Saving the Indonesian Rainforest - 13 November 2014
Come and hear Professor Friederich Göltenboth talk about this important research and work in saving threatened forests.
It is well known that the tropical rainforests are hot- spots of biodiversity. Since decades they are threatened by overexploitation, poverty-driven slash-and-burn agriculture and natural disasters like giant landslides, hurricanes and typhoons.
Most of the reforestation efforts were not able to catch up with rapid deforestation because they often neglected the following fields of concern:
- Not exotic trees are the best option, but locally adapted tree species
- A combination of subsistence securing, regaining of ecological functions for the environment and protection and conservation of local biodiversity needs to be addressed
The Rainforestation Farming Technology, developed, introduced and adapted since the 90ies by a bilateral ongoing project between the Visayas State University (Philippines) and the University of Hohenheim (Germany) has addressed all these factors by using the hypothesis “ that a farming system in the humid tropics is increasingly more sustainable the closer it is in its species composition to the original local forest”( Milan and Margraf, 1994).
The mega typhoon Haiyan, that destroyed in November 2013 parts of the island of Leyte and Samar in the Central Philippines, causing thousands of casualties and billions of damage, became a testing ground for the more than 1000 ha of meanwhile existing Rainforestation Farmland on the island of Leyte.
The various aspects of the Rainforestation Farming Technology are presented and discussed.