Project Summary

Contemporary concerns with climate change, global environmental change, and sustainability have rejuvenated interest in the development of an integrative theory of human-environment relationships. Montane mainland Southeast Asia is a region of great biological and cultural diversity that has come under close scrutiny in the last several decades as a result of both real and perceived deforestation, land degradation, and most recently, the conversion of traditional agricultural practices to more permanent cash crop agriculture driven by regional and global markets. This project will seek to understand how resource management systems in montane mainland Southeast Asia are changing in the wake of commodification of resources in order to appreciate how these changes may affect sustainable resource use, landscape transformation, and land cover.

This proposal is constructed around four broad research questions: (1) How are patterns of resource access (including formal and informal rules and regulations at various scales) and resource use changing as land uses respond to changing sources of market demand and large-scale commodification? (2) In what ways do these changes create feedbacks affecting both the physical environment and the complexity and diversity of resource management by multiple (sometimes multi-ethnic) groups? (3) To what extent are components of the coupled human-environment relationship coevolving through change, instability, and mutual adaptation? (4) What roles do scientific research and information play in decision-making and policy formulations concerning land use and resource management in montane mainland Southeast Asian countries?

The project will pull together a multidisciplinary team (including economists, foresters, geographers, and sociologists) to collect economic, demographic, institutional and cultural data and to tie these data together in a multi-temporal high-resolution spatial database (the spatial database is being put together as part of a NASA funded project). Data will be analyzed to develop a narrative of land-cover and land-use change in montane mainland Southeast Asia. We will also use cellular automata and agent-based modeling to address "what if" questions concerning hypothesized changes in social and biophysical variables and to increase our understanding beyond the available empirical data.

Intellectual Merit. Project activities are designed to enhance the knowledge of the scientific community regarding the dynamic coupling between human societies and their ecosystems at scales that range from the local to district, national, and global. The project will further our understanding of the roles of spatial information technology and modeling for understanding long-term processes of ecological restoration and land-use transition. Finally, the project will seek to further our understanding of land-use change as part of the coupled human-environment system

Broader impacts. The project is structured to allow participants to learn from each other's experiences and to develop a more realistic understanding of the challenges and opportunities involved in developing an integrative theory of human-environment relationships. The project is designed to acknowledge the numerous different ethnic groups found in montane mainland Southeast Asia and to meet the urgent need to look at the social implications of land-cover and land-use change for these groups who are underrepresented in discussions on the human dimensions of global environmental change. The project will produce both integrative publications and articles of more disciplinary focus of research results by the collaborating scientists, both jointly and individually. Dissemination of research results will be facilitated by the experience and established infrastructure of the East-West Center with long-established links in Asia. Research findings will be presented both at local seminars in montane mainland Southeast Asia involving the scientific and development community as well as at international fora.