Rutinas del PLC

The Forest Resources Management for Carbon Sequestration (FORMACS) Project is used here to illustrate how a gender perspective can be used to facilitate the development of social capital in traditional communities, in order to promote gender equality in natural resources management and make programs more effective and sustainable.

The overall goal of the FORMACS Project was: “Forest dwelling (Dayak) communities in Kalimantan (Nunukan district) achieve a sustainable household livelihood security that maintains C stocks and increases C sequestration.” An integrated approach (Figure 1) was used to achieve the following six expected outputs:

1. Project Advisory Board (PAB) consisting of partner institutions and stakeholders leading to increased awareness of carbon sequestration, project purpose, and participation in project planning.

2. Village profi les, from baseline survey and participatory rural appraisal (PRA), used to identify priority livelihood needs and for the preparation of land use plans for communities, including CBNRM and Agroforestry/LEISA, and active CBOs for project activities.

3. Village boundaries defi ned, mapped and offi cially recognized for villages, based on traditional concepts of land ownership, and used as the basis for village land use maps.

4. Increased institutional and local capacity leading to the development of a management system for key forest resources, which is offi cially recognized by national, provincial and district governments, and that improves livelihood security and increases carbon sequestration.

5. Increased institutional and local capacity leading to the identifi cation and adoption of suitable agroforestry/LEISA technologies through participatory technology development (PTD), that results in improved household livelihoods and increased carbon sequestration.

6. A reliable and verifi able carbon monitoring and accounting system developed and endorsed by PAD, and fi eld-tested in the Project area..

188 | Gender and Climate Change in Indonesia

Figure 1. Integrated approach and project framework of FORMACS project

VEGETATION AREA(Ha)

Hill and Mountain Forest 407,007.97

Lowland Forest 175,262.41

Peatswamp Forest 158,658.76

Peatswamp Forest with low to medium vegetation 54,238.30

Forests on isolated rock 9,226.45

River Bank Forest 6,628.95

Mangrove Forest 103,659.28

Garry A. Shea, Ika Francisca and Anny Andaryati | 189

The project was implemented in 38 traditional Dayak (Agabag) communities located along the Sembakung and Sebuku Rivers in Nunukan district of East Kalimantan (see Figure 2). Nunukan district was chosen as the site for a climate change project, since it is of global importance for both climate change mitigation and adaptation: • Ecosystem diversity from coral reefs to montane forests;

• Rich species diversity – each ecosystem having unique fl ora and fauna; • Rich genetic diversity – important for adaptation to climate change;

• Rich agrobiodiversity – traditional varieties of important food crops: rice, cassava, bananas, fruit trees;

• Important carbon pools and sinks: mangroves, peatswamps, tropical forests (Table 1).

Table 1. Carbon pools and sinks of mangroves, peatswamps, tropical forests.

NUNUKAN DISTRICT AS CARBON POOL/SINK

Vegetation Type Area in

Nunukan District Estimated Tonnes of Carbon per Ha Total Carbon in Vegetation Type

Hill and Mountain Forest 407,008 175 71,226,400

Lowland Forest 176,262 200 35,052,400

Forest on Rock Outcrop 9,226 100 902,093

River Bank Forest 6,629 200 1,325,800

Peat Swamp Forest (5 m deep peat)

158,262 5,700 902,093,400

Peat Swamp Forest with low to medium vegetation (5 m deep peat)

54,238 5,700 902,093,400

Mangrove (top 2 m only) 103,659 1,440 149,268,960

Total 886,474 1,469,025,653

As a result of the large area of peatswamp and mangrove forest, Nunukan district serves as a huge pool/sink for carbon, which is of global importance for mitigating climate change. In addition, there is enormous species and genetic diversity that will be of global importance when adapting to climate change. Monitoring did not show any signifi cant change in carbon during the life of the project.

The other focus of the project was assisting communities to achieve sustainable household livelihood security, and principles of gender equity used to work towards gender equality in this climate change project. The following is a summary of the steps carried out by the project while striving for gender equality:

• Review of CIDA’s Policy on Gender Equality;

• Including gender analysis in the rapid rural appraisal (RRA) used in the preparation of the Concept Paper;

190 | Gender and Climate Change in Indonesia

• Using Results-Based Approach in the preparation of the Project Implementation Plan (PIP), involving stakeholder participation, including women;

• Integrating gender into project budgeting, to ensure funds for gender mainstreaming within the project – gender as a cross-cutting theme within budget;

• Developing a gender equality strategy as part of the PIP;

• Recruitment of staff – gender balance (with women in key decision-making positions);

• Training of staff in Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), including gender analysis;

• Baseline survey – gender-disaggregated data and analysis;

• Facilitated PRA in each community, aimed at participation of women and men;

• Development of community self-help groups or community-based organizations (CBOs): farmers’ groups, including men and women;

• Establishment of gender team to identify and overcome gender barriers;

• Gender specialists, including project staff, local gender-focused NGOs, CIFOR and CARE Canada;

• Gender workshops involving men and women;

• Cross-visits of mixed groups, men’s groups and women’s groups, to learn about technical aspects of sustainable agriculture and CBNRM, but also the initiatives of women groups aimed at empowerment;

• Women-specifi c initiatives: focus group discussions, child and maternal health, literacy, support groups to develop women’s human resources and social capital; • Involving women in the development of local (Agabag) cultural identity through

preparation of an Agabag-Indonesian-English Dictionary, ethnoecology study, handicraft study, etc.;

• Facilitating changes in attitudes regarding gender roles, so women-specifi c initiatives become family initiatives, i.e., the responsibility of both men and women;

• Sustainable agriculture (LEISA), agroforestry and community-based natural resources management initiatives, involving both men and women;

• Promoting participation of women in customary councils (decision-making), and in village government (fi rst step to local democracy). Using democracy in national and district elections as an example of women’s role in decision-making. At national and district elections, men and women have same right to vote and each vote has the same value

• Participation of women from communities in National Symposium on Community Participation in Natural Resources Management in Indonesia, which included Gender in National Resources Management in Indonesia as a major focus;

Garry A. Shea, Ika Francisca and Anny Andaryati | 191

Box 1. Underage marriage a barrier to development and gender equality

The Agabag marry at a very young age, mostly around 10 to 15 years old, sometimes as young as 8. The marriage is arranged by parents and requires a large bride-price. As a result, the husband has a sense of owernship over wife since bride-price was paid. Thus, wife tends to have little or no role in decision-making in the family or in the community. Girl is required to take on adult role before reaching maturity (that is, while still a child), and is responsible for food production, fi rewood gathering, fetching water, looking after in-laws and husband. Married girls drop out of school before completing primary school (often grade 3) in order to take on role of wife, and is often functionally illiterate. These immature girls have babies before their minds and bodies are ready, and there are high rates of abortion, infant mortality and maternal mortality. Child mortality is generally more than 500 out of a thousand. Because the girl leaves her family and become the property of her husband she cannot inherit land or property, which is past down to sons. Thus, women have little control of land or natural resources. Women are traditionally not allow to participate in meetings and extension services (outside men present), and are not allow to leave village without being accompanied by husband or other family member. This limits there access to information and to markets.

As a result of the gender equality strategy, changes have been facilitated. Men and women are now more aware of gender issues and the negative aspects of gender inequities in the communities (for example, death of children, population stagnation and decline while other ethnic groups are increasing in numbers and political strength, lower productivity and lower family incomes). Thus, by the end of project, women were allowed to participate in meetings and extension services, take part in cross-visits outside the community without being accompanied by male family members, men were helping with gardening, food processing, gathering fi rewood and fetching water, which were previously exclusively women’s roles, women were allowed to take part in national symposium, and the traditional leaders and council have raised the minimum age for marriage to 17 which is in line with national law (although underage marriages still take place, but less frequently). Through participation, the social capital of both women and men has increased, and the communities are better prepared to take part in sustainable agriculture, agroforestry and community-based natural resources management initiatives aimed at livelihood security, and also climate change mitigation and adaptation

• Advocating/lobbying for changes within the Ministry of the Environment and Ministry for Women’s Empowerment for gender mainstreaming;

• Participatory monitoring and project evaluation, involving both men and women;

• Lessons-learned publications prepared with participation of communities, both men and women.

Designing and implementing a climate change project based on CIDA’s gender equality policy resulted in positive changes in relation to gender equality in target villages as outlined in Box 1 and these changes contributed to the overall success of the project in relation to the maintenance of carbon pools and carbon sequestration through participation of women in LEISA/agroforestry and community-based natural