Lokale ecologische kennis van bodem- en waterfuncties bij boeren in Sumberjaya, Sumatra, Indonesië. (Farmers’ local ecological knowledge of soil and watershed functions in Sumberjaya, Sumatra, Indonesia) (by/door Wim Schalenbourg)

Who could understand it better than the farmer himself? He, who lives day in day out in close contact with his land, seeing the rain, feeling the earth, growing his plants. The endless cycles of rains and droughts and of life and death cause tremendous accumulation of experience and complex interconnectedness of knowledge, completely entrenched within the complete framework of life, generated by and continuously renewing what is termed ‘culture’; a world vision from the inside out. This research project has been carried out for the farmers, by the farmers and with the farmers; therefore a first word of thanks should be addressed to the many farmers of Sumberjaya, for their enthusiasm and interest, for their wise words and their hard work. At the same time, I would like to express my gratitude to all farming people in the whole world, for providing our society with our daily food, for maintaining the link between man and nature that has become so fragile in today’s scienticised and modernised globalising world and for keeping alive the agriculture that remains at the core of all cultures.

How on earth could a young scientist, educated in a clean environment of books and computers, dreaming of the real world somewhere out there, possibly ever think to know more than those people out there? How come so many western researchers still disdain the profound knowledge and rich experience of peoples all over the world? Fortunately, I was brought up with an open mind in a stimulating environment; hence a following thank-you should be directed towards my parents, to whom I owe endless gratitude for their incessant support and caring to my sometimes incomprehensible and casuistic dreams and desires. Mama, papa, all this would have been impossible without you. An immediate attention here is given to the people of my ‘second home’, the ‘wereldwinkel’ of Hasselt, who showed me at the right moment that another world is possible and that it is worth working for with all energy.

As the farmers, their living conditions and their environment are the focus of our work – and of thousands of other research and development projects – it is self-evident that those farmers are involved to the maximum extent. However, many projects fail because insufficient attention is paid to the experiences and aspirations of local people and the cultural embeddedness of their whole life environment. Therefore, I appreciate very much the work the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) is doing in this respect, and I am very grateful towards the ICRAF team in Bogor for offering me this grand opportunity. Thank you, Pak Laxman, for you clear analyses and your useful comments throughout the whole field research. Thank you, Pak Bruno, for hosting me in your house in Bogor, for the long conversations and the enthusiast working spirit. Simultaneously, I value very much the fact that I was allowed to use this research for my final thesis at the Faculty of Agricultural and Applied Biological Sciences of the K.U. Leuven. After all, it is not obvious to write a thesis with a strong input of social sciences for the title of agricultural engineer. Thank you, Erik and Bart, for accepting my request and guiding me through the finalisation of my work.

The fieldwork in Sumberjaya was accomplished successfully thanks to Endy, thesis student from the University of Lampung, and the local ICRAF staff. Endy, tanpa kamu saya tidak mampu kemarin wawancara petani sebanyak, saya suka sekali meliti bersama kamu. Terima kasih, saya rindu dengan kamu dan orang lain di Sumber. Terima kasih Mas Rudy, Mas Eri, Mas Nugi, Mbak Vita, Maria dan Trudy. Working in such a nice atmosphere was really wonderful.

You deserve to be mentioned in capitals, HELEEN, for ceaselessly showing me the beauty of small things in life, confronting me with my own ideas and proving that even the pots in the kitchen can have deeper senses. Equal thanks are given to those who support me day in day out in all the challenges we face, thank you Andreja, Ellen, JoDi, Marga, Tore, the people at CoCoYam and all those others that I forget here and now but that I will remember forever.

Finally, this work is dedicated to all the people that struggle for a sustainable world full of respect and solidarity, against the oppression by the individualist and selfish system lead by consumption and economic growth. Together, we believe that a better world is possible!

Abstract

The Indonesian island of Sumatra consists of a chain of volcanoes and mountains running along its length and a vast lowland peneplain. One of the isolated valleys in the mountains is Sumberjaya. Sumberjaya remained relatively inaccessible by road and scarcely populated till the middle of the 20th century. Massive programmed and spontaneous immigration from neighbouring overpopulated areas triggered waves of deforestation and conversion to coffee gardens, which was the immediate cause of violent expulsion by governmental army forces. Currently, negotiation among all stakeholders should result in mutually beneficial solutions for these land use disputes. Therefore, it is interesting to investigate how farmers perceive the consequences of deforestation and the disintegration of the watershed functions in their area. This research has as objectives to construct a systematised knowledge base system using appropriate software programmes. Farmer knowledge on water and soil functions is obtained through in-depth interviews and questionnaires. Local interpretations of soil erosion, water quality and effects on the landscape level are aspects of attention. The collected knowledge is analysed thoroughly and compared to both conventional scientific knowledge and knowledge of other stakeholders in the area, such as non-farming villagers, agricultural extension officers and forestry service agents.

The findings of the research are that local farmers in Sumberjaya display a profound and detailed understanding of soil and water functions, reflecting a high degree of knowledge homogeneity between local subcommunities of farmers. Their local ecological knowledge is found consistent with and comparable to scientific hypotheses, and should be considered a complex of hybrid origin rather than a purely indigenous system. In spite of adequate farmer knowledge, little is done to prevent or inverse negative tendencies resulting from deforestation. Farmers clearly lack the incentives to implement their rich knowledge in practice. Reasons might be the harsh socio-economic conditions, the land tenure uncertainty and the difficulties of collective action to protect common resources.

List of used abbreviations

ICRAF: International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (now: World Agroforestry Centre)

1. Introduction

The subdistrict Sumberjaya (104º19’ - 104º34’ E, 4º55’ - 5º10’ S) with its 28 villages is located around the mountain Bukit Rigis (1623 m a.s.l.)[2] in the district of West Lampung and approximately equals the catchment area of the Way Besai, one of the main contributors to the Tulang Bawang river that flows east through the lowland peneplain. The subdistrict comprises 54,194 ha, of which 31,571 ha or 58.3% is officially State Forest land. In 1989, the total population was 87,390, consisting of Sundanese, Javanese, Semendonese, Balinese and some original Lampungese ethnic groups (Agus et al., 2002).

Sumberjaya is located in Lampung, the southern-most province of the island Sumatra, sometimes described as ‘North Java’, indicating its transitional nature between the densely populated island of Java and the rest of Sumatra. In the previous century there has been a lot of spontaneous and forced transmigration towards this province. As a result, only a minority originates from Lampung itself. Lampung province now has the highest population density of whole Sumatra and the lowest percentage of forest cover. Governmental programs for transmigration to Lampung province have stopped, but it is impossible to control spontaneous migration (Verbist, 2001).

The Sumberjaya area has a long history of human use, but population densities remained low until a few decades ago. Cultivation by the first Semendonese migrants in the first half of the 20^th century was a form of extensive shifting cultivation. The isolated position of the watershed prevented the region from being exploited on a larger scale (Ultee, 1949; Verbist et al., 2002).

In the early 1950s, Sundanese independence war veterans settled in Sumberjaya as the result of governmental transmigration programs. Spontaneous migrants from Java and Bali followed, attracted by the good soils (Charras and Pain, 1993; Benoit, 1999). These migrants brought along the techniques of irrigated rice cultivation and installed paddy fields in the valleys. Construction of new roads in the fifties caused transport costs to plummet, triggering more immigration and massive deforestation of the slopes, which in turn led to the actual conflict between the state forestry department and the farmers (Suyanto, 2000; Verbist, 2001).

Land use changed drastically since the 1970s, while immigration and population growth continued, especially in the 1980s. The rapid conversion of forest to coffee gardens after 1978 triggered commotion among foresters. There is an old widespread perception that local people would be unable to manage forests in a sustainable way (Junius, 1933; Huitema, 1935; Elmhirst, 1996; Kusworo, 2000).

Since the mid-1970s, some areas of cleared land have been reforested or intended to be reforested and since the late 1980s the Provincial government started to evict settlers, destroying their coffee gardens and houses located in the protection forest zone. Thousands of households were evicted; a part of them was transmigrated to North Lampung, while the rest had to leave on their own (Verbist et al., 2002).

In mid 1994, the construction of the World Bank funded Way Besai hydroelectric power plant (HEPP or PLTA) Project started, and to support this project the Forestry Department would enforce the disputed boundaries of State Forest Land together with a reforestation throughout the entire water catchment area (Kusworo, 2000). This led to a second wave of evictions and demolition in the villages located in the protection forest zone. Because of the large protest and objections of the villagers asking the status of their land to be officially clarified, the destruction of coffee farms and houses has been halted since 1996. The measures did not achieve their objectives as all coffee gardens destroyed and reforested are being reopened massively since mid 1998. Due to the ‘Reformasi’ movement following the economic and monetary crisis, the weakening of the centralised power diminished the enforcement capacity of the Forestry officials. This, together with high coffee prices, caused the natural forest clearing to reach a new peak from 1998 to 2000 (Kusworo, 2000).

The Forestry Department starts realising that their hard approach does not work and participates now in the negotiation support system for Community Forestry Management Schemes. Villagers hope that some part of their territory can be reclassified as private land and local communities hope to get formal recognition to manage their coffee farms in forest land through HKm (Hutan Kemasyarakatan: Community Forestry) certificates. Contracts and agreements between the Forestry Department and farmer groups could be used as tools to control how farmers use forest land. One of the constraints is that there are no clear criteria or guidelines on how farmers should manage this forest land, which creates a very confusing situation for the local community. Some farmers organised themselves in pre-HKm groups to fulfil the prerequisites (such as maps, management plan and group legalisation), and to co-ordinate the procedure of application in order to get the formal right to manage state forest land (Kusworo, 2000). By now (November 2002), temporary permits have already been given to 2 farmer groups in Gunung Terang village. Twelve other groups have applied and are in negotiation.

Today, coffee gardens (kebun kopi) are the dominant land use in the region, ranging from monoculture sun coffee to mixed agroforestry.[3] Quite some families have both irrigated rice fields (sawah) and coffee gardens (kebun kopi), which provide them the ideal combination of cash and food commodities (Kusworo, 2000). Since coffee prices plummeted the latest years, more and more farmers convert their coffee gardens to vegetable fields.[4]

In some villages (such as Sukapura, Tribudi Sukur, Simpang Sari and Cipta Waras), the local community protects intact natural forests according to schemes developed a long time ago, in spite of clashes with illegal loggers and farmers from other villages. They have so-called forbidden forests (hutan tutupan), village forests (hutan desa) and reserved forest that may be cleared (hutan cadangan). The local community’s reason to protect the forest is to conserve the springs supplying water for domestic use, rice fields and fish ponds and to avoid landslides. Other villages (like Suka Jaya, Fajar Bulan and Tri Mulyo) could not develop or enforce such protection schemes and there almost all forest adjacent to the villages has been cleared (Kusworo, 2000).

Deforestation still continues. Only on the crests, ridges and very steep slopes there is still forest left, where it would hardly interfere with watershed functions. Paradoxically, it seems that there are more trees in the coffee gardens on the private land than in the State Forest Land (Verbist, 2001).

The following is based on information out of internal evaluation and planning reports of ICRAF-SEA (ICRAF 1998, 2000, 2001).

In 1998, ICRAF and partners started a research project in Sumberjaya to have a closer look at watershed degradation and rehabilitation in foothills and mountain zones. ‘Watershed protection’ is the raison d’être for the ‘protection forests’ of the Indonesian state forest classification, with strong restriction on local use of such forest lands. In this approach, the main objective of the Forestry Department is to control erosion by forest protection. The conversion of forest to various other land use systems, such as coffee, is perceived to increase erosion and to have a large negative impact on downstream beneficiaries.

The Forestry department uses three criteria to define critical areas: rainfall, soil type and slope. However, these criteria are interpreted in such a way that not less than 80 % of Indonesia should be protected. It seems that the Forestry Department uses these apparent objective criteria to control an area as large as possible, rather than to provide a realistic framework for the management of critical zones.

One of the underlying principles for current Indonesian legislation to protect watersheds by classifying large areas as protection forests is the empirical USLE (Universal Soil Loss Equation). On the watershed level, however, this equation does not seem to take into account the spatial distribution of various land use types and thus the effect of filter elements as the natural forest cover, a paddy rice field or an agroforest. On the watershed level, it is not so important how many filter elements there are in the landscape, but far more where they are spatially located. Roads and footpaths on the other hand have the opposite effect of filters and work as channels of erosion, which also have to be taken into account.

Forest conversion in much of Southeast Asia is not a black-or-white deforestation process, but a gradual loss of forest functions in changing agroforestry landscape mosaics. Existing institutions and policies are largely based on a forest-agriculture land use dichotomy and this may lead to an unnecessary sense of conflict. The issue is of particular relevance where supposed watershed protection functions have been the basis for regulations of access to land, as in Sumberjaya. The perception that only natural forests are able to maintain these functions is an oversimplification.

Hence, the key hypothesis in ICRAF’s current research is that some farmer developed agroforestry mosaics are as effective in watershed protection functions as the original forest cover. As a result, conflicts between state forest managers and local population can be resolved to mutual benefit. Therefore, an iterative stakeholder analysis is in progress to allow articulation of the objectives of the stakeholders and to establish a negotiation support system in order to put stakeholders on a more equal footing and help them in negotiating an agreement over future resource use and access rights.

Assessment of the types of local land use that could meet the aims of watershed protection can be a much more efficient and cost effective way of achieving the government’s objectives. The idea is to collect several case studies in order to demonstrate that a lack of insight makes current regulations feeding conflicts, as in Sumberjaya. Through new biophysical insights in the landscape level processes of soil and water conservation, these conflicts can be avoided.

The objective of this research is to assess farmers’ perceptions of soil and watershed functions in Sumberjaya, Lampung province, Sumatra. This farmer knowledge of the interactions between trees, soils, crops and other elements of the agroforest ecosystem can complement and contrast the scientific ecological knowledge. Documenting and analysing this local knowledge, which is the base for current management decisions, helps to support the farmer as natural resource manager and plays an important role in finding a solution to mutual benefit of all stakeholders in the official negotiations concerning sustainable land uses that restore the watershed functions.

ICRAF already investigated farmers’ perceptions of erosion problems and conservation needs on the plot level, but not yet on the watershed level. The objective of this research is to focus more on the watershed level, and integrate and compare the farmers’ perceptions of the problems on different scales.

More specifically, our research focuses on assessing the local ecological knowledge about land suitability concerning erosion and watershed functions, for land uses such as coffee cultivation systems, protected forest, paddy rice fields, and others. Attention will be given both to the functioning of local structures to implement this knowledge and to the consequences for water quality in the watershed. As a result, our research has four main objectives.

What exactly do farmers know about the erosion problem, its causes and consequences for the watershed? Is there any local knowledge about landscape filter elements such as natural forest, agroforest and paddy rice fields? How do villagers select the best locations for these land uses and how do farmers perceive their roles in conservation of watershed functions?

Attention is given to analyse the method of cultivation and the dependence of the practiced farming system on the location in the catchment, the site topography and erosion hazard. The land tenure situation, ethnic background and tradition, time of conversion to coffee, experience in coffee farming in Sumberjaya, different social status and economic welfare of the farming family and importance of other crops on the farm, could be other determinant factors for farmers to choose for a specific farming system or land use.

If we can obtain a clear analysis of which factors dominate in their influence on the farmer’s choice for a particular cultivation method or land use, we will have a tool to help directing this choice into a sustainable direction, acceptable for all stakeholders, through extension, research or policies.

Another interesting point to focus on is water quality and farmers’ ideas about water problems, the causes and the possible solutions for these problems. How do farmers obtain the necessary water for household use, for irrigating the rice fields and for the fishponds? What are the alternative water sources the community disposes of? Do they notice an aggravating situation the last years and do they relate this to the deforestation and erosion problems? Is the protection of some forest zones near sources and rivers related to protection of water quality? Do farmers see any connection between landscape filter elements, such as irrigated rice fields and multistrata coffee, and water quality?

A third objective derives from the local community’s request to assist them in participatory village land use and land suitability mapping. There is a need for a land status map depicting state land, public land, community based state land management areas, etc, with commonly accepted boundaries, essential to be used in the negotiation process.

A first step in this direction might be to come up with a list of criteria that villagers and farmers use to distinguish, evaluate and classify different land units for different uses. In this way we might construct some kind of legend with guidelines on how to proceed with this participatory mapping process. An assessment of local knowledge about different soil types, their properties and suitability for different land uses is of primordial importance in this matter.

The Local Ecological Knowledge of farmers in Sumberjaya is compared to conventional scientific knowledge, as held by ICRAF and other scientists. In the end, it might also be interesting for the negotiation support model to parallel the local farmer knowledge with the perceptions of the other involved stakeholders, as there are non-farming villagers, extension officers of the local government, directors of the PLTA dam and officials of the Forestry Department. On which points do their views and ideas differ mostly from the farmers’ vision?

2. Local Ecological Knowledge: a review of the literature

Several concepts are used to characterise the knowledge held by local people all over the world. Now, it is commonly required by policies that this local, traditional or indigenous ecological knowledge (LEK, TEK or TK, IK) is incorporated into sustainable development, environmental assessment and resource management programs. However, the definitions of these knowledge concepts are inconsistent and unclear (Stirrat, 1998; Usher, 2000) and generally do not include the living and dynamic character of the knowledge (Ellen, 1998). Blaikie et al. (1997, p. 218) define ‘knowledge’ in general as:

“the way people understand the world, the ways in which they interpret and apply meaning to their experiences. Knowledge is not about the discovery of some final objective ‘truth’ but about the grasping of subjective, culturally conditioned products emerging from complex and ongoing processes involving selection, rejection, creation, development and transformation of information. This is inextricably linked to the social environmental and institutional contexts.”

The word ‘indigenous’, appearing as IK in publications since 1979 (Warren, 1998), refers to specific groups of people, defined by the criteria of ancestral territory, collective cultural configuration, and historical location in relation to the expansion of Europe (Purcell, 1998). The use of IK rests on recognition of the role of knowledge in the power relations constituted by the expansion of Europe, a perspective based on a humanistic unease with the effect of westernisation on indigenous peoples, and hence it constitutes a critique of aspects of Western knowledge (Purcell, 1998; Warren, 1998). The UN defines ‘indigenous peoples’ in a similar way as “having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies”. In the early 1990s however, the need was felt to expand the UN definition to histories of non-Western colonisation as it is rather the relationship to the nation state in its present role and to colonial and postcolonial processes that is important to consider (Muehlebach, 2001). Yet, many farmers in the world are non-indigenous peasants who do not benefit from a rich cultural tradition and draw upon the experience of only a limited number of generations (Ryder, 2003). Therefore, ‘indigenous’ might not be the most appropriate term to name the ecological knowledge held by rural people.

Another frequently used term is ‘traditional knowledge’, but one of the greatest qualities of this knowledge is said to be its ability to respond to feedbacks from the environment, to incorporate both each new generation’s experiences and reinterpreted aspects of knowledge of other origin, evolving continually and thereby remaining current and vital (Sillitoe, 1998; Berkes et al., 2000; Brodt, 2001; Davis and Wagner, 2003; Pandey, 2003). Many authors indicate farmers’ capacity to innovate, experiment and creatively search for improvements of their system. Thus their knowledge does not need to be traditional as it can also consist of recent innovations by local people (Pretty and Shah, 1997; Warren, 1998; Critchley, 1999; Critchley, 2000; Brodt, 2001; Critchley and Mutunga, 2003). Hence, it seems better to use the broader sense of the concept of ‘Local Ecological Knowledge’, as it does not make any necessary links with past traditions or community history. Broader and more acceptable definitions are as follows:

Much of the knowledge is implicit in the practical experiences and people are not familiar with expressing it in words; knowledge is indeed as much skill as concept (Sillitoe, 1998). This kind of ecological knowledge held by local people also exists in more developed parts of the world (Ellen and Harris, 2000; Olsson and Folke, 2001; WinklerPrins and Sandor, 2003).

LEK is much more than a collection of individual experiences and perceptions, as it expresses the richness and depth of human community and its relations with and understandings of the local environment and ecology. It is a socially and culturally rooted ‘knowledge system’, a more or less coherent structure that assembles a complexity of individual elements that jointly constitute ‘culture’ (Brodt, 2001; Davis and Wagner, 2003).

An important characteristic of local knowledge, as indicated by the definitions above, is its embeddedness in a cultural framework, as it is born through generations of intimate contact with the land (Sandor and Furbee, 1996; Stirrat, 1998; Kimmerer, 2002; and many others). Therefore, conservation of this local knowledge is inextricably connected to the ecological resilience of the environment (Berkes et al., 2000; Muehlebach, 2001; Pandey, 2003).

Many cultures are losing their LEK due to economic and social change and assimilation into the globalising, scientising and therefore homogenising world at a rate that may not allow us even to know what value such systems had (Sandor and Furbee, 1996; Brodt, 2001; Pandey, 2003; WinklerPrins and Sandor, 2003). Nevertheless, the often-marginalised local knowledge is argued to be able to survive despite of substantial disruptions to local lifestyles (Ross and Pickering, 2002). The diversity of local ecosystem management practices sustains because of the above-mentioned continuous adaptation to changing circumstances and because of social mechanisms such as local institutions, leadership, regulatory rules and norms, and cultural internalisation of traditional practices (Berkes et al., 2000).[5] However, farmers are not always able to adjust their knowledge to rapid changes in farming systems and increasing intensity of land use (Sillitoe, 1998; Ellis-Jones and Tengberg, 2000). Nevertheless, complete replacement and loss of local knowledge is uncommon as some parts of the knowledge system are likely to persist, depending on several attributes: the generality of the knowledge, the adaptability of the user, the hierarchy in the knowledge system, the interconnectedness of subsystems and the scale of application. Only that knowledge that seems useful to the users themselves – in spiritual, technical or other terms – is likely to survive (Brodt, 2001).

Top-down scientific approaches such as the green revolution, involving researchers and extension agents in the transfer of a technology paradigm largely fail the small-scale farmers, causing strategies to be reconsidered (Critchley et al., 1994; Sillitoe, 1998; Zuberi, 1998; Critchley, 2000). Often, farmers are still viewed as mismanagers of soil and water and have been advised, paid and forced to adopt new technologies procedures that often appear alien and sometimes deprive them of control over their own activities. Most efforts have been remarkably unsuccessful, undermining the credibility of technology transfer and modern science, wasting huge sums of money and causing widespread environmental degradation (Pretty and Shah, 1997; Sillitoe, 1998; Ellis-Jones and Tengberg, 2000; Kimmerer, 2002). The local people find themselves ill-adapted to their own habitat, as their indigenous knowledge has been decreed to be no longer useful. Lack of respect for others’ ways leads to offensive interference in their lives (Sillitoe, 1998; Zuberi, 1998). Agricultural-development research has focused mostly on cash crops and fertiliser trials and recommendations, whereas socio-economic problems make such commercial developments difficult and inappropriate as subsistence farmers lack the resources to take advantage of them. It would make more sense to assess indigenous practices regarding soils and fertility management (Sillitoe, 1998).

In academia, study of local knowledge occurred over the past four or five decades in the anthropological areas of ethno-science and human ecology (Sillitoe, 1998). Crucially depending on a change in paradigms that structure conceptions of development over the last two decades, the importance of LEK for a development-focused perspective has increasingly been recognised, causing a boom in LEK related research and applications (Critchley et al., 1994; Sandor and Furbee, 1996; Pretty and Shah, 1997; Norton et al., 1998; Sillitoe, 1998; Critchley, 1999; Critchley, 2000; Thomson, 2000; Hall and Bigler-Cole, 2001; Muehlebach, 2001; Huntington et al., 2002; Kimmerer, 2002; Ross and Pickering, 2002; Davis and Wagner, 2003; Grossman, 2003; Niemeijer and Mazzucato, 2003; Pandey, 2003; Robbins, 2003; WinklerPrins and Sandor, 2003; and many others). Farmers are now considered the potential solution rather than the problem. Applications of LEK are enormous in a wide range of disciplines such as agricultural development, soil science and land suitability assessment, technology development, soil and water conservation, ecology, pharmaceutical botany, ecosystem management, conservation biology, ecological restoration, participatory development, development assistance, medicine, land use and management, GIS analysis, agricultural extension, forestry, fish and wildlife sciences and many more.

Acknowledgement of LEK is presumed as critical to fostering the development of respect for what people know. LEK is human-centred, providing peoples and communities with a greater capacity to self-direct and self-manage, thereby empowering them through provision of control over core factors in their lives and livelihoods (Sillitoe, 1998; Davis and Wagner, 2003). LEK has value not only for the wealth of ecological information it contains but also for the cultural framework of respect, reciprocity and responsibility in which it is embedded (Kimmerer, 2002). Others also may have something to teach us: the cross-cultural study of their knowledge may advance our scientific understanding of natural processes by challenging our concepts and ideas (Sillitoe, 1998).

A growing number of multilateral development agencies (e.g., the World Bank and United Nations agencies such as ILO, FAO, UNEP, UNDP, WIPO and UNESCO) and bilateral agencies are recognising that involvement of existing knowledge systems can make projects more cost-effective and sustainable (Warren, 1998). Principle 22 of the Declaration on Environment and Development (on the Convention on Biological Diversity in Rio, 1992) states that “indigenous people and their communities have a vital role in environmental management and development because of their knowledge and traditional practices.” The Convention promotes the wider application of such knowledge with the approval and involvement of communities and encourages the equitable sharing of benefits. (Muehlebach, 2001; Kimmerer, 2002; Pandey, 2003). The United Nations even have a Working Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP) where indigenous delegates themselves articulate notions of indigenous culture, politics and activism (Muehlebach, 2001).

Knowledge held by local people and knowledge of scientists and researchers are generally considered to differ, although they are judged complementary and can exchange useful information and views. Hence, experts call for more communication, combination, collaboration and integration with LEK systems, and give several examples in the literature (Sillitoe, 1998; Gobin et al., 2000b; Mackinson, 2001; Olsson and Folke, 2001; Zurayk et al., 2001; Huntington et al., 2002; Davis and Wagner, 2003; Pandey, 2003).

According to Kimmerer (2002), LEK and scientific knowledge have their source in common as both knowledge systems yield detailed empirical information of natural phenomena and relationships among ecosystem components and have certain predictive power. However, LEK observations tend to be qualitative, holistic and set within an ecosystem framework, whereas scientific observations tend to be quantitative, categorised and compartmentalised. Western science is conducted in an academic culture in which nature is viewed strictly objectively. The scientific community prides itself on data that are value free, while LEK is laden with associated values. It is much more than the empirical information concerning ecological relationships; it is woven into and inseparable from the culture, including an ethic of respect and obligations between humans and their environment. In indigenous science, nature is subject, not object. Such holistic ways of understanding the environment offer alternatives to the dominant consumptive values of Western societies (Kimmerer, 2002; Ross and Pickering, 2002).

Thus, several authors describe local knowledge systems as being an epistemological system separate and unique from all others and particularly Western science (Usher, 2000; Cools et al., 2003; Davis and Wagner, 2003; Robbins, 2003). Many authors classify knowledge systems into two broad and fundamentally different categories: western formal scientific knowledge and local indigenous informal knowledge (Blaikie et al., 1997; Sillitoe, 1998).

Ferradás (1998) argues that indigenous knowledge is a contested concept as “Indigenous knowledge” is considered the knowledge of an ‘other’ who becomes defined in opposition to an authoritative ‘we’, vaguely presented as scientists from the West, privileged enlightened revealers of truth. Anthropology and other social sciences have been addressing for some time the problems entailed in thinking of the world in terms of antinomies such as scientific western knowledge versus indigenous knowledge, for sure a well-entrenched dichotomy. Each pole is assumed as a totality with an internal logic and independent of the other (Ferradás, 1998).

Comparative studies do, however, indicate far more uniformity among the local and scientific systems than ever had been anticipated: there is little point in dichotomising them. Local knowledge is increasingly acknowledged to be scientific (Agrawal, 1995; Warren, 1998; Kimmerer, 2002; Niemeijer and Mazzucato, 2003; Robbins, 2003). Differences are not epistemological but more a matter of communication, politics, priorities, and a whole range of other institutional and cultural issues (Martin, 2003; Robbins, 2003; Wilson, 2003). Boundaries between scientific and local knowledge systems are falling apart once one realises the social, cultural and political character of all knowledge and worldviews. All scientific practice is filled with efforts at consensus, negotiation and struggle. Each side has its own filter through which people perceive and make sense of the real situation before them. Exclusive truth claims are not now tenable on the part of either science or local knowledge systems (Agrawal, 1995; Cleveland, 1998; Forsyth, 1998; Norton et al., 1998; Stirrat, 1998; Robbins, 2000; Barth, 2002; Kimmerer, 2002; Pandey, 2003; Robbins, 2003).

Many knowledge systems are in reality neither indigenous nor exogenous but rather hybrid in character, combining knowledge from different origins (Sillitoe, 1998; Brodt, 2001; Dove, 2002). Knowledge is in reality diversified, dynamic and heterogeneous, as clearly shown for migrant peasants all over the world. Knowledge production is seen as a process of social negotiation involving multiple actors and complex power relations (Nygren, 1999).

Study of LEK sits at the intersection of the natural and social sciences and the humanities. Therefore, hybrid methods and epistemologies are required and methods are a continual challenge (WinklerPrins and Sandor, 2003). Several authors mention the lack of detailed and efficient methodologies for documenting, presenting and operationalising LEK. However, other authors such as Ross and Pickering (2002) do not agree with this. Still, many researchers do not provide detailed descriptions of the methods they use (Sillitoe, 1998; Thomson, 2000; Usher, 2000; Davis and Wagner, 2003). This absence of discussion impedes further development of appropriate methodologies (Davis and Wagner, 2003). Frequently encountered problems arise from the fact that LEK often only has localised and cultural relevance, and that most information is presented in anecdotal form, difficult to classify and analyse (Sillitoe, 1998; Thomson, 2000). Interpretation and assessment of LEK alongside scientific criteria is contentious and difficult as much of the knowledge is symbolic and pragmatic, while we constrain understanding in reducing everything to words (Ellen, 1998; Sillitoe, 1998). Notably absent to date are accounts of how LEK has been employed in real, as opposed to hypothetical and theoretical, resource management settings (Davis and Wagner, 2003). The complex contexts in which development workers operate are often such that operationalising the insights gained from imaginative research programmes is an extremely difficult process. The result is that the products of successful research programmes are rarely used in the practice of development (Stirrat, 1998).

Some advocate a romanticised vision of LEK systems as traditional and ecologically sound, projecting onto them their own critiques of modernity and hence promoting the conservation of peoples and their lores as they imagine they should be. We need to guard against these perils (Ferradás, 1998; Sillitoe, 1998; Pandey, 2003). Valuable knowledge must be distinguished from myths and the science behind the traditions must be identified (Pandey, 2003). In practice, scientific or technical knowledge is used as a means to differentiate between ‘useful’ or ‘correct’ LEK and ‘useless’ or ‘incorrect’ LEK (Stirrat, 1998).

Several authors lament the widely used technique of extracting small parts of the useful LEK out of cultural context, translating it into positivist language, treating it as independent technical facts and incorporating it in the more familiar context of Western science as part of a paradigm that remains essentially top-down, although considered as participatory. Western scientific models are imposed uncritically, which results in distorted understanding and ill-informed, decontextualised knowledge results. Many so-called indigenous knowledge reports radically disembody particular bits of proclaimed useful knowledge from the rest of culture in a way that does a profound disservice to its potential importance (Ellen, 1998; Ferradás, 1998; Sillitoe, 1998; Thomson, 2000; Ross and Pickering, 2002; Kimmerer, 2002; Campbell and Vainio-Mattila, 2003). Scienticising and rewrapping LEK precisely causes the lack of theoretical and methodological coherence in its research (Ellen, 1998).

Still, in-depth understanding of the local culture is required to assess the impacts of interventions and to understand how projects can possibly improve local peoples’ livelihoods (Ellen, 1998; Zuberi, 1998). The considerable problems in trying to understand something about others’ sociocultural traditions are not to be glossed over; this is indisputably no easy or short-term task and misrepresenting them will lead to disillusionment. The time scale of ethnographic research is considerable, and this presents problems for development projects with their short-term orientation and politically driven requirement of quick returns. It is not just a question of the time it takes to learn the language and the sociocultural basics, but also a matter of the investment needed to win the trust and confidence of the people. Understanding another culture is extremely difficult as knowledge is transferred using idioms alien to science; translating another culture is inevitably distorting (Sillitoe, 1998). Researchers consider a few meetings with local farmers for “listening to community concerns” a way of understanding the local knowledge system of farming. Good intention is, however, insufficient for bridging the gap separating a different cultural history and place (Norton et al., 1998; Stone, 1998). Many Western scientists manifest a lack of respect for others’ knowledge traditions, assuming technological superiority as the answer for all problems (Sillitoe, 1998; Ross and Pickering, 2002).

However, Ellen (1998) opinions that many scientists – though not all – are willing to learn but have little understanding of LEK research and can find few anthropological expertise accessible to scientists. Anthropologists from their side indeed need to avoid producing esoteric and inaccessible ethnographic accounts. Their work is often sterile and undynamic from a developmental perspective (Sillitoe, 1998). Nevertheless, LEK is largely ignored in science curricula so that acknowledgement or understanding of LEK is rare in the scientific community (Kimmerer, 2002). The bottom line is perhaps that all researchers should ideally have some awareness of anthropological issues to promote an awareness of alterity and its implications (Sillitoe, 1998). Consideration and examination of alternative interpretations from a cross-cultural perspective trains scientists to think critically rather than passively accept a familiar paradigm and reveals cultural assumptions underlying Western science and technology. The culture of science is perceived as unwelcoming, exclusionary and hostile to traditional ways of knowing and a large division exists between training in science and humanities, causing very capable students to abandon their science education because of the perception that science prohibits the expression of cultural concerns and a personal connection to nature (Kimmerer, 2002).

Sillitoe (1998) argues that rapid rural appraisal (RRA) and participatory rural appraisal (PRA) cannot replace anthropological enquiries. It can take several years, not months or weeks, for someone unacquainted with a region to achieve sufficient anthropological insight into local knowledge and practices to illuminate developmental problems. Brokensha (1998) however replies that RRA is in most cases better than nothing, which is so often the only alternative. Providing that the anthropologist is familiar both with the region and the topic, he or she can make a meaningful contribution.

To bridge the gap between science and LEK, facilitatory methods that combine anthropological skills with science need to be promoted. Interdisciplinary work as it already takes place, combining the empathy of social scientists with the technical know-how of natural scientists implies a willingness to learn from one another (Sillitoe, 1998; Stirrat, 1998). New methodologies for dialogue with local knowledge holders will, however, not emerge until indigenous peoples have political and economic parity with development forces. The discourse on traditional knowledge has to be weaved into political actions that ensure the rights of indigenous peoples to define themselves, their knowledge and our access to it (Posey, 1998).

What passes as an interest in indigenous knowledge can at times be little more than a means by which commercial interests gain control over what were previously free resources (Stirrat, 1998). For many, indigenous knowledge has become a valuable commodity that can be patented and copyrighted (Ferradás, 1998; Muehlebach, 2001). Protection of LEK from exploitation has often been framed in terms of intellectual property rights, which are intended to ensure equitable benefits from the use of LEK. However, indigenous rights control over LEK is essential to cultural survival for the people who have generated and maintained this knowledge. Misappropriation of traditional ecological knowledge can lead to adverse consequences, such as resource exploitation and misuse of knowledge (Kimmerer, 2002; WinklerPrins and Sandor, 2003). An interest in indigenous knowledge can thus have a disempowering impact on the poor (Stirrat, 1998). Many debates are being waged on the significance and consequences that the commercialisation of indigenous knowledge might entail (Muehlebach, 2001). International indigenous activism is a transnational cultural political movement and has always aimed at what has gone wrong in the world today as many relationships are marked by exploitation, oppression and short-sightedness. Indigenous delegates attack the core of all civilising rationality, namely the denial of man that he is part of nature. They insist on the inseparability of two seemingly separable realms – ecology and ethnicity (Muehlebach, 2001). Indigenous concepts and beliefs challenge the hegemony of the Western construct of ‘power dominance and progress’ over the untamed ‘wilderness’.

3. Materials and Methods

As discussed in the literature review, there is a lack of attention to consistent methodology for documenting local ecological knowledge (Davis and Wagner, 2003). Nevertheless, the followed methodology corresponds to most descriptions and indications found in LEK research literature.

During the fieldwork, I co-operated closely with Endy Stefanus D., student of the University of Lampung (UNILA), both focussing on different but related aspects of the above mentioned objectives.

The design of a detailed knowledge elicitation strategy has been undertaken during a period of introduction and establishment with the source community of farmers in Sumberjaya. In this way key parameters that might account for differences in knowledge could be determined and used as variables to stratify the local informants.

Our sampling strategy was based upon previous data and reports such as the work of Kusworo (2000) who has investigated communal protection and farmers’ situation in a number of villages, and the work of Chapman (2001) and Risdiyanto on local farmer knowledge on erosion and soil conservation at plot level in three villages. As the soil and watershed functions and their integration on the landscape level were to be the core of our attention, we chose to select farmers from two subcatchments of the Way Besai watershed. After discussion with the local ICRAF field staff, we decided to concentrate on the Way Petai and Way Ringkih subcatchments. For the validation test of the elicited knowledge we selected additional farmers in the same two subcatchments and in an extra third test area, the Way Kumpai subcatchment.

The field research was initiated with explorative walks in the subcatchments to get acquainted with the area and the cultivation methods and associated problems, and to identify the factors of variation that were potentially determining for farmer knowledge differences.

With the help of aerial orthophotomaps and GPS, as accurate maps for the area were not available, it was possible to have a good view of the different catchments after only a short time of exploration. On the hand of visual landform characterisation, the subcatchments were divided in three areas, denominated upstream, midstream and downstream zone. The upstream area consists of a bunch of small streams coming out of the primary forest located on the top of the Bukit Rigis mountain. The most recently cleared land is located in this zone and paddy rice fields have been constructed in flatter parts of the valleys. The midstream zone starts where the small streams join to a single or a few rivers of larger size, but the valleys are still small and the slopes so steep that the paddy rice field presence is not possible over the full length of the river. The downstream area is characterised by a broad, meandering and slow streaming river, a wide and flat valley serving as large paddy rice field area, surrounded by hills with moderately steep slopes cultivated as coffee gardens. The downstream area ends at the tributary’s intersection with the Way Besai river. The downstream and midstream farmers mostly have their houses in or near the village, whereas some upstream farmers have permanent houses near their fields.

In both subcatchments, a limited but representative number of farmers was to be interviewed, in order to get an image of the content and coherence of the local knowledge. The interviewed farmer sample has been more or less equally stratified according to position in the watershed (upstream, midstream or downstream) and ethnic group (Semendonese, Sundanese or Javanese), in order to ensure coverage of the knowledge since different classes of people might have different views as suggested by earlier research (Chapman, 2001). For every farmer additional parameters that could possibly cause knowledge differences were collected, such as field type (coffee garden, paddy rice field, vegetable garden or a combination of these), age and type of coffee garden, age of farmer, length of stay in the area and ownership status of the land.

An essential issue in LEK research is the way local knowledge experts are identified and selected, since not all persons within local settings are equally knowledgeable (Blaikie et al., 1997; Brokensha, 1998; Warren, 1998; Davis and Wagner, 2003). Davis and Wagner (2003) suggest to base the selection on responses of large samples of resource users asked to identify those considered especially knowledgeable, in this way systematically gathering peer recommendations. However, a complex process involving social and political factors and relations affects the designation of local knowledge expertise. Hence, one can question whether a broadly consultative process truly leads to a consensus. Brodt (2001) advises a less systematic ‘snowballing’ technique, whereby villagers are asked for the names of most knowledgeable farmers who are subsequently interviewed and asked for more names of most knowledgeable farmers, and so on. A disadvantage of both techniques might be that villagers often point the village chief, the local doctor or the teacher of the school as most knowledgeable person, whereas those are obviously less entrenched in the frequent use and regular management of natural resources. An alternative approach can be to use the suggestions of local notables such as community leaders and representatives, or the referrals from local associations, initial key informants and early contact persons (Brodt, 2001; Davis and Wagner, 2003). Brodt (2001) also suggests that the observations of notable home gardens or field plantings can lead to the identification of knowledgeable interview candidates.

In practice, a combination of these suggestions was used, though not in a very systematic way. Leaders of the local farmer groups and the local ICRAF staff indicated most knowledgeable farmers who were assumed to show a reasonable willingness to participate in the research. Other candidates were selected during walks across the field plantings.

As the knowledge systems developed over generations of experiences and observations within very specific settings, deep knowledge is commonly ascribed to persons of advanced age and profound experience, although wisdom is not always associated by the local community with those who have accumulated most experience, i.e. the elder (Davis and Wagner, 2003). Nevertheless, it is important to focus on people that have a deep and rich historical relation with the environment and ecosystem of that specific locality (Brodt, 2001). Hence, we opted to focus on those farmers who already live and farm in this area for a long time, which enables them to see certain trends in changing watershed functions over time. Therefore, farmers who came into the area and started farming less than five years ago have not been relied upon for knowledge elicitation.

Four preliminary conversations with farmers were undertaken in order to gain familiarity with the farmer’s terminology and to get an idea of the basic and universal knowledge held by the farmers. After this, problem specification could be refined and a detailed topic list[6] for interviews could be set up, clearly delineating the objectives and providing a useful base to start the knowledge elicitation. Davis and Wagner (2003) confirm the importance of specifying the knowledge domain and determining which among the wide variety of experiences and observations is of particular importance and interest.

Knowledge elicitation is the process whereby selected informants are encouraged to articulate their knowledge (Dixon et al., 2001). As mentioned before, this is done through repeated interviews with farmers, but it can also be abstracted from written material, such as records from previous analyses in research involving farmers from the same villages. Techniques to gather information include semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, telephone surveys and participant observation (Davis and Wagner, 2003). Ethnographic techniques of knowledge elicitation as used by anthropologists have been recognised as useful in the development of expert systems because they capture insider knowledge, or knowledge described and explained from the informant’s point of view (Benfer and Furbee, 1990). We followed an ‘emic’ approach, in which knowledge is to be gathered in a way that reflects the structure of the indigenous knowledge system and allows the representation of that knowledge system to be intuitively correct to the informant (Werner and Schoepfle, 1987).

Starting from semi-structured topic lists was considered most appropriate to conduct domain-centred in-depth face-to-face interviewing with the goal of achieving demonstrable information saturation on a set of specified core questions (Gobin et al., 2000; Davis and Wagner, 2003; Visser et al., 2003). These open-ended interviews allow people to describe their knowledge using their own words. Particular words and expressions can be noted down verbatim in order to preserve their emic nature (Brodt, 2001). The interviews were largely informal as the conversations were allowed to flow in directions the farmer felt were important (Grossman, 2003). Because much knowledge is tacit and has been learnt through observation and experience, it is important to attempt to reduce social and intellectual barriers when interviewing; as researcher it is advisable to assume the role of student desirous to learn, and not of scientist or teacher. Own influence has to be minimised and judgement during the elicitation has to be suspended; the information as contributed by the farmer has to be considered as being the truth, as we are only trying to structure and understand their way of thinking (Dixon et al., 2001). Indeed, one must accept the risk that the results may not confirm preferences and presumptions, let alone produce desired outcomes (Davis and Wagner, 2003).

The interviews were conducted in Indonesian language (bahasa Indonesia), a language commonly known by all peasants in Sumberjaya. Sometimes however, the farmers used Sundanese and Javanese concepts and expressions, which rendered comprehension more difficult. It was an enormous advantage not having to work with translators, which mostly slows down the conversations and makes the barriers between researcher and farmer harder to bridge (Grossman, 2003). The use of appropriate language and concepts, comprehensible for the farmers and being part of their own vocabulary, is critical in knowledge acquisition (Benfer and Furbee, 1993). The interviews took place in the farmers’ houses or in the fields and lasted from half an hour to one hour. The interviews were completely registered using a tape recorder to be able to fully concentrate on the discussion during the interview and to ensure no important points were missed while writing statements afterwards. Tape recording of interviews indeed is a basic knowledge elicitation technique (Thomson, 2000).

The analysis took place immediately after the interviews, extracting all useful information from the recorded material in the form of natural language statements in Indonesian with the vocabulary as used by the farmers. Listening repeatedly to the recorded material has proven to be necessary to capture the background and context of the information articulated by the farmer, essential to be able to understand what exactly he or she is trying to formulate. New information had to be confirmed by other informants and was added to the topic list. Eventual doubts or inconsistencies could be clarified by going back to the same informants.

In this way 17 interviews[7] were accomplished in the Way Petai subcatchment, followed by a thorough analysis of the gathered knowledge using the appropriate software (see below). Consequently the research progress was evaluated, the information was compared with the research objectives and eventual gaps in the collected knowledge were identified so a revised topic list[8] could be set up, focusing more on those topics on which the information was still unclear and incomplete. Further on, nine farmers in the Way Ringkih zone were interviewed and the knowledge elicitation process was finalised when the new information brought in by subsequent interviews had declined to a negligible amount. Davis and Wagner (2003) opinion that a systematic methodological approach when identifying LEK experts is necessary to ensure the quality and accuracy of the gathered information. They suggest a minimum of three observations to be gathered respecting each particular ecological, environmental or resource behavioural knowledge claim. Not all topics are covered in all interviews but each topic should be covered by a large enough sample (Brodt, 2001). Hence, the ideal research design would require the identification of a pool of at least five LEK experts within each community area. Nevertheless, this approach does not guarantee the completeness or quality of documented information (Davis at Wagner, 2003). An alternative strategy as employed here consists of expanding the research process to new interview subjects until a ‘saturation point’ is reached at which little or no new information is being reported. The concept of reaching a ‘saturation point’ is considered to be sound and should be an integral part of LEK methodology, but according to Davis and Wagner (2003) researchers generally have neither the time nor the funds needed to continue the interview process indefinitely. On the other hand, when the research objectives are clearly delineated, one can question whether an elaborate systematic selection of informants doesn’t require more efforts than the less strict approach of continuing until saturation is reached.

Comparable LEK studies have been conducting more interviews, such as Grossman (2003), interviewing 31 farmers in 3 communities on soil fertility management on organic coffee farms in highland and lake regions of Chiapas in Mexico, and Visser et al. (2003), questioning 60 farmers in 3 villages on wind and water erosion processes and control measures in Burkina Faso. However, theses researchers do no mention any form of knowledge validation as accomplished here; taking this posterior expansion into account, the sample size of Sumberjaya farmers equally mounts to about 60 farmers in 3 communities.

Because agroforestry practises and their interference with watershed functions are rather complex, effective decision making in research and extension depends upon making effective use of all available knowledge. The value of augmenting scientific and professional understanding with knowledge held by local people is increasingly recognised. However, this knowledge is often qualitative and descriptive, incomplete or contentious, and of different complementary but incomparable sources (Dixon et al., 2001). Making indigenous knowledge accessible to other scientists and relevant to their research raises considerable methodological problems. Improved accessibility has to be built on approaches that range from robust commonsense schemes to those that draw on expert-systems computer technology, such as the one used here. The explosion in database technology may facilitate the recording and recalling of ethnographic information and its cross-referencing to relevant development fields, making it readily available to specialists. The methodology cannot be static or uniform and is subject to continual negotiation among stakeholders. The dynamism of indigenous knowledge not only increases the difficulties faced in attempting to grasp it but also compromises the attempts to represent it (Sillitoe, 1998). Therefore, efforts now are directed towards documenting and disseminating that knowledge in a systematic way. Computers indeed offer a range of tools to facilitate this, either by formalising descriptive local knowledge into a knowledge base, or transforming existing databases in order to better fit the world models of local inhabitants (Gonzalez, 1995).

Thus effective mechanisms are needed for assessing, recording, evaluating and synthesising knowledge on specific topics from these sources, and to achieve this we made use of the Agroecological Knowledge Toolkit for Windows, AKT 5, as developed by the School of Agricultural and Forest Sciences of the University of Wales, Bangor, UK. The AKT software provides an environment for knowledge acquisition in order to create knowledge bases from a range of sources. Database functions and a graphical user interface allow flexible exploration, retrieval and evaluation of the knowledge, also by using automated reasoning techniques. Creating a knowledge base involves four distinct stages; knowledge elicitation from the appropriate sources, converting the elicited knowledge into simple unambiguous statements, inputting those statements into AKT using formal representation and specifying or defining the formal terms used (Dixon et al., 2001).

While creating unitary statements, the original farmer terminology in Indonesian had to be interpreted correctly in order to identify and define the appropriate equivalent scientific terms in English. Unitary statements are created by extracting knowledge from the interview material, and breaking it down into simple statements each containing one ‘unit’ of knowledge. These ‘unitary statements’ form the intermediate stage between knowledge articulation and representation. Formal representation is the process of coding knowledge for input into a computer using a restricted syntax as defined by a formal grammar developed for the purpose. Formal representation results in statements with which you can reason automatically using computer software. Formal Term (keyword) specification is the process of identifying and organising key components of knowledge. Formal terms in AKT are either objects, processes, actions, attributes, values or user defined links. The core content of a knowledge base created within AKT is a set of unitary statements. Unitary statements represent knowledge that is perceived to be true by the source of the knowledge, even if not scientifically verified. Unitary statements are the smallest useful unit of knowledge, in that they contain knowledge that is useful without reference to other statements; they cannot be broken down any further into useful units of knowledge (Dixon et al., 2001).

A knowledge base is developed in AKT in order to create a synthesised report of the current state of knowledge on the defined topic. The knowledge may then be used for a range of reasoning tasks. In this way, the knowledge base can define gaps in understanding that constrain the productivity, stability and sustainability of the agro-ecosystem and consequently can be used as resource for further research and extension planning and prioritisation. Research can be directed to defined discrepancies between local knowledge and scientific information. Correlating the scientific and local knowledge can also broaden the range of applicability of the research results. This systematic knowledge base approach is not intended to produce definitive and, therefore, testable recommendations. Nevertheless, trial applications of the approach to date have demonstrated that it can have a real and significant impact on agroforestry based research and development programmes (Dixon et al., 2001).

The question remains whether the information stored within the constructed knowledge base can be considered a substantial part of the local knowledge system. How widely must statements, experiences and descriptions be shared within a community in order to be considered attributes of the local knowledge system? Researchers agree that highest reliability should be assigned to information that has been verified by several local experts and uncorroborated information should be discounted or left out. As mentioned before, Davis and Wagner (2003) recommend at least three different sources needed to validate a knowledge claim. It is clear that knowledge is not homogenous within a local population but varies according to the gender, class, age, occupation and social status of the respondent, comparable to the variations in our own society concerning knowledge about music, electricity or gardening (Blaikie et al., 1997; Brokensha, 1998). Warren (1998) distinguishes three types of knowledges for any domain: basic core knowledge possessed by virtually all members of a community, providing the basis for communication on a given topic; shared knowledge that expands on the core knowledge and allows persons engaged in related occupational niches to communicate in more specialised ways; and specialised knowledge within an occupational niche that most others in the community do not require. Irrespective of the contentious issue of being validated as part of the knowledge system, every claim can be tested for its representation and distribution amongst people within the community. Testing the knowledge base also leads to its augmentation by details not recorded in the elicitation process (Dixon et al., 2001).

After thorough analysis of the created knowledge base and all its subtopics, key statements covering all important aspects were selected to be tested. We opted for a questionnaire consisting of a list of 68 statements[9] derived from the knowledge base and of which half were inverted giving the contrary of what the informants actually said. Some controversial inconsistencies and remarkable statements have been included in the test in order to obtain more information on points that remained unclear so far. In general, if 75% or more farmers agree with a statement, then that statement can be regarded as common knowledge or core knowledge (Dixon et al., 2001). As appropriate stratification of the source community for testing the representation of the knowledge base can reveal differences regarding the knowledge held by different groups of community members, it was decided to use a similar stratification as for the knowledge elicitation process. 28 farmers[10] have been questioned; ten in the Way Petai, ten in the Way Ringkih, and eight in the Way Kumpai subcatchment, stratified according to their position in the catchment (upstream, midstream and downstream), while other parameters as ethnic group and type of field have been recorded as well.

It appeared to be useful to glance as well at the opinions and knowledge of the other stakeholders about these ecological landscape issues in order to have an indication of possible differences in perception to be clarified by future research. In this way, a very limited number of non-farming villagers, local government extension officers, direction of the PLTA Hydro electric power plant and officials of the Forestry Department, have been interviewed about the same topics, using adapted topic lists[11] as guidelines for the interviews. While analysing the knowledge base, the different knowledge claims have also been compared to and contrasted with conventional scientific conceptions.

Date	Activity
End of July, 2002	Language course
Beginning of August, 2002	Introduction and field work preparation in Bogor, at the ICRAF main office for South East Asia
August 13 – 21, 2002	Exploration and preliminary interviews in Way Petai subcatchment
August 22 – September 5, 2002	Interviews with farmers in Way Petai subcatchment and subsequent analysis
September 5 – 10, 2002	Evaluation of collected knowledge and adjusting topic list
September 11 – 20, 2002	Interviews with farmers in Way Ringkih subcatchment and subsequent analysis
September 21 – 27, 2002	Thorough analysis of knowledge base and preparation of knowledge test
September 28 – October 7, 2002	Questioning farmers in Way Petai, Way Ringkih and Way Kumpai subcatchments
October 8 – 12, 2002	Test analysis, collecting soil samples and interviewing other stakeholders
October 13 – 16, 2002	ACIAR workshop of ICRAF: presentation of results
October 17 – 22, 2002	Farmer group meeting: presentation and discussion
October 23 – November 15, 2002	Report writing in Bogor

Preface

Abstract

List of used abbreviations

1. Introduction

2. Local Ecological Knowledge: a review of the literature

3. Materials and Methods