Comparison of community and government preferences in prioritizing suitable lands for sustainable tree plantations

ABSTRACT

The objective of the research was to compare the community and government preferences in prioritizing suitable lands for sustainable tree plantations in production forest areas. In selecting planting locations, a number of physical and spatial analyses have been conducted using a geographical information system. Physical criteria consist of land cover/land uses, slopes, soils, and rainfall, while spatial criteria encompass proximity of land units to the roads, villages, and industries. In determining the most suitable locations for sustainable tree plantations, the community and government stakeholders were involved in ranking the characteristics within each criterion and weighting the criterion through the point allocation method. The results showed that the community and government had different preferences in selecting locations for tree plantations. The community gave higher ranks to criterion characteristics that have large areas; conversely, the government assigned higher ranks to criterion characteristics that have small and moderate areas. Based on the community’s preferences, most prioritized land units followed the roads and were located in and around the villages, whereas the land units prioritized by the government mostly scattered all over the production forest areas. However, the two groups preferred the slopes of 8–15% for tree plantation locations. These results should supplement the Minister of Forestry Regulation No. P.23/Menhut-II/2007 stating that locations of people’s plantations should be close to industries, and the Minister of Forestry Decree No.21/Kpts-II/2001 stating that tree plantations should be established in the lands with slopes ≤25%.

KEYWORDS:

• GIS
• community
• government
• preference
• sustainable tree plantation

Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the Government of Indonesia through the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education [Agreement No. 056/UN8.2/PL/2015]. We express many thanks for the funding.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education of the Republic of Indonesia [Agreement No. 056/UN8.2/PL/2015].