.1] (theexplanatory variables) on the probabilities of a household choosingHachangel (clearing more forests). Discussion of Results The regression results are presented in Table 5. Discussion of theresults focuses only on those that are statistically significant at the10% level or above. The sign of the coefficient for AgLoss is negative andstatistically significant, which did not support Hypothesis 1. Theaverage household with higher agricultural losses had a lesserprobability of clearing more forests. Households did not appear to usetheir swiddens as a strategy to compensate for earlier losses. Aprobable explanation could be that households with greater agriculturallosses lack the "capital" to invest in larger swiddens.Remember that AgLoss measures the amount of rice crops that wasdestroyed; since rice cultigens for planting are normally saved from theprevious year's harvest, higher crop losses in the previous yearcould mean that households do not have sufficient rice seeds to plant alarger field in the current season. The Wealth variable has the expected negative coefficient and isstatistically significant. This means that the wealthier than averagehousehold had a lower probability in clearing more forests, suggestingthat wealthier households had greater resources at hand and were betterable to buffer their losses. The Forest variable was negative, suggesting that the householdsthat have greater dependence on the forest are less likely to clear moreland for their swiddens (11). On the flip side Flip sideIn the context of general equities, opposite side to a proposition or position (buy, if sell is the proposition and vice versa). , the variable thataccounts for market accessibility, Income was positive (althoughstatistically insignificant) suggesting that households with higherincome tend to cut more forest for swiddens. Together, the two variableslend credence to the theory that markets weaken the feedback linkagebetween the people and forest landscape. Heinrich (1997), Amacher et al.(1996) and Hammond et al. (1995) documented this effect in Central andLatin America. Markets create incentives for over-exploitation ofresources, resulting in a clear trend of moving away from traditionaldiverse small farm systems to larger scale farming of single crops withcommercial value. As expected, the Depend variable was positive, indicating thathouseholds with more children under the age of 15 years relative toadults were more inclined to clear larger swiddens to provide food forthe family. However, this variable was statistically insignificant. 5. IMPLICATIONS FOR CONSERVATION This paper contributes to the growing literature on society--natureinteractions. Here, the simple model constructed for the purpose ofunderstanding the Lower Sugut household's adaptiveness andresilience to an external shock (i.e. forest fires) with respect to theforest allows for: 1. A diagnosis of the household's stake in the forest and itsvulnerability to economic shocks. The results suggest a local welfareloss if the forest is either cleared for logging or plantationagriculture, or if resource use is banned by conservationist policieseven though there may be welfare gains by private firms (from commercialexploitation) or by the world at large (from conservation). Risk of cropfailure combined with lack of land tenure land tenure:see tenure, in law. and the increasing effortrequired to farm on marginal land creates a class of farmers who arewilling to invade forest reserves just to survive. 2. An understanding of local knowledge in, and sensitivity to, thehealth of the forest resources through their resource use strategies.Technical education and extension programs (in areas such as improvedfallow management, agro-forestry or community forestry, for example)that are appropriate to the socio-economic stage of development and theeconomic potential of resources in each region are required. Directconsultation with the local population and effective two-waycommunication Two-way communication is a form of transmission in which both parties involved transmit information. Common forms of two-way communication are: In-person communication Telephone conversations Amateur, CB or FRS radio contacts Computer networks . See back-channel. links between the institutions and the people are theimportant feedback linkages. 3. An approach towards facilitating local (or communal) ownership,control and management of the forest resources. Development of aninstitutional structure should build upon the strengths of the extant ex��tant?adj.1. Still in existence; not destroyed, lost, or extinct: extant manuscripts.2. Archaic Standing out; projecting. structure rather than attempt immediate wholesale replacement (Watson1989). Socio-cultural organisation and their inherent resourcemanagement and enforcement arrangements are important criteria forsuccessful community-based conservation programmes. Results from this empirical study of the Lower Sugut suggest thatthe market system provides temporary insurance to buffer against shocks.The market system is an outlet for sale of local produce, as well as asource of wage jobs and credit. I say "temporary" becausedependence on the market pulls the vulnerable household system intoincreasingly complex links to external pressures (prices, regionaldemand and supply cycles, institutional or political influences). Thesepressures weaken the feedback linkages between the forest's naturalprocesses and social processes influencing the same resource base, andin doing so, dilute the local communities' concerns for sustainableuse Sustainable use is the use of resources at a rate which will meet the needs of the present without impairing the ability of future generations to meet their needs. The concept was notably put forth by the Brundtland Commission in 1987. See alsohttp://www.iucn. of the forests. Forest conservation policies that are adaptive to these changes canbest deal with uncertainty. Decision-makers must recognize the keyinteractions between the social/economic and ecological systems toprovide for robust solutions. As such, a multidisciplinary approach multidisciplinary approachA term referring to the philosophy of converging multiple specialties and/or technologies to establish a diagnosis or effect a therapy iscrucial. There are important benefits from ensuring that policies arechosen with a proper respect for complexity and uncertainty.Irreversible environmental and social problems are likely to arise ifthe resource management policies are unable to keep pace with thechanging social, economic and environmental conditions. Regulatorydecisions that oversimplify o��ver��sim��pli��fy?v. o��ver��sim��pli��fied, o��ver��sim��pli��fy��ing, o��ver��sim��pli��fiesv.tr.To simplify to the point of causing misrepresentation, misconception, or error.v.intr. the choices involved, disguise policychoices as science, or favor the status quo [Latin, The existing state of things at any given date.] Status quo ante bellum means the state of things before the war. The status quo to be preserved by a preliminary injunction is the last actual, peaceable, uncontested status which preceded the pending controversy. automatically when facedwith a certain level of complexity or doubt create public hostility(Flournoy 1994, Watson 1989). A challenge for conservation policy is to identify functionalsubstitutes for the traditional circumstances conducive to sustainablemanagement of the forest resources. The objective circumstancescharacterizing the traditional system in Lower Sugut include a strongdependence upon the forest resource, sensitivity to the health of theresource base, and regulation through community sanctions. Communalproperty regimes have proven to be surprisingly resilient and are aprincipal means of ensuring livelihood security on the basis of a sharedsystem of land use and production (Nugent and Sanchez 1998, Ostrom1990). Since it is now both impossible and impractical to reinstate To restore to a condition that has terminated or been lost; to reestablish.To reinstate a case, for example, means to restore it to the same position it had before dismissal. theisolated or semiclosed nature of traditional systems, a useful approachwould be to focus on enhanced local participation to generate new formsof users' dependence on resources and stakes therein. The analysis suggests that if the larger society is truly committedto assisting the swidden farmers in Lower Sugut, the focus should be toexpand local ownership and control over the productive use of existingresources. Thus, the challenge for integrated conservation anddevelopment policy is not to merely search for strategies to supplementincome, but also to mediate the integration of swidden farmers intobroader political and economic arenas so that they are not disadvantagedby their remoteness.Table 1Brief household demographic information (field data, 1998) Kaliaga Pantai BuringDistance to nearest market (km) 45 15Total number of households in village 12 66Number of households surveyed 12 39Average household size 8.4 17Dependency ratio (#of children under age 15 1.8 1 to adults)Gender ratio (#of women to men) 0.8 1.3Table 2Household economic activities in the Lower Sugut (field data, 1998) Mean per household Kaliaga Pantai Buring1. Agriculture Average size of a swidden 0.68 0.68 field in 1997 (ha) (0.4 -- 1.2) (0 -- 2) Rice yields (kg/ha) (1) * Average in previous 1000-1200 850-1100 seasons (2) * 1997 season 556 446 Market price of rice (RM/kg) 2.10 2.10 Average losses from 1997/98 454.20 377.15 drought and fires (RM) (3)2. Fisheries Prawns (kg/catch) * Season (Nov - Mar) (4) 10--15 15--25 * Off-season 2.6 5.5 Fish (kg/catch) 2 2 Market prices (RM/kg) (5) * Prawn 2.50 -- 4.50 3.00 -- 4.50 Fish 4.00 -- 8.00 5.00 -- 8.00Notes:(1)The unit of weight for padi is that of husked rice.(2)Based on estimates by the respondents for the previous 2 seasons(1995 and 1996).(3)The losses are reported as a one-times loss from burnt vegetablecrops and foregone "income" (or value) from seasonal crop failures(padi). Households were asked about their rice yields for the twoseasons prior to 1997, households's "average" yield. Hence, padi losseswere measured as [(average yield--1997 yields) * village price].(4)Figures for high season prawn yields are averaged from respondents'estimates.(5)Prices here vary according to season.Table 3Household cash incomes in the Lower Sugut (field data, 1998)Economic activity Average cash income per household (RM per month) (5) Kaliaga Pantai Buring1. Prawn fishing * In-season (Nov-Mar) (6) 200-250 400-500 * Off-season 76.40 209.402. Agriculture (7) 20.60 17.203. Wage earnings (8) 19.20 167.954. Mean cash income per 84.60 217.80 household per month * Minimum 20 25 * Maximum 160 5000Table 4Summary statistics of the data (field data, 1998)Variable Definition Obs Mean Std Dev MinDependent Variables:Hachange Change in size of 51 0 swidden fields between 1996 and '97; 0=same or smaller, 1=largerExplanatory Variables:AgLoss Value of lost 51 396.80 448.11 0 potential crops from the forest fires in 1997, RMWealth Depreciated 51 6101.06 2177.70 553 value of household assets, RMForest Total monthly 51 122.73 75.52 0 value of forest and fishery products extracted, RMIncome Total monthly 51 294.70 777.10 20 cash income, RMDepend Dependency 51 1.2 0.8 0 ratio (#of children under age 15 to adults)Variable MaxDependent Variables:HachangeExplanatory Variables:AgLoss 2000Wealth 12793Forest 360Income 5600Depend 3.5Notes: Monthly cash income refers to Apirl 1998. Cash crops are rubber,oil palm and coffee.Table 5Results of the Probit model with Hachange as the dependent variableVariables ([X.sub.i]) (dF/dx) SE t P>\t\ x-barLn (AgLoss) ** -0.0004 0.0213 -1.89 0.059 460Ln (Wealth) * -0.3393 0.1924 -1.74 0.082 8.6674Ln (Forest) * -0.2761 0.1568 -1.77 0.077 4.7452Ln (Income) 0.1665 0.1076 1.51 0.131 4.7675Depend 0.1382 0.0971 1.39 0.166 1.2604Notes:Regression is a probit with probabilities estimated at the mean value ofexplanatory variables. This means that the marginal changes inprobabilities described in this chapter are applicable to the averagehousehold. Households on the margin will have the same direction ofchanges although the magnitude of change may be slightly different.** and * represent significance at the 5%, and 10% level respectively.Pseudo [R.sup.2] = 0.2103. t and P>\t\ are the tests of the underlyingcoefficient being 0. The software package used is STATA[R]6.Figure 1Household income composition in the lower Sugut, Sabah (field data,1998)Forest 9%Wages 29%Fishing 50%Agric.Rice 9%Other 3%Note: Table made from pie chart (1.) This is a follow-up article to "Conservation And TheOrang Sungai Of The Lower Sugut, Sabah: Preliminary Notes" by Lyeand Wong, in Volume 30 of the Borneo Research Bulletin (1999). Theempirical analysis is adapted from Wong's study (1999) of theforest's roles as a source of income and insurance safety net. (2.) An ecosystem is defined as "a functioning interactingsystem composed of one or more living organisms (plants, animals andhumans) and their effective environment, both physical andbiological" (Fosberg 1963). (3.) The time spent in the field (June 1998) was during the burningperiod, an opportune op��por��tune?adj.1. Suited or right for a particular purpose: an opportune place to make camp.2. Occurring at a fitting or advantageous time: an opportune arrival. time for gathering information about thefarmers' decisions with regards to their swidden systems. (4.) A "good" swidden harvest is estimated in the rangeof 800 - 1200 kg/ha in Sarawak (Chin 1985), and reported mean yieldsrange from 300 to 1500 kg/ha in different parts of Sarawak (Lian 1987). (5.) Imputed Attributed vicariously.In the legal sense, the term imputed is used to describe an action, fact, or quality, the knowledge of which is charged to an individual based upon the actions of another for whom the individual is responsible rather than on the individual's household income includes the total value [cashgenerated from sale + household consumption] of rice harvests, fishery(prawns and fish) and forest products (plants and firewood) at thevillage price. (6.) Figures for the in-season prawn incomes are averaged fromrespondent estimates. (7.) Income from sale of surplus corn yields and vegetables tologging camps and oil palm estates. These secondary crops are normallyplanted inter-cropped within, or around the edges of the swiddens. Thesecrops have systems and maturation periods, and privide an almostcontinous supply of edible produce during the occupancy of the swidden.The output of any one crop is usually small but in total, secondarycrops make a major contribution to the overall productivity of the mixedswidden system. (8.) Includes occasional work at the nearby sawmill sawmill,installation or facility in which cut logs are sawed into standard-sized boards and timbers. The saws used in such an installation are generally of three types: the circular saw, which consists of a disk with teeth around its edge; the band saw, which , loggingconcessionaires and oil palm plantation estates, working for the KPD KPD Knoxville Police DepartmentKPD Kommunistiche Partei Deutschlands (Communist Party of Germany)KPD Kokomo Police DepartmentKPD King of Prussia, Pennsylvania (Airport Code)KPD Key Pre-Distribution ,and teaching at the local schools. (9.) Secondary crops include corn, sweet potatoes sweet potato,trailing perennial plant (Ipomoea batatas) of the family Convolvulaceae (morning glory family), native to the New World tropics. Cultivated from ancient times by the Aztecs for its edible tubers, it was introduced into Europe in the 16th cent. , and numerousvegetables. (10.) The model only uses five explanatory variables because of thesmall number of observations (i.e. households surveyed). 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