 |
Southeast
Asia and neighbouring parts of South and East Asia include areas of
very high population densities (over 500 persons per km2),
often supported by intensive paddy rice production as well as
industrial activity, as well as forested areas where population
densities are low (1 - 10 persons per km2).
Rural poverty exists both in the high and low population density
areas, but tends to have a different character. |
|
Climatically
the equatorial parts are humid (more than 1.5 m rainfall per year),
except for the Australian ‘rain shadow’ in eastern Indonesia,
while with increasing latitude the climate becomes more seasonal and
generally drier. Most of the people live at low elevations (0 - 100
m above sea level), but their livelihoods are influenced by land use
at higher elevations. Soils vary from recent volcanic soils of high
fertility to highly leached infertile soils, with many types in
between. Little is left on the original rain forest cover, but part
of the forest-derived landscapes can maintain important parts of the
‘environmental service functions’, except for the core
biodiversity values. |
|
Southeast
Asia is a global leader in many of the most profitable tree crops of
the world (including the introduced oil palm, rubber, coffee and
cacao, and the indigenous coconut, citrus, tea, cinnamon, mango,
nutmeg, pepper, clove, several resins, bamboos and rattans), but the
benefits of these ‘cash trees’ tend to be unequally shared. Most
of these tree crops grow well in mixed agroforestry systems, but
some tend to be grown in monocultural plantations. A large number of
indigenous fruit trees and ‘lesser known’ tree products does
play an important role in local livelihoods and is in various stages
of ‘domestication’. |
|
Apart
from many commonalities, Southeast Asia contains a wide diversity of
cultural and ethnic identities, religions, history of pre-colonial,
colonial and post-colonial periods and political systems, that all
shape the rural livelihood opportunities of today. In our ‘core’
research and development sites we try to address this diversity. |
|
