APPROACH
 

This project was carried out by CSIRO with support from PROFOR and AUSAID as a part of an ongoing project (Developing Tools for Modeling the Impacts of Macro-economic Policies on Local Livelihoods and Natural Resources).
 

RESULTS

The main output of the project is an Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) tool that could potentially lead to a better understanding of the linkages between forests, livelihoods, and national policies, and could also be used to investigate questions of interest to planning, management, and budgeting agencies concerned with natural resources management and sustainability.  

During this particular project in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, PROFOR supported a survey of 3,000 households across six districts in the southern half of the province and detailed interviews of 540 households in the area, and funded analytical and descriptive work as well as activities that strengthened collaboration with stakeholders from government and civil society.  

The household survey was designed to provide data about household use of a range of natural resources as well as information about the values that people place on them.  Household interviews were used to identify households’ changes in natural resource use in response to rising energy prices.  While designed largely to develop behavioral response functions as a base for the agent-based model, the survey provides valuable stand-alone information.   A key finding from the survey is the high proportion of households that use or value natural resources in the study area. 

Based on the workshop response, regional policy makers are now engaged in the modeling process from the ground up. They anticipate that the agent-based model will benefit local governments (specifically the provincial level economic development planning agency (Bappeda) by providing an analytical tool for understanding the consequences of macro-policy decisions on dynamics within a region.  The model is spatially explicit, enabling users to analyze economic, social and environmental dynamics between and within districts. It provides a tool for regional planning in the context of macro-policy decisions and will quantify results in diagrams, and visualize results in maps.

A baseline analysis of users’ impressions and project impact (May 2008) found that policy makers were engaged in the process, interested in the results, and ready to commit staff time to apply the models and incorporate findings into NR planning processes.