Dataset Information

People's perceptions about the importance of forests on Borneo.

ABSTRACT: We ascertained villagers' perceptions about the importance of forests for their livelihoods and health through 1,837 reliably answered interviews of mostly male respondents from 185 villages in Indonesian and Malaysian Borneo. Variation in these perceptions related to several environmental and social variables, as shown in classification and regression analyses. Overall patterns indicated that forest use and cultural values are highest among people on Borneo who live close to remaining forest, and especially among older Christian residents. Support for forest clearing depended strongly on the scale at which deforestation occurs. Deforestation for small-scale agriculture was generally considered to be positive because it directly benefits people's welfare. Large-scale deforestation (e.g., for industrial oil palm or acacia plantations), on the other hand, appeared to be more context-dependent, with most respondents considering it to have overall negative impacts on them, but with people in some areas considering the benefits to outweigh the costs. The interviews indicated high awareness of negative environmental impacts of deforestation, with high levels of concern over higher temperatures, air pollution and loss of clean water sources. Our study is unique in its geographic and trans-national scale. Our findings enable the development of maps of forest use and perceptions that could inform land use planning at a range of scales. Incorporating perspectives such as these could significantly reduce conflict over forest resources and ultimately result in more equitable development processes.

SUBMITTER: Meijaard E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3767661 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

People's perceptions about the importance of forests on Borneo.

Meijaard Erik E Abram Nicola K NK Wells Jessie A JA Pellier Anne-Sophie AS Ancrenaz Marc M Gaveau David L A DL Runting Rebecca K RK Mengersen Kerrie K

PloS one 20130909 9

We ascertained villagers' perceptions about the importance of forests for their livelihoods and health through 1,837 reliably answered interviews of mostly male respondents from 185 villages in Indonesian and Malaysian Borneo. Variation in these perceptions related to several environmental and social variables, as shown in classification and regression analyses. Overall patterns indicated that forest use and cultural values are highest among people on Borneo who live close to remaining forest, a ...[more]

PMID: 24039845

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundA total of 290 mosquito species are recorded in Cambodia among which 43 are known vectors of pathogens. As Cambodia is heavily affected by deforestation, a potential change in the dynamic of vector-borne diseases (VDBs) could occur through alteration of the diversity and density of sylvatic vector mosquitoes and induce an increase in their interactions with humans. Understanding mosquito diversity is therefore critical, providing valuable data for risk assessments concerning the (re)emergence of local VBDs. Consequently, this study mainly aimed to understand the spatial and temporal distribution of sylvatic mosquito populations of Cambodia by determining which factors impact on their relative abundance and presence.MethodsA study was conducted in 12 sites from four forests in Cambodia. All mosquitoes, collected during the dry and rainy seasons, were morphologically identified. The diversity and relative density of mosquito species in each site were calculated along with the influence of meteorological and geographical factors using a quasi-Poisson generalized linear model.ResultsA total of 9392 mosquitoes were collected belonging to 13 genera and 85 species. The most represented genera were Culex, accounting for 46% of collected mosquitoes, and Aedes (42%). Besides being the most abundant species, Culex pseudovishnui and Aedes albopictus, which are known vectors of numerous arboviruses, were present in all sites during both dry and rainy seasons. The presence of mosquito species reported to be zoo-anthropophilic feeders was also observed in both forested and urban areas. Finally, this study demonstrated that altitude, temperature and precipitation impacted the abundance of mosquitoes but also influenced species community composition.ConclusionThe results indicate an important diversity of mosquitoes in the four forests and an influence of meteorological and geographical factors on their community. Additionally, this work highlights in parallel the abundance of species considered to be of medical importance and therefore underlines the high risk of pathogen emergence/re-emergence in the region.

Project description:Our understanding of the impacts of time since fire on reptiles remains limited, partly because there are relatively few locations where long-term, spatially explicit fire histories are available. Such information is important given the large proportion of some landscapes that are managed with frequent prescribed fire to meet fuel management objectives. We conducted a space-for-time study across a landscape in southeastern Australia where the known fire history spanned 6 months to at least 96 years. Four methods were used to survey reptiles in 81 forest and woodland sites to investigate how time since fire (TSF), habitat, and environmental variables affect reptile richness, abundance, and composition. We used generalized linear models, generalized linear mixed-effects models, PERMANOVA, and SIMPER to identify relationships between the reptile assemblage (richness, abundance, and composition, respectively) and TSF, habitat, and environmental variables. All three reptile metrics were associated with TSF. Reptile richness and abundance were significantly higher in sites >96 years postfire than younger fire ages (0.5-12 years). Reptile composition at long-unburned sites was dissimilar to sites burned more recently but was similar between sites burned 0.5-2 and 6-12 years prior to sampling. Synthesis and applications. Long-unburned forests and woodlands were disproportionately more important for reptile richness and abundance than areas burned 6 months to 12 years prior to sampling. This is important given that long-unburned areas represent <8% of our study area. Our results therefore suggest that reptiles would benefit from protecting remaining long-unburned areas from fire and transitioning a greater proportion of the study area to long-unburned. However, some compositional differences between the long-unburned sites and sites 0.5-12 years postfire indicate that maintaining a diversity in fire ages is important for conserving reptile diversity.

Dataset Information

People's perceptions about the importance of forests on Borneo.

Publications

People's perceptions about the importance of forests on Borneo.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets