- Sago palm groves are cultivated in swamps and alongside streams. When a mature sago palm is felled for starch extraction – which can provide sustenance for a family for several months – new suckers grow from the stump or root. Unlike crops grown in shifting cultivation, sago can be continually harvested at the same place, making these lands highly productive.
By Masatoshi Sasaoka, Hokkaido University
In the rich tropical forest of Indonesia, the Maluku province is reported to have the second largest proportion of forest cover after Papua. Most rural landscapes in Maluku are dominated by these rich natural forests. And, while agriculture and forests are typically seen to be at odds in the tropics, something different is happening in Maluku.
I have been conducting an environmental and sociological study in rural Maluku where sago, a starch extracted from the pith of the sago palm (Metroxylon sagu), is a very important staple food. The local people’s livelihoods are based on sago agriculture, which incorporates sago palm with a shifting cultivation of bananas and tubers (sweet potato, taro, and cassava).
In our paper “Influence of indigenous sago-based agriculture on local forest landscapes in Maluku, east Indonesia” newly published in the Journal of Tropical Forest Science, we explored the potential role of sago-based agriculture in biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration by assessing its influence on the local forest landscape in the village of Seram, Maluku province.
Our research findings indicate that sago groves rarely conflict with other land uses because they require relatively small amounts of land to meet local energy needs. They also exhibit higher land productivity than shifting cultivation for upland rice. Our investigation also reveals that farmers in the study village practice shifting cultivation on a very small scale. Because of the community’s heavy dependence on sago, people do not need large shifting cultivation gardens to produce supplementary staple food crops.
This small amount of shifting cultivation means that local agriculture in Seram has exerted relatively little pressure on forest clearance. In addition, the low population density and subsistence-oriented agriculture in the study area seems to support the maintenance of rich natural forest characteristics of the Seram landscape. Thus, this form of agriculture appears to help sustain the relatively high levels of local biodiversity and carbon stocks (see figure).
Indigenous sago-based agricultural systems are common in eastern Indonesia and New Guinea and have a possibly significant role in supporting the maintenance and formation of landscapes dominated by rich natural forest. However, this possibility hasn’t been explored. Further intensive studies are needed to elucidate the links between agriculture and forest landscapes in other landscapes where people are highly dependent on sago to assess its value in terms of biodiversity conservation and carbon sequestration.
For more detail, please read the entire study: Influence of indigenous sago-based agriculture on local forest landscapes in Maluku, east Indonesia.
Photo: Masatoshi Sasaoka, Hokkaido University
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