Indicators for sustainable land management based on farmer surveys in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand
Introduction
Currently, there is enormous pressure on the land resources of the world, particularly in developing countries. These pressures arise from population growth (Pinstrup-Andersen and Pandya-Lorch, 1994), the need to improve on current standards of nutrition (Borlaug and Dowswell, 1994), and dwindling reserves of quality arable land (Alexandratos, 1995). The decline in reserves of quality arable land result from the significant loss of agricultural land through degrading land management practices (Scherr and Yadav, 1996), from competition for these reserves for use in forestry, watershed management, maintenance of biodiversity, etc., and from the diversion of arable land for urban and industrial use. There is a need to develop sustainable land management (SLM) systems, and this requires the development of methods which can be used by researchers, extension workers, local planners, and progressive farmers, to assess the sustainability of different land management systems.
There has been a critical transition from a focus on soil quality, to land quality and finally to SLM. The maintenance of soil quality is a vital component of the maintenance of land quality, however, defining soil quality, which is an essential first step to maintaining soil quality, is very complex (Carter, 1996), involving a myriad of physical, chemical, and biological factors. The transition from a focus on soil quality to land quality involved broadening the criteria to include factors such as climate and cropping system, as there is much more to land husbandry than soil husbandry. Similarly, although identifying useful land quality indicators (LQIs) is requisite for SLM, there is much more to developing SLM systems than maintaining land quality. An important aspect of the development of SLM is an approach to land management that is not just concerned with output, but encompasses the need for long term preservation of the resource base to allow adequate future food production in a manner that is socially acceptable, economically viable and environmentally sound. The framework for evaluating sustainable land management (FESLM) (Smyth and Dumanski, 1993) attempts to connect all aspects of land use under investigation with the interacting conditions of the natural environment, the economy, and socio-cultural and political life. The aim of the FESLM is to develop a tool for identification of unsustainable and sustainable systems and which will produce a structured and interrelated checklist of variables and factors which can be used to systematically evaluate the sustainability of a wide range of agroecological systems.
The objective of this study was to assess whether such a structured approach to evaluating the sustainability of land management could produce accurate and efficient assessments of the sustainability of farming systems on sloping lands of Southeast Asia.
The development of LQI and indicators of SLM requires major involvement by the farming community. Firstly, they possess an intimate knowledge of their land and have access to the important temporal components of land quality; they can monitor how their system has changed. Secondly, it is the farming community, the human element, that is the essential step in broadening from land quality to SLM. Thirdly, as managers of the land, it is the farming community that observes and responds to the various indicators of SLM.
The concept of sustainability is a dynamic concept in the sense that what is sustainable in one area may not be in another, and what was considered sustainable at one time may no longer be sustainable today or in the future because conditions or attitudes have changed. In addition, sustainability varies with the frame of reference in which it is considered, particularly with respect to socio-cultural, economic and political factors. What one group considers sustainable may not be sustainable for another group. The aim is to merge the knowledge of farmers, extension workers, and scientists to gain a broader perspective on the constraints and potential of land management systems. Due to the different perspectives of these groups, however, it is possible that consensus is not reached easily, if at all; assessment of sustainability is a compromise based on negotiation. This process should develop criteria and indicators for evaluating whether land management and agricultural practices should lead towards or away from sustainability. The complete involvement of the farming community will ensure the recommendations that arise are realistic, efficient and acceptable for the end users.
Section snippets
Methods for case studies in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand
Implementation of the FESLM in this study was attempted in three countries in Southeast Asia. The areas chosen in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand were in villages on sloping land that have been involved in soil conservation activities in the IBSRAM ASIALAND Management of Sloping Lands network. In each case study, one group of farmers was selected from those who had been collaborating with activities in soil conservation networks, and the other group was selected from non-collaborators in the
Selection of indicators and thresholds
A large amount of data were collected by the NARES collaborators in the three case studies (Phien et al., 1997, Santoso et al., 1997, Wattanasarn et al., 1997). These data were used in combination with earlier data from the network (Sajjapongse, personal communication), with the aim of achieving a more structured approach to developing SLM strategies. Partially as a result of the complex nature of the data, they were analysed qualitatively, rather than quantitatively. The data were used, with
Choosing appropriate indicators
When data were collected from the field, the use of complex measurements was, as far as possible, avoided so extension workers can use the methodology in the future. This had particular bearing on the biophysical data. The collection and analysis of soil and plant samples and the accurate measurement of yield, nutrient inputs, erosion and runoff would have enabled more direct comparisons between farmers in the same and in different areas, but such analyses are beyond the resources of most
Conclusions
Evaluation of the indicators and of the DSS, in combination with more retrospective theoretical evaluations, indicate a number of shortcomings with respect to the indicators used and the structure of the DSS.
As many of the indicators are referred to more accurately as evaluation factors, or pre-indicators, these should be developed to attain more cumulative and integrative, or composite indicators. Good examples of more integrative indicators that may prove useful in subsequent SLM evaluations
Acknowledgements
The work discussed in this paper would not have been possible without the support and collaboration of the farmers and NARES in Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand and Nepal. Staff at IBSRAM, including Fabrice Renaud, Pay Drecshel and, most particularly, Adisak Sajjapongse, contributed to the process of identifying the biophysical evaluation factors and indicators and the associated thresholds. A number of donors provided financial support to this, and related activities. The International Development
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