10

The Problems Of Upland Land Management

BRYANT J. ALLEN

Introduction

THE problems of upland land degradation in South-East Asia received wide

publicity during the 1980s. Scientists and environmental lobby groups, sensitized

to world-wide soil erosion, and later to the contributions of tropical land-use

change to global climatic warming, have decried the rapid rates of land clearance

and deforestation in a number of South-East Asian countries. Some present a

picture of looming environmental disaster (for example, Donner, 1987; Eckholm,

1976). While these concerns must be taken seriously, the sometimes highly

emotional arguments from the developed world have tended to oversimplify the

causes, and also the long-term consequences, of land degradation and

deforestation in the Tropics.

Poor cultivation practices almost always result in land degradation and con-

sequent losses of productivity, and this is true in uplands and lowlands alike. In

some areas, forest clearance followed by cultivation has resulted in severe

environmental damage, but in others forest clearance occurred hundreds of years

ago and. at least until recently, the land has been cultivated without serious

damage. Moreover, some tracts severely degraded in the past have been

rehabilitated with or without state or institutional help. The South-East Asian

region provides a rich variety of examples where the causes and consequences of
land degradation can be examined. They enable some general statements to be

made, and some possible solutions to the problems to be examined.

Explanations and solutions need to be sought in context. Simply to review

the situation in each country would be to miss the essential point about the

primary cause of events in the uplands of the region. As shall be seen, degradation

is widespread, and so too is intensification. In this latter respect, experiences in

South-East Asia are common to most agricultural systems throughout the

developing world. There is, as Ruthenberg (1980: 357-66) shows, a very general

tendency to move away from more permanent systems, from less intensive to

more intensive practices, towards higher-yielding crops and towards greater use of

‘support energy’. The reasons for intensification therefore underlie any discussion

of land-use change. It is simplistic to attribute all intensification to population

pressure, following Boserup (1965). Other explanations of a perceived need to

increase production also have to be taken into account; humans do not live by

subsistence alone. This has practical as well as theoretical importance, for even if

the population problem is successfully solved, a sustainable future will not have

been created if some other force is also driving agriculture to intensify.

Although it is necessary to discuss wider trends in regional agriculture,

including those in the lowlands, this chapter concentrates on the problems of

the uplands. Their definition as a class of land is. however, difficult. In South-

East Asia, the term is often used rather loosely to refer to unirrigated land but, if

water is available, it is possible to irrigate almost any land, even steeply sloping

land, if someone is willing to pay the costs. Nor is altitude a useful criterion;
if 'uplands’ imply steeplands, or hill and mountain country, they may begin at

sea level. Irrigable land of low relief may be found at over 2 000 metres above

sea level. Similarly, slope is not a helpful classifier; some very steep land is

found at low altitude, and some almost level land is found in the highest areas

occupied by people, now or in the past.

Using Spencer's (1949: 28) definition, 'uplands' could be defined as

containing a core of 'hilly to mountainous landscapes of steeply inclined surfaces

and the table lands and plateaus lying at higher elevations'. It might be added that

the discussion concerns land which is not flood-irrigated, not the immediate

coastal fringe, estuarine or alluvial plains and swampland, nor is it seasonally

flooded. Broadly, this definition by exclusion is followed in this chapter.

Uplanders and lowlanders distinguish themselves as different groups of people in

several of the South East-Asian countries, the one class of persons having a

generic name for the other. It would be desirable to take account of this perceived

basis of classification also, but in practical terms it is not feasible.

The Expansion and Intensification of Upland Agriculture, 1850-1950

THE ANTECEDENTS OF MODERN UPLAND SETTELEMENT

Forest clearing for agriculture in the South-East Asian uplands began over

5.000 years ago. Pollen preserved in swamps in the high-elevation interior of

Papua New Guinea provides evidence that substantial forest disturbance first

occurred there between 5.000 and 4.000 years BP (Before Present) and was well

established by 2.300 BP (Walker and Flenley, 1979). In Central Taiwan and

Sumatra, the earliest forest disturbance is probably of a similar age (Hutterer,

1983a). While there is no direct arehaeological or palynological evidence that

the disturbance was for the purpose of agriculture, there are few other causes

which can be sensibly ascribed. Agriculture is inferred from 5.000 YEARS BP on

Taiwan and from 3.000 years BP in Sulawesi. In South China and northern

Thailand, the beginning of rice cultivation is placed at 1.000 years BP . and

irrigated rice, from 1.000 years BP (Bellwood. 1978: 161).

IT would probably be a mistake to assume that this very early agriculture

was restricted only to a form of shifting cultivation on upland sites. There is

evidence from a well-researehed site in the central highlands of Papua New

Guinea at an altitude of 1.500-1.600 metres, that swamp drainage was being

employed prior to 5.000 years BP,. probably in conjunction with shifting cultivation

on slopes around the swamp (Golson, 1981). From this same site comes

indications of soil washing off the slopes around the swamp and sealing in some

features of the drainage systems.

Elsewhere in the Papua Now Guinea highlands, studies of the sediments in a

number of small lakes provide evidence of sharply increased deposition from 300

years . when it is assumed that an expansion of agriculture occurred within the

BP

lake catchments. From its earliest beginnings, upland agriculture was the cause of

accelerated soil erosion, yet much of the land around these sites is till occupied,

and some of it intensively cultivated, today.

A Period of Revolutionary Change

 Despite these early agricultural beginnings, the period of 'revolutionary'

change in South-East Asian agriculture occurred between 1850 and 1950.

sometimes. but not everywhere, preceded by a century or half-century of much

lesser change This applies to most of the uplands as well as the lowlands. In the

space of about 100 years, millions of hectares of formerly seasonally inundated

ground in the lowlands were converted into wet-rice fields; the forest land which

surrounded them was developed into commercial plantations and permanent

mixed-crop, dry-field cultivations by smallholders. Large areas of hill forest were

convened into swiddens for upland rice (Dobby. 1955). The organized states of

pre-colonial South-East Asia were based on irrigated rice, but the expansion of

wet-rice areas as a result of massive public works, drainage and canal building

under colonial administrations during the 100 years from 1850 was on a vastly

larger scale. This transformation has been described as the first Green Revolution'

(Barker and Herdt, 1979: 8).

Uhlig (1984) provides data which testify to this amazing transformation of

line South-East Asian landscape. In Burma's Pegu province, wet-rice areas

increased from 228 000 hectares in 1855 to 1.25 million hectares in 1880 and the

national total from 1.6 million in 1860 to 5 million hectares in 1931. Wet-rice

areas in Thailand grew from 1.5 million hectares in 1907 to 6.9 million hectares in

1927 and 8.6 million hectares in 1979. In the Philippines, the big expansion began

only after the American colonization. There, wet-rice cultivation increased from

about 1.4 million hectares in 1931 to 2.6 million hectares in I968. The massive

changes brought about by the drainage and irrigation works by the Dutch in
Indonesia are well-known (Boeke, 1953). However, Palte (1989: 39-10) provides

graphic description of the earlier expansion of irrigated rice fields (sawah) on the

Panarukan plain in Java between 1805 and 1845.

The relationship between population and food supply is a complex one and

this is not the place to argue the various cases for cause and effect. Nevertheless.

during 1850-1950. South-East Asian populations clearly increased beyond the

capacity of the land then under cultivation to satisfy the demand for food

production. The response of populations all over the region was to move on to

previously unworked or little-worked ground. In Java, the majority of upland

areas were not brought into production until the possibilities for irrigation were

exhausted’ (Palte. 1989: 40). The pattern of occupation was influenced by social

and political factors, but was primarily a consequence of growing population

pressure on the available land and water resources in the lowlands Penetration into

previously uncultivated uplands began in the 1820s. largely around the

Yogyakarta plain where heavy taxes and labour duties were imposed, and a war

disrupted fanning on the plain.

The most important expansion into the uplands in Java took place between

1860 and 1925. when the forced cultivation system gave way to taxation, and

roads, railways and tramways opened up new regions. Large numbers of people

took the opportunity to escape onerous taxes and corvee labour by illegally

occupying and cutting upland forests for agriculture. The colonial government

contributed by clearing large areas of forest for coffee plantations, and then ceding

unused portions to settlers.

 The appearance of coffee rust, which devastated much of Indonesia's coffee

estates, also led to the abandonment of upland areas planted with coffee and to

their occupation by subsistence farmers. Concerns over watershed protection, and

widespread destruction of forest, resulted in severe government discouragement of

upland occupation, but a third phase of expansion occurred from 1942 to 1950

when control over forest land was disrupted by the Japanese occupation and the

national struggle for independence (Nibbering, 1991b: 25; Palte, 1989:48-9).

A different picture can be assembled from Thailand, although the outcome is

broadly similar. Between 1855 and 1930. Thai rice exports increased 25 times

while, over the same period, the Thai population, dependent on rice as a staple,

grew to 12 million. Rice yields per unit area declined, however, and the inevitable

outcome was a rapid increase in the cultivated area. More than half of this

occurred on the Central Plain, where canal construction was funded from state

revenues (Johnson. 1975. quoted in Hirsch. 1990). From 1912 to World War II.

the rice trade suffered a number of reversals, between which growth was slow.

Hirsch (1990) and Uhlig (1984) imply that it was the failure of the rice-export

trade to grow, and a combination of pricing policies, marketing structures and

ecological Imperatives, which led to a sudden expansion in upland agriculture and

an increase in the importance of upland crow relative to rice Production increased,

not as a result of successful intensification or crop diversification in the rice areas,

but because land was available in the uplands and markets were available for the

crops which could be grown there-maize, cassava and sugar in particular (Uhlig.

1984: 125).
Expansion before Markets

Elsewhere in the region, expansion of upland agriculture occurred during

this period (1850-1950) in the absence of markets or the state. In the Papua New

Guinea highlands, growth began more than a century before 1850. There is

abundant evidence that existing agricultural systems have intensified and

expanded during the last 300-00 years (see, for example. Strathern. 1982). The

widespread adoption of sweet potato (lpomoea batatas), a previously unknown or

little-used crop, allowed agriculture to be extended to an altitude of 2.800 metres,

well above the economic altitudinal range of likely previous staples such as taro

(Colocasia escalenta). In addition, land which could no longer support taro

because of declining soil fertility was brought buck into cultivation under sweet

potato (Clarke, l977). It has been argued that the driving force behind these

changes was increasing population numbers, IN CREASING social and political

differentiation, and the need to produce more pigs, which are used as a means of

indemnification in social relations and conflicts between groups (Allen and

Crittenden. 1987; Modjeska. 1982). Similar arguments have been advanced to

explain the very rapid expansion of pre-colonial upland agriculture in Hawaii

(Kirch, 1984).

The Philippines present yet another story. Many upland parts of the country

were occupied by tribal groups prior to Spanish colonization in the 1500s. The

Digos-Padada valley in Davao province, Mindanao, for example, was occupied by

four major tribal groups, with smaller groups of Muslims on the coast (Simkins

and Wernstedt, 1971). When one of the tribal groups came into conflict with the
Spanish government in the nineteenth century and was dispersed. Christians from

elsewhere in the Philippines began to occupy the abandoned land. Fields cleared

in lower hill-slope forest were quickly converted to grass, but more forest was

cleared inland and population densities remained low. Migration into the area

continued, however, and between 1903 and 1918 the population increased by 65

per cent, then doubled between 1918 and 1939. Most settlers were concentrated in

the lower valley, leaving the interior largely in the hands of tribal groups. After

World War II, however, the settlement frontier moved inland rapidly and by 1965

there was almost no land in the valley that was unoccupied or uncultivated.

Although upland agriculture has expanded all over the South-East Asian

region, and increasing population has everywhere been associated with this

expansion, it cannot, in many cases, be said to be the only cause. The reasons are

varied and complex and it is not possible to make many general statements about

the process. In Thailand, and perhaps in Papua New Guinea, intensification and

expansion occurred before critical population pressures arose, and then the need to

increase production for social and political reasons was as important as population

growth. Even the Indonesian case does not stand on the basis of population pressure

alone. Government policies, land taxes, compulsory labour, war and an increased

access to upland areas, all contributed to the expansion of upland agriculture in

Java. Elsewhere, as in die Philippines, migrant populations at relatively low

densities have caused considerable land degradation, but (hey have moved inland

into uncultivated forest, rather than intensify production on existing fields.

Population increases are relevant in all cases, but sometimes as a cause, and

sometimes as an effect, of agricultural expansion and intensification.

Upland Agriculture. 1950-1990: Logging, Roads, Markets and Cash

New Elements in the-Pattern of Change

The discussion now turns more specifically to developments over the last 40

years. Upland agricultural systems in the region have continued to be challenged

by rapidly growing population (see Conception. Chapter 2). In addition, forests

which were not subject to clearing by earlier agricultural expansion are now being

logged at a high rate, and logging has lately extended into quite hilly regions

Roads for loggers also provide access for farmers and settlers, both to the logged

over land itself and to distant markets. Demands for cash (to pay for consumer

goods. children's education) and for agricultural inputs which have become a

necessity in the face of continuing declines in yields, combined with belter access

to markets, have led to a rapid increase in the cultivation of high-value crops for

sale. These crops, such as vegetables, frequently extract a greater cost in terms of

erosion and loss of soil nutrients than the 'traditional' upland crops of rice, maize,

cassava and other grains and tubers or. in Thailand, opium.

In the lowlands, wet-rice land is reaching its ultimate expansion through the

conversion of mangrove swamps to rice land, and the use of tidal irrigation in

coastal estuaries. Chang (Chapter 9) makes the point that, following the Green

Revolution, the further expansion in area and in yields of irrigated rice is now

strictly limited, and that existing lowland systems are under increasing stress from

the high costs of maintenance and inputs. Elsewhere. Chang (1987) argues the
case for a direct link between increases in rice production in South-East Asia and

increases in her population. He goes on to observe that while the growth in

production which followed the adoption of the Green Revolution high-yielding

varieties (HYVs) of rice has reached a plateau, the populations of Asian countries

continue to grow. The clear implication is that, if further production increases

from wet-rice areas are limited, the burden of food supply for this rapidly

increasing population will fall on upland cultivation systems.

In a study on Indonesia. J. J. Fox (1991: 81-3) comes to similar conclusions

about rice production. Although Indonesian rice production (unhusked dry-rice

paddy) increased from 15 to 45 million tonnes between 1968 and 1988. demand is

estimated to go on increasing at between 2.7 and 3.0 per cent per year, which will

require a 34-39 per cent increase in rice production by the year 2000; this is the

same increase as occurred between 1968 and 1988. Fox is cautiously optimistic

that these challenges can be met. but notes in passing that in Java, of the better

irrigated land, where the production increases could be exacted to occur, is being

taken out of rice production in favour of higher-earning crops.

The Link With Timber Production

During 1859-1950 government in the region attempted to create and project

forest reserves, with varying and success. Over the 1970s and1980s, however, the

general release of control from government to private operators the logging of

forest with modern equipment, such as bulldozers, tractor, timber jinkers and

chain saws, and the penetration of roads into huge tracts of previously ‘unroaded’

land have brought about a new era of forest clearing and agricultural expansion.
The deforestation issue has been raised in several previous chapters, particularly

by Brookfield (Chapter 1) and Potter (Chapter 5), and the important aspect of fire

is discussed by Wirawan (Chapter 11). The link with land degradation has been

touched on, but needs to be examined more specifically and considered .is a

separate issue.

Soil erosion and the degradation of land need not be inevitable outcomes

of forest clearing, especially where rapid woody successions colonize areas

cleared of forest. In Kalimantan in the late 1980s, for example, the rates of

deforestation caused by logging followed by clearing for agriculture and

settlement were estimated to be between 600.000 and 1.2 million hectares per year

(Potter. 1991). The opened, 'roeded', logged-over and damaged forest is very

much easier to enter and clear than closed, undisturbed rain forest. Movement into

the areas of large numbers of new settlers, both government-sponsored and

spontaneous migrants, has impacted heavily on the logged-over land.

A similar pattern is found in the Uthai Thani district of Thailand where by

1985 forested land was less than 41 per cent of the total land area and

deforestation was continuing. Land settlement by outsiders was 'facilitated in no

small part by the clearance of large areas of forest under concession to the state-

run Thai Plywood Company.... Construction of roads has also been crucial

(Hirsch, 1990: 56). In northern Thailand, strategic roads built to assist defence

against insurgents first brought loggers, and then cultivators, into large areas that,

in consequence, rapidly lost their forest cover.

 The average rate of deforestation over 1976-80 for the whole of Indonesia

was estimated at 550 000 hectares per year, compared to 325.000 hectares in

Thailand. 230.000 hectares in Malaysia. 120.000 hectares in Laos and 100.000

hectares in the Philippines (Ooi. 1987:7). The main causes are stated to be shifting

cultivation, unorganized and spontaneous encroachment on forest land, squatting,

migration of landless and displaced lowlanders into upland forested areas, refugee

encroachments and government-sponsored land settlement. transmigration in

Indonesia and state-sponsored agricultural development schemes in Malaysia in

particular.

linkage with External Areas

Improvements in communications, particularly roads, has also been an

important influence in non-logging areas. The Gunung Kidul district south of

Yogyakarta. in Java, was already largely deforested by 1904 when remaining leak

forests were taken over and managed by the colonial forest service. This limestone

area was connected to the outside world in the 1930s by a dry-weather bullock

track and, although the roads were later improved, in 1949 it was still possible for

Indonesian nationalist forces to take shelter in the area after they had been driven

from Yogyakarta by the Dutch. By 1989. an asphalt road ran through the whole

area and many hamlets were connected to this mad by all-weather, gravel roads.

Minibuses travelled frequently along the main road, and village-owned vehicles

were reasonably common. Villagers could travel to Yogyakarta and back in a day

and to the district centre and market place in less than an hour (Nibbering. 1991b:

71-2). They now have much improved access to off-farm employment, the city
and regional markets, cheaper farm input, information and primary and secondary

education for their children.

The most dramatic change in condition, of access has been in the populous

central highlands of Papua New Guinea, which until the 1950s had no road to the

coast. Now a network of several thousand kilometres of roads links all densely

populated areas to the coast at Lae and Madang. bearing a heavy traffic of buses,

minibuses and trucks. In more accessible areas, there have been major changes in

land use. incorporating a range of cash crops. Coffee from this region, only a

pioneer crop in the 1950s, is now a leading export With the development of both

urban and rural markets, trade in foodstuffs has become important. There is

extensive movement of people. leading to an actual reduction in the population of

some marginal areas, despite continued high rates of natural increase. The

conditions of production and consumption, even in areas distant from the roads,

have been transformed.

Consequents of Changes in Crops

A major trend, which distinguishes the 1970s and 1980s from the previous

150 years, is the partial switch from subsistence staples to high-value cash crops,

particularly vegetables. As shall be described below, declining soil fertility and

subsequent declining yields have eventually forced farmers to purchase off-farm

fertility-maintenance inputs—inorganic fertilizers in particular—to maintain

yields. This alone requires farmers to have access to cash. With better access to

markets, burgeoning demand for vegetables in towns and cities, a creator

awareness among upland parents of the value of education for their children, and
an increased desire for manufactured consumer goods, the switch to high-value

crops and the partial substitution of subsistence staples for purchased foods is an

economically rational and socially desirable action for farmers. However, it is not

always ecologically sensible.

First despite high and increasing application rates of inorganic fertilizers,

declining soil fertility remains a feature of many areas of vegetable growing; it is

reported for example, in West Java and the Kundasang area of Sabah (Imam Ali,

personal communication; Hardjono, 1991), in addition, many farmers find that,

because of poor management or the quality of their land, they cannot afford the

costs of the inputs and. as a consequence, they enter a downward spiral of

decreasing yields and an increasing inability to purchase the required fertilizers to

improve yields.

Secondly, soil erosion is a serious problem in many vegetable-growing

areas. Annual cropping increases the exposure of soils to rainfall, and farmers are

reluctant to terrace because of the costs and the technical difficulty. At Kundasang,

migrant ethnic chinese farmers view vegetable growing as a means of raising

capital for onward investment in non-farming activities, and they appear to have

few concerns for the long-term sustainability of the enterprise. Topsoil is

sometimes deliberately scraped off plots to reduce weed infestation, and crops are

maintained in the subsoil by inorganic fertilizers,.

The unsafe use of pesticides (many of which are banned elsewhere in the

world), often used at rates well above those recommended, is common.

Indigenous Kadazan landowners in the hills surrounding. Kundasang are adopting

some of these practices, in particular the use of spray irrigation and fertilizers and

pesticides. However, most cannot achieve the production levels of the immigrants

nor are they as successful at judging the market and producing the highest-value

crops (Imam Ali, personal communication). They are thereby putting the lanbd, in

which they have a long-term interest, at risk.

Where farmers cannot afford the costs of off-farm inputs, the may

eventually be forced out of farming alltogether by indebtedness. Poorer farmers in

the Uthai Thani district in Thailand, confronted with declining yields, increasing

soil compaction, weeds, and pests, seek laboring oppourtunities from wealthier

farmers in order to buy fertilizer, pesticides and tractor time, some farmers are

forced to lease their land to wealthier villagers and seek off-farm employment in

towns, in order to pay off debts, and because they lack the capital to farm the land

themselves (Hirsch, 1990:74).

The outcome of increased commercialization and monetization of upland

farming economies has not every where been negative. In his detailed study of

agricultural change and environmental degradation in the Gunung Kidul district in

Java, Nibbering (1991b) found that increasing use of off-farm inputs and

improved access to markets, greater off-farm wage-earning opportunities, and

greater political security have brought about improved social, economic and

environmental conditions in this district. He argues that, during the 1950s and

1960s as pressure on land increased, farmers' returns to labour declined steadily

because Melds could not be cultivated further without the costly construction of

terraces, and without working increasingly marginal land which had to be brought
into production at high cost. In the 1970s, when farmers gained access to

fertilizers and pesticides and changed cropping techniques. this situation changed.

As returns to labour increased, fanners began to invest more in ecologically sound

practices, particularly in tree planting, which supplements farm incomes through

the sale of timber, but which also greatly improves the local agricultural

environment and increases the supply of fuel wood.

The Environmental Consequences of Upland Agricultural

Expansion: Sustainability and Unsustainability

The evidence on sustainability of these developing upland agricultural

systems is contradictory. In some areas, improved access and incorporation into

the market economy have apparently brought about the rehabilitation of

previously degraded areas, while in other locations, the 'mining' of forest and soil

resources has continued unabated. Most researehers in upland ecology concentrate

on soil erosion in already cleared land as an even more serious ecological threat

than deforestation. Shifting cultivation has long been viewed, particularly from

within the region, as the major problem. But it must be recognized that in many of

the areas discussed—cleared and settled by or before the 1930s and 1940s—

shifting cultivation has long since given way to more permanent agriculture. It is

continuing pressure on this land which is giving rise to concern.

The great expansion of agriculture from the lowlands into the uplands,

which occurred throughout South-East Asia from the 1800s onwards, resulted in

widespread degradation of the land. Across the whole region, the outcomes were

similar. The conversion of forest to grassland, soil erosion and declining soil
fertility led to the move away from shifting cultivation in the direction of

permanent cultivation. The ability of watersheds to retain water from rainfall has

declined, and rapid runoff has resulted in severe flooding damaging lowland wet-

rice systems.

In almost every case where the sequence is known, or can he reconstructed,

the earliest upland fanners practised forms of shifting cultivation in which soil

fertility was maintained by a natural regrowth fallow, and soil erosion was

minimized because most of the land was protected by a tree and scrub cover. As

more migrants arrived, and populations continued to expand, all cultivable and

accessible land was occupied, fallow lengths decreased, and large, previously

forested areas were converted into scrub and grassland. This situation had been

reached in Java by 1920 (Booth. 1988: 100). Cropping of the same tract of land

was more frequent, and complete tillage became common, together with Ihe

application of animal manure lo maintain soil fertility (Palte. 1989). In the

Philippines, even in areas where shifting cultivation had been practised for

hundreds of years, fallow lengths declined and there was a 'trend towards a

cultivation cycle based on the annual cropping calendar of the dominant

subsistence crop (Cruz. 1986b).

In a number of areas in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, permanent

sweet potato cropping systems based on complete tillage and composting have

been developed since the conversion of forest to grassland- At their most

elaborate, these systems involve throwing the soil into large mounds within which

plant matter imported from nearby fallow, as well as from the garden site is
composted. Under this system, and others involving complete tillage of the

surface, some significant areas are now cultivated permanently. with only short

fallow gaps of. at most, a few months between each crop.

These technologies were developed on flat-to-rolling land and on alluvial

plains, where they appear sustainable; in the composted-mound system, a high

rate of soil formation more than offsets any loss from erosion. However, these

intensive systems have been extended on to the hill slopes and valley sides as

populations have increased. Here, they give rise to rapid loss of topsoil and

accompanying rapid declines in soil fertility. On volcanic-ash soils on stern slopes

in the Tan basin, sweet potato yields fell from 8 to 2 tonnes per hectare in less than

40 years, whereas on alluvial plains and recent colluvial soils, yields can be

maintained at 12 tonnes per hectare for over 50 years (Wood, 1984) The outcome

is the abandonment of fields on the slopes, the establishment of a tall grass

disclimax maintained by irregular burning, and the continued clearing of forests

higher on the valley sides.

Consequences can be measured in terms of human welfare, everyone

participates in a social system in which status and security depend on inflationary

ceremonial exchanges (Allen and Crittenden. 1987). In order to keep up with their

competitive neigh bours on the better land, men on less capable soil must push

their land or themselves harder their women in particular. The effect is apparent in

the authors analysis of the birth weights of more than 2.900 children born in the

Tari basin. There is a statistically significant 150-gram difference between the

weight of children born in the best area and those born on the poorer land.
 It is difficult to quantify the meaning of these changes in terms of soil

erosion, or soil-fertility decline, across the whole of South-East Asia. It must be

assumed that, on land which was not adequately terraced, severe soil erosion

occurred when permanent cultivation systems first became established, in the

absence of terracing or other sod-fertility maintenance techniques. But, as

Nibbering (1991b) explains for Indonesia, the conditions of soil type, slope,

rainfall intensity, vegetation cover, and cropping and cultivation practices vary so

much from place to place that soil losses may differ by orders of magnitude

between areas in relatively close proximity. He concludes, very sensibly, that it is

probably an unrewarding task to seek to establish erosion rates, and even if it were

possible to do so within acceptable levels of confidence, little would have been

achieved towards solving the problem of the erosion itself.

Attempted Solutions

Migration and Resettlement

Throughout the region, numerous attempts have been made to address the

problems created by the expansion of upland agriculture in the 1800s and its

modern manifestations. Perhaps the best known attempt to reduce the pressure on

land in Java—the Indonesian transmigration project which drew many of Us

recruits from upland areas—is now widely seen as an environmental threat in

itself, and as a major contributor to the deforestation taking place in the outer

islands. Transmigration settlers are poorly cared for, relative to, for example,

Malaysian FELDA settlers; in Kalimantan, they have been required to be largely

self-sufficient in food, a factor which has led them into annual cropping on land

which has been placed in a capability class for tree crops only.

A good deal of resettlement from upland areas has been of a more spontan-

eous kind, and it has generally been to lowland areas, especially to the towns and

cities. Although a proportion of those who have moved from the highlands of

Papua New Guinea now live in planned land-development areas where they

cultivate tree crops, a larger number has settled in and around the urban areas. The

same has happened in the Philippines and in Java. Within the uplands, there is

migration from more remote areas to regions where cash cropping is more

rewarding, and where off-farm employment is readily available. There is little

data on the basis of which these movements might be quantified, but there can be

no doubt concerning their substantial volume.

Social Forestry

Programmes which directly address the problems of deforestation, and the

rehabilitation of degraded land, are the social-forestry schemes which are found in

a number of South-East Asian countries In the Philippines, social forestry projects

have been concerned with environmental issues, but they are also explicitly

designed to improve living conditions, provide employment, augment income and

make rural communities more self-reliant (Aguilar, 1986). In contrast to previous

attempts to control upland forest clearing, which relied unsuccessfully on

exclusion of people from the forests, coercion and punishment, the newer projects

allow people to remain in the areas under a form of ‘managed occupancy’.

 Although it is difficult to generalize about the success of these projects

because the outcomes have been so variable, it is apparent that, after enthusiastic

beginnings, reforestation and terracing targets have rarely been met. The major

difficulties facing such projects appear to be the quality of government extension

agents, then rapid turnover and a continuing tendency for them to pressure farmers

into participation. In one scheme in the Philippines, increasing coercion resulted in

extensive burning after a number of years of declining frequency of forest fires

(Aguilar. 1986).

Reforestation, or regreening. has a long history in Indonesia. The colonial

government recommended planting leucaena on deforested hillsides as a precursor

to terracing (Nibbering. 1991b: 169). The independent Indonesian government's

first National Regreening Week was held in 1959. Soemarwoto (1991) observes

that the outcome of regreening programmes has been variable, but the rate of

deforestation is clearly still exceeding the rate of regreening. He also observes that

tree planting alone docs not necessarily reduce erosion and may even interfere

with soil-water conditions.

What Is To Be Done?

This chapter has attempted the impossible: to review a complex topic across

a highly varied region without becoming overly superficial. Nevertheless, it is

clear that a major transformation of upland environments has occurred in South-

East Asia since around 1850 and that it continues in the early 1990s at a rapid and

unsustainable pace. The transformation has arisen in important measure from

large population increases, which have been associated with increased food
production from lowland wet-rice systems, and improved health and living

conditions. It has further involved major movements of people from the lowlands

into the uplands, the clearing of forests from a vast area of laud and the

intensification of agricultural systems. Later, Improvement in transport and

communication networks, access to markets and the commercialization or

agriculture, including the increased use of purchased fertilizers and pesticides

have generated new conditions that impact upon different areas in different ways.

A December 1990 seminar on technologies for sustainable agriculture in

upland South-East Asia included contributions on economics, land tenure,

FAR M I N G SY ST E M , A G R O NOM Y and soil management, but no clearly

discernible overall solutions was offered (Blair and Lefroy, 1991). Following a

detailed study of deforestation in the Philippines, Kummer (1990b) concludes that

the history of forest use in individual countries is important, and population

increase is not a critical explanation of recent deforestation, but elite control

control over forest land and corruption is extremely important, at least in the

Philippines, whatever the causes, the solutions to deforestation are not amenable

to technical solutions. As Kummer argues, the fundamental issue is who has the

right to use the forest resource.

Soemarwoto (1991). who has long pondered these problems, has put

forward a proposition to reverse some of these consequences. In general terms, he

argues that past solutions, which have had at their core land rehabilitation and

reforestation, have demonstrably failed. Therefore, solutions are required which

give priority to the needs of people and leave the environment to rehabilitate
itself, once the people can be persuaded to leave it alone for a while. Soemarwoto

argues that, in order to do this, the lives of the rural poor must be improved. Their

agricultural systems will have to be intensified even further in order to reduce the

amount of land necessary for support. Off-farm employment will have to be

increased, training for off-farm work improved, a reduction in the rate of

population increased through family planning, and improved and fairer marketing

schemes instituted. Of the cases reviewed in this chapter. Nibbering's offers the

greatest support to Soemarwoto's proposition. The people of the Gunung Kidul

district began their own land rehabilitation when their social, economic and

political conditions improved.

What remains to be done therefore is to convince political leaders,

bureaucrats and South-East Asia's burgeoning middle classes that their futures are

inextricably linked to the lives of rural people and to the upland environments in

which these people live.