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Ecosystem services from a degraded peatland of Central Kalimantan: implications for policy, planning, and management

journal contribution
posted on 2015-01-01, 00:00 authored by E A Law, Brett BryanBrett Bryan, E Meijaard, T Mallawaarachchi, M Struebig, K A Wilson
Increasingly, landscapes are managed for multiple objectives to balance social, economic, and environmental goals. The Ex-Mega Rice Project (EMRP) peatland in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia provides a timely example with globally significant development, carbon, and biodiversity concerns. To inform future policy, planning, and management in the EMRP, we quantified and mapped ecosystem service values, assessed their spatial interactions, and evaluated the potential provision of ecosystem services under future land-use scenarios. We focus on key policy-relevant regulating (carbon stocks and the potential for emissions reduction), provisioning (timber, crops from smallholder agriculture, palm oil), and supporting (biodiversity) services. We found that implementation of existing land-use plans has the potential to improve total ecosystem service provision. We identify a number of significant inefficiencies, trade-offs, and unintended outcomes that may arise. For example, the potential development of existing palm oil concessions over one-third of the region may shift smallholder agriculture into low-productivity regions and substantially impact carbon and biodiversity outcomes. While improved management of conservation zones may enhance the protection of carbon stocks, not all biodiversity features will be represented, and there will be a reduction in timber harvesting and agricultural production. This study highlights how ecosystem service analyses can be structured to better inform policy, planning, and management in globally significant but data-poor regions.

History

Journal

Ecological applications

Volume

25

Issue

1

Pagination

70 - 87

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Location

Chichester, Eng.

ISSN

1051-0761

Language

eng

Publication classification

C Journal article; C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2015, Ecological Society of America