Fire management, community partnerships and rural development in East Tenggara Timur: lessons from an ACIAR-funded project in Sumba Timur and Ngada

摘要

East Tenggara Timur (NTT) supports over 4.5 million people; 85% of them reliant on subsistence agriculture. Much of the region is composed of fire-prone savanna where fire is used as an essential tool both in pastoral and cropping management systems. Given the rapid transformation of rural societal structures across much of NTT in recent decades, high population growth (2% p.a.), limited well-watered land, and significant land tenure conflicts among communities and between communities and government, there has been a breakdown of traditional forms of locally coordinated fire management, with the result that uncontrolled fires today impact significantly on environmental assets, livelihood resources and economic conditions. Building on preliminary regional workshops held in Kupang in 1995 and Darwin in 1999, a research project commenced in 2000 focusing on developing fire management capacity in regional NTT institutions and communities. It is funded principally by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and other Australian partners. The project has demonstrated coordinated, community-based approaches to fire management at four village-scale demonstration sites in eastern Sumba and central Flores. Working with local communities, the NTT Government, higher education institutions and the well-organised local NGO sector, the project has implemented: 1. Fire management activities at each study village, focusing especially on protection of high-value agroforestry plantings. Importantly, this component of the project was developed within an 'action research' framework, where activities are collectively developed, monitored and assessed by community, institutional and research partners. 2. Community extension, planning and training activities. The latter includes remote sensing and associated GIS training for BAPPEDA NTT staff, resource inventory training and educational capacity development, particularly through the transfer of tertiary ecological modules developed through the Tropical Savannas Cooperative Research Centre and associated training courses delivered to Satya Wacana University. A recent independent review found that the project approach successfully addressed local needs by being inclusive of community and institutional partners.