list of figures - Terry Sunderland

forest products, such as rattan for access to the cash economy. However, local scarcity
caused by uncontrolled harvesting is denying many local people access to this
traditional means of income, let alone access to the resource for their own subsistence
needs.
However, the recent paradigm shift towards community-based forest management
provides a unique opportunity to impart significant levels of tenure to non-timber
forest resources in particular. Formal legislation to reflect this is being introduced
throughout West and Central Africa and it is hoped that the more holistic approach to
forest management that this legislation enables will provide the conditions under
which long-term sustainability can operate.
9.5. RATTAN CULTIVATION
In SE Asia, many examples exist of rattans being cultivated in agroforestry systems in
forest lands controlled by local communities (Connelly, 1985; Siebert and Belsky,
1985; Peluso, 1992; Weinstock, 1983). For example, In Kalimantan, Indonesia, smallscale
rattan cultivation has long been practised by forest dwellers. Rattan seedlings are
removed from the forest and then incorporated into abandoned farm fallows soon after
the harvest of the annual crops. The rattans grow and develop along with the
surrounding secondary vegetation. When the land is cleared again after a fallow
period of up to 15 years, the rattan is harvested and either sold or is retained for
household use (Peluso, 1992).
However, despite its local importance, the scale of such cultivation is negligible, and
the majority of the cane entering international trade originates from the wild. Along
with this wild harvesting, intensive logging activities and the associated increase in
forest conversion led to shortages of rattan became apparent in the early 1970's and
forest departments in the SE Asian region began to investigate the possibilities of
commercial rattan cultivation. The first steps taken towards this aim resulted in a
complete taxonomic inventory of wild Malaysian rattans and the establishment of
research plots that have been used to determine optimum conditions and subsequent
guidelines for the cultivation of rattans (Dransfield and Manokaran, 1992). To date,
commercial plantations have been established in Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak,
286