DEFORESTATION AND ITS DRIVING FORCES - A CASE-STUDY OF RIAM-KANAN WATERSHED, INDONESIA

Some driving forces of deforestation were studied in a watershed area where subsistence farming is the main land-use activity. A dam, constr ucted in 1972 resulted in the translocation of many people. Remote-sen sing images were used to analyse the spatial aspects of land-cover cha nges. The pattern and dispersion of the village distribution, human po pulation distribution and their dynamics, socio-economic aspects, as w ell as government policy on land status as possible driving forces wer e examined. The spatial pattern of deforestation appeared to be relate d to the village distribution pattern. The low lever of population dyn amics explained only part of the deforestation process. The low level of affluence, low level of technology, and low level of education also contributed to the modest level of deforestation. As the formal land status as Protection Forest conflicted with the perceptions of the loc al population, this may explain the little success of reforestation in the study area. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.