STUDIES ON CLIMATE CHANGES AND NATURAL RESOURCES MANAGEMENT: FINDINGS AND LESSON LEARNED FROM WEST SUMATERA, INDONESIA
Rudi Febriamansyah
Andalas Univesity, Padang - INDONESIA Corresponding author: Alamat email ini dilindungi dari robot spam. Anda memerlukan Javascript yang aktif untuk melihatnya.
ABSTRACT
As background, this paper try to review South East Asian climate at a millenial scope, i.e. Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) c.18,000 yrs B.P. to present. SEAn climates match the culture of ethnic groups. Natural resources provide them ecosystem services. Started from around 1850s, the Industrial Revolution was already spewing greenhouse gases (GHG) hence the Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC) problem. Aside from ACC, exponential human population growth (HPG) and deforestation (DF) are closely knit problems. Under a business-as- usual scenario, ACC will destroy natural resources and makes people vulnerable to ACC extreme events. In specific, this paper have tried to expose some empirical facts of the regional changes of climatic variabilities in West Sumatera, Indonesia and presents such identification of its impacts on natural resources and agricultural activities in the region. This study chose the case site in the surrounding Singkarak Lake as the rain-shadow region in West Sumatra.This PEER-USAID sponsored study found that there are significant changes of seasonal pattern of rainfall in this region during the last 30-40 years. The area in the eastern part of Singkarak relatively has become drier than in the western part Singkarak. Results from the vulnerability analysis shows that the villages in the eastern region became much more vulnerable compared with the villages in the west. Approximately more than 500 ha of upland paddy (rain-fed paddy) in the eastern region Singkarak is already over 30 years are not reprocessed, and many people are now working on dry-land crops and rubber plantation, or even work in non-agriculture jobs or migrate to the cities. Paddy farmers in this region are facing difficulties to set up their planting schedule. Some seasonal fruits, such as local mango (kwini) no longer have a peak plentiful annual harvest. From those identification studies, it can be concluded that the effects of global climate change has affected the regularity of the local climate in this area of study and then influence the natural resources condition and agricultural activities. Such empirical researchesare still being conducted in order to develop such adaptive agricultural management models, integrated catchment management model as well as the study on the behavioral changes of farmers in this affected regions of climate change.
Keywords: climate changes, agricultural activities, socio-economic impacts