Songkhla Melaleuca : Gestion durable de la forêt de Melaleuca du bassin du lac Songkhla

Comment améliorer la concertation entre les divers porteurs d'enjeux (agriculteurs, gestionnaires à différents niveaux) à propos de la gestion de la forêt de Melaleuca?

Date de création

01/01/2011

Territoire

Bang Nok Ohk Melaleuca Forest on the western shore of the Songkhla lake in Songkhla Province, southeastern Thailand

Description

Bang Nok Ohk Melaleuca forest is an important area supporting many local people activities, such as honey beekeeping, wood production, and fisheries. This area has been recently confronted to an invading oil palm plantation and more frequent bush fires and storm events. Local resource users and managers need to search for a collective management system to sustain this forest area. Therefore, this project was carried out with the aim of using gaming and simulation to facilitate collective learning on the complexity of the system by local stakeholders and to support their collective decision-making. Ecology (e.g. density of Melaleuca tree and carbon sequestration potential) and socio-economics data (e.g. natural resource used, income from natural resources, and stakeholders’ decision making process regarding the use and manage such resources) were obtained from field work and in-depth interview of local stakeholders. All information was used to construct a role-playing game assisted by the Excel spread sheet for rapid calculation of players’ results, especially income, and to display key indicators during the debriefing session. Three successive field workshops were conducted with different groups of stakeholders ranged from local people (farmer, fishermen, honey hunter and resource protector) to high-ranked decision-makers (local and provincial administrations). Diverse scenarios were played, such as business as usual, encroachment of oil palm plantation, occurrence of bush fire, and strong wind, for participants to learn the interactions between resources and human activities in the system and to discuss a possible collective action plan and its management. The result showed that the game helped stakeholders to identify a Melaleuca forest management action plan. They like gaming and simulation tools compared with village or group meetings. Finally, the leading researcher conducted a gaming session with students using a simplified version of the game used in the field with adults. The objective was to increase students’ awareness on natural resource conservation.

Commanditaires

During the PhD research project of the team leader, a group meeting with local stakeholders was organized about the degradation of natural resources in Bang Nok Ohk Melaleuca Forest. There was a clear need to seek a collective management action plan while engaging the different concerned stakeholders. Therefore, the lead researcher proposed to launch a ComMod process with them.

Equipe

  • Ms. Sawarin Bendem-Ahlee, PhD. Student, Environmental Management Programme, Faculty of Environmental Management, Prince of Songkla University, Songkhla, Thailand: , lead researcher and ComMod practitioner
  • Assistant Professor Dr. Jawanit Kittitornkool, Marine and Coastal Resources Institute, Prince of Songkla University, Songkhla, Thailand: thesis advisor
  • Associate Professor Dr. Somyot Thungwa, Head, Department of Agricultural Development, Faculty of Natural Resources, Prince of Songkla University, Songkhla, Thailand: thesis Co-advisor
  • Dr. Utai Parinyasutinun, Department of Educational Foundation, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Prince of Songkla University, Songkhla, Thailand: Thesis Co-advisor
  • Dr. Pongchai Dumrongrojwatthana, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand: ComMod practitioner and consultant

Contact

Ms. Sawarin Bendem-Ahlee
Email