Songkhla Lake Forestry System crumbling down or up for creativity?

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1 Luca Prins, 10293701

Earth Science

Marien van der Leeuw, 6146120 Human Geography

Tutor: Jaap Rothuizen

Expert supervisor: Crelis Rammelt Universiteit van Amsterdam, 7-11-2013 Wordcount: 6924

Songkhla Lake Forestry

System crumbling down or up for creativity?

Abstract

The social-ecological system of the Songkhla forestry is coping with severe problems such as a decline of the forest, a loss of biodiversity and erosion. By looking at the resilience of the system tried to find solutions for the crumbling down of this system. This has been done by following a specific framework by Walker et al (2002) which is used for analysing resilience in SES’s, as a basic for managing resilience. By implementing community forestry and decentralization the system can be changes. In this way government and local communities can share knowledge and protect and use the forest in a sustainably way.

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1. Introduction

With a growing world population and increasing consumption levels, exploitation of natural resources and scarcity are increasing. Forests are one of the resources that are being overexploited, which can cause major problems. Not just for the economies around the forestry’s, but also globally. As a case study, the forest in the Songkhla Lake Basin will be analysed. The underlying factors of this exploitation will be investigated using the resilience framework for a social-ecological-system. A more detailed description of the case and the research follows.

1.1 Songkhla Lake Forestry, study area

Songkhla Lake Forestry is a large area in the South of Thailand. It covers 8495 square kilometres, contains the only natural lake in Thailand and inhabits over 1,6 million people (Ratanachai, 2005). The Songkhla Lake Forestry provides many services for both nature and people. Major economic activities include rubber plantation, paddy rice farming, fruit tree orchards, fishery, aquaculture and husbandry. The lake also provides vast amount of fresh water supply which, if properly managed, can be used for agriculture, industrial and domestic purposes. The system has a rich biodiversity with a multitude of flora and fauna species. The forestry forms a life supporting system, which accommodates both living as well as many economic activities (Sutiwipakorn & Ratanachai, 2004).

In the last decades, the Songkhla Lake Forestry changed dramatically, due to governmental changes in the area. In order to create and improve development, the government started with implementing National economic and social development plans (NP). Although these plans resulted in economic growth, it also changed the area, the environment and the communities within. Due to the economic growth many ecological problems arose in the Songkhla Lake Forestry. Sutiwipakorn & Ratanachai (2004) detected the main problems that are causing the forestry depletion. As the three most important they named a steady decline of the upstream forests, a steady decline of the mangrove and peat swamp forests and soil erosion and sedimentation in the waterways and in the Lake.

There have been quite a lot of other studies conducted about the Songkhla lake area. Most of these studies focus either on the ecological changes and problems or about

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the cultural ones. Most ecological studies show the decrease in forest area, the depletion of the soil and many other negative effects that came about with climate change but also with an increase in population in the area and the rapid economic growth the area has seen (Sutiwipakorn and Ratanachai, 2004; Sangrawee and Rungsipanich, 2010). The cultural studies focus on the community culture and the historical and cultural knowledge of the local communities (Sutiwipakorn and Ratanachai, 2004; Kaiser et al., 2012). But what is missing in the literature, is an integrated research that focuses more on both these topics and brings them together to enhance the Songkhla lake area. One study that did something like that is the study conducted by Sutipakorn and Ratanachai (2004). They tried to give a full overview of all the problems concerning the Songkhla lake area and create a master plan to tackle these problems. The problem with their research is that it is so broad that it lacks the in-depth information the area needs.

Another factor that changed significantly is the land use in the area. The conflicting issue of utilization vs. conservation of natural resources and environment has become more and more critical, and oftentimes developed into serious social conflicts. Land use pattern in the Songkhla Lake Basin (SLB) has undergone significant changes during the past few decades, following socio-economic and demographic changes. Approximate two third of the area is currently used for agriculture. Most of the agricultural land, 60% and 30%, respectively, is used for rubber plantation and paddy rice (Sutiwipakorn & Ratanachai, 2004). The Paddy fields are located mainly in the beach ridge plain and lacustrine lowlands, while rubber plantations are found primarily on the Pleistocene terraces or hills in the west of the Lake. But recently, rubber plantations are rapidly spreading by clearing natural tropical forest (Hirai et all, 1999).

For our research we will look at the Songkhla lake Forestry as a social-ecological system. It is a complex system where social aspects as well as ecological aspect play an important role and are also intertwined with one another. Although we mainly focus on the internal drivers in the system it is important to also look and the external driver, climate change. Climate change is an important feature because it changes and influences the system but cannot be measures in an abstract way. It is, therefore, a challenge to cope with climate change and all the other processes that generate

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change. The reason why climate change is extra important is because we talk about forestry’s and forests play a major role in climate change. On one hand it contributes to carbon emission due to overexploitation and degradation and on the other hand it maybe holds a solution because, when managed correctly, it can absorb one-tenth of global carbon emissions projected for the first half of this century (FAO, 2013).

1.2 Approach and research question

In this research we strive to answer the question: “How can a resilient social-ecological forestry system be created in the Songkhla Lake Basin, Thailand.”

In order to answer our main research question we need to have a clear understanding on how the social-ecological system works, which internal and external factors play a key role and how this can all be integrated to create a resilient forestry system. So an exploratory question was formulated: “What are the underlying factors influencing the change of the social-ecological system?

Furthermore three sub-questions were formulated:

- What is the resilience of the Songkhla Lake forestry and how does this fit into the adaptive cycle?

- What are the possible future scenarios for the Songkhla Lake forestry?

The research will be carried out from an interdisciplinary perspective, as the problems in the Songkhla Lake Forestry are very complex and cannot be answered by one discipline only (Repko, 2012). The focus of the research lies within more disciplines than one. The research has a social and ecological component, which makes the research complex. To answer the research question it is necessary to understand the whole problem around the Songkhla Lake Forestry. As explained, many actors, such as the government, external business groups and villagers, are using this area. All these groups use the area intensively, which makes it very vulnerable for climate changes and other ecological changes that come with intensification of the wetland area. This is precisely why it is so important to look at this problem from multiple disciplines and bring them together at the end. If you would focus on this issue only from an ecological point of view, many livelihoods could potentially be in danger. That is why it is important to also look at the social aspect of this problem and make sure that all the stakeholders find a way to adapt to the changing circumstances

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together. The disciplines that will be involved in this research are: earth science and social geography. These two disciples could work together very well in this research because they all handle a different aspect of the problem at hand. The earth science will focus on the changes in the land, the possible effects of climate change and all the other aspects involved around the ecological side of the problem. The social geography will research the different actors involved and how their livelihood might be influenced and affected by the changes of the nature so here the focus will be on the social aspects. By doing this we will gain knowledge about all the different aspect of the problem and by putting them together and learning from one another’s perspectives we will be able to confront this complex issue. A common ground (Repko, 2012) in this case would be the fact that both disciplines focus on the ‘system’. However, both social geography and earth science analyse the system from their own perspectives. This makes is difficult to have an overview of the problem. By putting these disciplines together it will be less complicated to gain understanding in the systems behaviour. Another common ground would be the resilience approach. This approach provides one among several arenas (e.g. vulnerability research, ecological economics, sustainability science) for generating integrative science and interdisciplinary collaboration on issues of fundamental importance for governing and managing a transition toward more sustainable development paths, one of the greatest challenges facing humanity (Lambin, 2005).

1.3 Structure of the report

First we will start by looking at the theoretical framework. The key theories and concepts that we use will be further explained here. Secondly we will use the framework of Walker et al (2002) to analyse the resilience in the social-ecological system of the Songkhla Lake Forestry to create a better understanding of the area and the system. This framework consists of four steps; first the system will be described, then there will we looked at three future scenarios, afterwards there will be a resilience analysis and finally resilience management will come up. And lastly we will try to give advice for an improved social-ecological system in the Songkhla Lake Forestry where the system is manages in a sustainable matter, which will also be an answer to our research question.

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2. Theoretical framework

In this chapter the theoretical framework will be discussed. The chapter is divided into three major subjects namely: Resilience, internal and external influences and changes and adaptability and future approach. These three subjects will be further discussed and will form a basis for the resilience analysis, which will be done later in this thesis.

2.1 Resilience

Resilience is a theory that started to emerge in the ecology field in 1973 by ecologist C.S. Holling in order to describe the persistence of natural systems in the face of changes in ecosystem variables. After the theory has been widespread it also started to evolve towards other disciplines such as human geography, cultural theory, management literature and many more. For our paper we will shortly discuss ecological and social resilience and then move on towards social-ecological resilience, which we will use throughout our paper. Resilience is the key concept in this research because it gives an overview of the situation. It makes it possible to analyse a system from an interdisciplinary view because all factors are included in a resilience analysis. Two concepts that are interlinked with resilience are a social-ecological system and the adaptive cycle. A good resilience analysis only works if you look at all the different aspects and it can be done best by looking at the system as a social-ecological system. A place where nature and humans come together are closely interlinked. The adaptive cycle can help explain in which phase the system currently resides and where it possibly goes next.

Ecological resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and re-organize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks (Walker et al., 2004). While social resilience, according to Adger (2000), is the ability of human communities to withstand external shocks to their social infrastructure, such as environmental variability or social, economic and political upheaval.

But both these definition lack an interdisciplinary view. They try to explain how the system, which they are concerned with, deals with impact and how their resilience is built. For our research it is important to look at both of these resilience-terms in order

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to get the right system analysis and furthermore try to improve the current Songkhla Lake Forestry.

Luckily for us social-ecological resilience has become more important and a lot of research has been conducted about this subject. In our paper we will use a definition for social-ecological change that has been put forward by Smit and Wandel (2006). They argue that resilience is not just about being persistent or robust to disturbance but it is about the opportunities that arise from the disturbances that give way for renewal of the system and emergence of new trajectories. Resilience provides adaptive capacity that allow for, for instance, dynamic adaptive interplay between sustaining and developing with the change in the social-ecological system. So instead of just looking at the capacity of a system to absorb the disturbances, it creates an incentive to learn and innovate the system to create a different stable state of the system at hand. The idea is that you manage the resilience and by doing so, you enhance the likelihood of sustaining a pathway you desire for development in changing environments (Adger et al., 2005).

2.1.1 Social-ecological system

The Songkhla Lake Forestry can be defined as a social-ecological system (SES). A SES is a system in which the ecological system and the social system are interlinked with each other (Schluter & Herrfahrdt-Pahle, 2011). Social-ecological system are always complex and adaptive systems which means that they are always changing and thus require continuous development, learning and understanding in order to cope with the change and with the uncertainty which is always at present (Carpenter and Gunderson, 2001). Social-ecological systems have a number of attributes that can always be observed in the system. These are nonlinearity, uncertainty, emergence, scale and self-organization (Berkes et al., 2003). A few of these attributes will be discusses further.

 Nonlinearity and uncertainty

Nonlinearity is about the changes that can occur without warning, such as rapid climate change. These changes are never linear and will thus create uncertainty. These environmental influences make it impossible to make predictions about the SES.

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Scale is another very important aspect in a SES. Because a regional SES, such as the Songkhla Lake Forestry, does not consist of one kind of cycle at one scale. It is nested in a hierarchical structure with many subsystems at several scales. All these subsystems can change at different rates (Gunderson and Holling, 2002). Although these subsystems are separate from the other subsystems, cross-scale interactions do occur. The cross-scale interactions have to be monitored during an SES assessment (Walker et al., 2002).

 Self-organisation

Self-organization is one of the defining properties of complex systems. It is the principle of organization through feedback mechanisms. These feedback mechanisms make sure that a system can reorganize after disturbances. These reorganizations within the cycles of growth and renewal can be illustrated and explained thru Gunderson and Holling’s adaptive renewal cycle (Gunderson and Holling, 2002).

2.1.2 Adaptive cycle

The adaptive cycle is a way of explaining the growth and renewal path of a system (Gunderson and Holling, 2002). This can be adapted to all types of systems but for now we will use a forest ecosystem as an example in the explanations.

As can be seen in figure 1 the adaptive cycle is illustrated as an 8. Within the cycle there are four stages where a system can be in and there are three other components that fluctuate throughout the cycle. The stages are the r (exploitation), K (conservation), Ω (release) and α (reorganization). The three components are connectedness, capital and resilience (Gunderson and Holling, 2002). A system ‘starts’ at the α phase, it reorganizes

everything and there is room for experiments and new ideas. After many of those experiments fail, a few remain and these will dominate in the next phase, the exploitation phase. Here is not a lot of capital (e.g., biomass) and the resilience is high. From this phase to the conservations phase, K, the

9 Figure 1. The adaptive cycle of renewal (Gunderson and Holling, 2002)

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capital increases significantly as does the connectedness. This means that all the plants and animals in the forest flourish during this period and they also are increasingly intertwined with one another. This means that the resilience decreases during the conservation phase. This phase is a slow phase that can take many years. Once a system is at the end of the conservation phase it can move quickly into the release phase (Ω). This only happens after a trigger. This can be a fire, a disease, etcetera where the whole system collapses because it has little resilience. From here on it moves quickly into the α phase where the process starts again (Gunderson and Holling, 2002).

In our paper we will use the adaptive cycle to analyse the Songkhla Lake Forestry. This will help to create a clear picture of where the system is at and how it will change in the future. The adaptive cycle will be a guidance throughout the analysis and future scenarios.

2.2 Internal and external influences and changes

In the Songkhla Lake Forestry there are many factors that influences the system. These can be internal (land use change, economic growth), external (climate change, globalization) or a combination of these two(politics, management). We will discuss a few of these influences that play a major role in the Songkhla Lake Forestry namely, land use change, climate change and forest management.

2.2.1 Land use Change

Land use change has altered a large proportion of the earth’s land surface to keep up with the growing demand for natural resources. Land use change can be seen as the conversion of one land use type to another (Foley et al., 2005). An example of this is deforestation. Forests are being converted to agricultural land, which in turn result in negative ecological consequences such as an increase in CO2 emissions. But besides the global consequences there are also many national and regional consequences of land use change. The increase in agricultural land and the use of fertilizers to improve the yield had left the soil depleted, increased the salinization of previously fertilize land, polluted the groundwater and overall led to a lack of fresh water due to irrigation (Castelletta et al., 2000; Postel 1989).

The primary driving force in land use change is the human population growth

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in the Songkhla Lake Forestry because the area started to change after the

implementation of the NP’s. This resulted in an increase in population and many land use changes, which will be further discussed in the next chapter.

2.2.2 Climate change

Global warming is one of the most serious environmental issues of the present day; the average temperature is predicted to rise 1.5°C to 5°C around 2100. The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two millennia. Over the period 1901 to 2010, global mean sea level rose by 0.19 [0.17 to 0.21] meters and it is very likely that similar rates will occur between 1920 and 1950 (IPCC, 2013).

Climate change is defined by the IPCC (2007) as the change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., by using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer. Climate change may be due to natural internal processes, external forces, and persistent anthropogenic changes in the composition of the atmosphere or in land use (IPCC, 2013).

Climate change and climate variability are threatening a range of environmental services from forests on which an estimated 20 to 25 million people in Thailand depend (Lynch and Talbot, 1995). Forests’ roles are varied, including, among other things, delivering clean and reliable water supply, protecting against landslides, erosion and land degradation, and providing employment.

Successfully addressing the negative impacts of climate change on forests and forest dependent people will be crucial to making progress towards sustainable development goals. Building resilience in the context of the forestry sector includes adjusting forest management, to increase the resilience of vulnerable people and to help build and maintain resilient landscapes (FAO/OECD 2012).

2.2.3 Forest management

Forest management is very important in order to decrease deforestation and create sustainable forestry’s around the world. In this paper the focus lies in Thailand, which has a very distinctive history in forest management, just as many other countries in

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Southeast Asia (Poffenberger, 2000). Most of the forestland in Southeast Asia were placed under state control during the ninetieth and twentieth centuries. In many cases this was due to the European colonial administrations of the area. Before colonization there weren’t many laws in place that covered forestland, is was free to use by whoever wanted to use it. With the process of land nationalization the formulation of laws to legitimize state property regimes are created and many of the laws were based on western concepts of land ownership and nature preservation. These western views were not always the best suitable views for countries in Southeast Asia (Poffenberger, 2000).

With these new forestland laws, the government and the political and economic elite could easily exploit the forest because many counties were corrupt. Since 1997 the onset of the Asian economic recession has drawn attention to the corrupt practices and inequalities in the region’s economies, including the state forestry sector (Poffenberger, 2000)

Because of the above stated problems there is an increasing platform for a more decentralized forest management, which includes community forestry. Local communities use much of the forestland. These communities are poorly represented, often by local organizations that for outside the formal policies.

A different forest management could potentially address the current problems and place tighter controls in the remaining forestlands to protect watershed, resources and livelihoods (Poffenberger, 2000)

2.3 Adaptability and future approach

After determining the external and internal influences and analysing the SES the next step is to look for possible adaptations, changes that can be made to create a more sustainable system for the future. In order to make such future scenarios we will discuss what a sustainable system is and what can be done by national and local governments to help create them. One of those ideas is community forestry, which is interlinked with decentralization and other political changes. This will be discussed below.

2.3.1 Sustainability

Since the 1980’s the word sustainability is used from a different perspective. Since then, sustainability is more focused on human sustainability on this planet and by the

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Brundtland Commission of the United Nations (1987) the concept sustainable development is defined as: ’’development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

This is also the way we will look at sustainability in the social-ecological system. A system is sustainable when the forest is used sustainable, meaning that the resources of the forest in the Songkhla Lake Forestry is being used in a way that there will not be as much deforestation as there is now and people still sustain their livelihood.

2.3.2 Community forestry

One idea of participatory forest management is community forestry. The Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the UN defines community forestry as:

“Participatory forestry refers to processes and mechanisms that enable those people who have a direct stake in forest resources to be part of decision-making in all aspects of forest management, from managing resources to formulating and implementing institutional frameworks. More specifically, community forestry refers to a component of participatory forestry that focuses on local communities as key stakeholders for sustainability." (FAO, 1978)

Community forestry came into view in 1978 by the FAO and became more and more popular over the years. In many countries around the world they started to implement community forestry as a tool to make sure forestry’s are being kept alive and sustainable. Community forestry was ‘created’ as a counteraction against all the industrial purposes that forests were being used for. Local communities often saw ‘their’ forest and livelihood being diminished due to increasing pressures to cultivate the land for industrial purposes (Arnold, 2001).

In the beginning Community Forestry was supported by donors because of their interest in improving the conservation status of forestry’s around the world. However, this shifted towards an approach for the reduction of poverty. This was also in line with the Millennium Development Goals and the promotion of national Poverty Reduction Strategies. During that same time it was also concluded that many of the world poorest people were living in and around forests so a link was easily made between poverty reduction and forest conservation (Schreckenberg et al., 2006).

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It was a way in which governments could promote forest conservation, consolidate rights over traditional lands and reduce local poverty (Pagdee et al., 2006). It was seen that all over the world community forestry’s could be profitable, if implemented correctly, and additionally could provide socio-cultural en ecological benefits for the communities (Molnar et al., 2007).

To reach this goal it is necessary to move away from reliance on centralized, top down approaches and to move towards a more flexible, multi level approach. Adaptive governance is such an approach. Adaptive governance characteristically proceeds from the bottom of rather than the top down. Policy makers integrate scientific and local knowledge into policies on particular subjects. Adaptive governance is the key to successfully tackling problems where there is no optimal solution (Brunner & Lynch, 2010)

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3. Methodology

For this research the approach of Walker et al. (2002) is used for analysing resilience in SES’s, as a basic for managing resilience. There is a framework proposed with four steps. It begins with a development of a conceptual model of the system, including its historical profile (how it got to be what it is) and preliminary assessments of the drivers of the supply of key ecosystem goods and services. Step 2 deals with identifying the range of unpredictable and uncontrollable drivers, stakeholder visions for the future, and contrasting possible future policies, weaving these three factors into a limited set of future scenarios. Step 3 uses the outputs from steps 1 and 2 to explore the SES for resilience in an iterative way. It generally includes the development of simple models of the system's dynamics for exploring attributes that affect resilience. Step 4 will be an evaluation of the process and outcomes in terms of policy and management implications.

A fundamental difficulty in SESs for long-term, sustainable outcomes is that their great complexity makes it difficult to forecast the future in any meaningful way. Not only are forecasts uncertain, the usual statistical approaches will likely underestimate the uncertainties. That is, even the uncertainties are uncertain. There are several reasons why uncertainties are large and difficult to characterize. First, the key drivers, such as climate and technological change, are unpredictable. Many change nonlinearly. Secondly, human action in response to forecasts is reflexive. If important ecological or economic predictions are taken seriously, people will react in ways that will change the future, and perhaps cause the predictions to be incorrect. And lastly, the system may change faster than the forecasting models can be recalibrated, particularly during turbulent periods of transition. These aspects of uncertainty limit the usefulness of forecasting methods for the scientific study and management of regions in transition. Given these limits to understanding, we must focus on learning to live within systems, rather than "control" them (Walker et al, 2002).

Systems undergo change, but there also needs to be recognized that there are periods of perceived constancy. Both social and ecological systems have self- reinforcing mechanisms that prevent shifts into other configurations (Gunderson and Holling

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2002). These phases have underlying mechanisms that give rise to them, and variables that affect these mechanisms. The most notable contribution to this body of theory from an ecological perspective is Holling's (1992) metaphor of the adaptive cycle. Growing out of a general understanding of large-scale ecosystem behaviour (Gunderson et al. 1995), the adaptive cycle appears to be applicable to SESs (Walker et al, 2002).

The focus lies on maintaining the capacity of the system to cope with whatever the future brings, without the system changing in undesirable ways. Maintaining or increasing the system’s resilience can do this. Building this resilience will come at a cost, so we need to ask: What is the best way to build resilience for the Songkhla Lake Forestry? The framework offers an approach to analysing resilience and enabling people to discover how the SES in which they live might be made more resilient to shocks, and more able to renew or reorganize itself should large shocks occur. This approach is termed "resilience analysis and management" or RAM (Walker et al, 2002).

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4. Resilience Analysis and Management

4.1 Step 1. Resilience of what?

The first step of the framework that will be followed is the development of a conceptual model of the SES. It bounds the problem and elicits information on the important issues in the SES and the major drivers. The system will be defined and there will be looked at the uncertainties of the system’s dynamics. It will address several specific questions. Careful analysis of historical profiles reveals a great deal about current system dynamics and how the system might respond to future external shocks. The product of this step provides an essential heuristic basis for step 2 and it defines the "of what" part of the resilience analysis (Walker et al, 2002). Being clear and explicit about just which ecosystem services or variables are of concern is a necessary first step in the analysis. That is essential to define the resilience "of what" system configurations we are interested in studying (Binning et al. 2001).

4.1.1 Changes through history

The social system of Songkhla Lake Forestry has undergone many changes in the past decades as well. To reduce poverty and to become a developed country, the government made National Economic and Social Development Plans (NP) (Dungsuwan et al., 2013). These plans were put to action in 1961 in the Songkhla area. Although these plans resulted in economic growth it also changed the area, the environment and the communities within. What the policies did were boosting industrialization, growing cities, increasing agricultural yield and fisheries. Although the plans initially had a motive to be a people-centered development it wasn’t necessarily the outcome here. With an increasing population and industry, agricultural harvest was not for self-consumption (as used to be the case) but for (international) sale. This changed the way communities in the Songkhla area were used to operate. What it did was increasing individualism and the need for development. By doing this, local communities started to fall apart because individuals were taking over and communities slowly collapse and with it the power the communities used to have (Sungkharat et al., 2010).

Other changes that occurred were on a management level. After colonization of Britain Thailand changed its forest management. Instead of open access forests,

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forests became state owned. Due to these changes large parts of forestland in Thailand disappeared, either through logging or agriculture. After a century and a half of forest destruction the once heavily forested country had less than 25% forest cover. The deforestation led to environmental impacts such as flash floods and because of these increased impacts the Thai government enacted a national logging ban (RECOFTC, 2011). However, there is still illegal logging and protected forests are still being exploited either by local communities or the private sector. Although the current forest management is still centralized there are many initiatives to change this into more decentralized and community based management, which will be discussed in step 3 and 4 (Poffenberger, 2000).

4.1.2 Ecosystem services and stakeholders

The Songkhla Lake Forestry provides many services for both nature and people. The area offers a broad range of ecosystem services. There are possibilities for major economic activities such as rubber plantation and paddy rice farming. The Paddy fields are distributed mainly in the beach ridge plain and lacustrine lowlands, while rubber plantations are found primarily on the Pleistocene terraces or hills in the west of the Lake. But recently, rubber plantations are rapidly spreading by clearing natural tropical forest (Hirai et all, 1999). The lake also provides vast amount of fresh water supply, which, if properly managed, can be used for agriculture, industrial and domestic purposes. The system has a rich biodiversity with a multitude of flora and fauna species. The forestry forms a life supporting system, which accommodates both living as well as many economic activities (Sutiwipakorn & Ratanachai, 2004).

Many different groups of people make use of these ecosystem services. There are 4 stakeholder groups detected that influence the forest or are in their turn influenced by the forest itself. These stakeholders are the government, the private sector, NGO’s and local communities.

The Government is the largest stakeholder in the Songkhla Lake Forestry. It still is the ‘owner’ of the forests and they decides who can use it and for what. Although the government changed its management a little over the years (designing forest as conservative areas, putting local forest administration officials in charge, giving a few communities protected forest areas to use) it is still a centralized management

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governments started to implement community forestry into their forest management to create more sustainable forests.

The Private sector is another big player. But there are different kinds of companies that operate in the forestry’s. There are the large companies who try to maximize their profits these companies focus on the national or international markets. They pose a substantial treat to the forests and its communities. The other companies are the smaller operators that are quite stable and respond to domestic market demands. They often work together with the local communities providing opportunities for trade but they are small and because of that have little political and economic influence (Poffenberger, 2000).

NGO’s are an emerging stakeholder in the forest management debate. In many cases they assist forest-dependant communities by aiding them in communication with government and companies. In many cases NGO’s provide the knowledge and knowhow to local communities and they are oftentimes the voice of these communities in national political debates (Poffenberger, 2000)

Last but not least there are the forest-dependent local communities. These

communities are dependent on the forest they live in. It provides the resources they need to survive and make a living. Due to the changes in the area the forests are either not protected or too much protected in which case the local communities are banned from it. These communities are speaking out more clearly regarding their rights and the need for policy reform (Poffenberger, 2000).

4.2 Step 2. Future scenarios

Step 2 examines the external disturbances and the development processes (policy drivers and stakeholder actions) to which the desirable configurations are expected to be resilient. Its aim is develop a limited set of possible future scenarios that includes the outcome of uncontrollable and ambiguous external drivers. The term “scenario” has more than one meaning. We define a scenario as a plausible exploration of the future, to be used in combination with other scenarios to explore the robustness of diverse models and choices (Carpenter 2002).

For this step we created three possible trajectories, a business-as-usual one, a more conservative one and a more developmental or growth-oriented one. These scenarios create a framework to discover pathways and actions that connect the kinds of worlds

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people prefer (or seek to avoid) with the kinds of drivers to which they will have to adapt as they strive to attain their visions. Scenarios are of particular interest because of the role that perceptions of attainable futures play in creating the future. If you don't know where you want to go, it doesn't matter which road you take. The forward-looking capacity of people is crucial to the evolving organization of the SES and the resilience of the trajectory that the SES will eventually follow (Walker et al, 2002).

4.2.1 Scenario 1 Business-as-usual

In this scenario the forest will be managed in the same way people do now. Sutiwipakorn and Ratnachai (2005) named the steady decline of the upstream forest and mangrove with a decrease to about 10%. Besides that they warn for soil erosion and increasing food exposure. The culture and local wisdom of the indigenous people is not appreciated. This is because no policy had been formulated to enhance public awareness to understand the values of these resources. This is due to lack of good management. Networks in forms of associations and foundations occasionally coordinate in joint-missions, but hardly in sustained en continuous basis. Given centralization-style management, no organizations or agencies have been assigned direst responsibility for the forest. Most decisions will be made by centralized agencies, who are focused on economic growth. Because of this, the forest will continue to decline due to illegal cutting (Ratnachai, 2005).

4.2.2 Scenario 2 Continuing Conservative

This second scenario will describe the situation of the forest in a different way. The

way of managing the forest will be more like how this is done in other parts of Thailand. There will be little decentralization but a fairly large change in protecting the area. A conservation movement has pushed for minimal human activity in Thailand’s protected areas. Logging, hunting and trapping will not be possible for the local people anymore (RECOFTC, 2011) This scenario would have a positive effect on the environment. However, this scenario will have a very slightly positive influence on employment and income distribution. An improvement of the environment clearly will result in the improvement of the quality of life in the Songkhla area, but to the detriment of economic growth (Nijkamp & Vreeker, 2002).

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4.2.3 Scenario 3 Development Oriented

The final scenario is de development oriented one. This scenario is characterized with decentralization and community forestry. For successful launching of community bases forest management, the government will support on this legal framework. NGO’s will have an important role in strengthening community organization, especially in the part of resource rehabilitation. The government will support of appropriate technology for sustainable resource utilization. In this scenario, the community will make decisions on management, not by the central authority. Government authorities will play the role at the supporting level. They invest in and provide the needs at an adequate level, act as an consultant on developing management and supplies adequate information on management planning and select the appropriate locations with high chance in success in developing community forestry. Eventually they will act as a co-manager not as decision maker (Tokrisna, Boonchuwong & Janekarnkij, 1997; Chuapram, King & Panin, 2012)

4.3 Step 3. Resilience analysis

Steps 1 and 2 have generated two sets of information: major issues about future states of the system that are of concern to stakeholders, and major uncertainties about how the system will respond to drivers of change. Step 3 consists of exploring the interactions of these two sets. The aim is to identify possible driving variables and processes in the system that governs the dynamics of those variables.

This research will include a focus on the social aspects of resilience (identifying, for example, how in this SES changes in the composition of any of the functional groups of people may or may not be retracting from resilience). A key aim of resilience analysis is to identify thresholds, their nature, and what determines their positions along the driving variables.

Resilience, for social-ecological systems, is related to the magnitude of shock that the system can absorb and remain within a given state; the degree to which the system is

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capable of self- organization; and the degree to which the system can build capacity for learning and adaptation. Management can destroy or build resilience, depending on how the social-ecological system organizes itself in response to management actions (Holling, 2001). The aim of our research is to find out how the system can be managed in a way to make the social-ecological system a resilient system. What have we learned from the past and how can we use this knowledge to create a sustainable system. The goal of sustainable development is to create and maintain prosperous social, economic, and ecological systems. Then again, these systems are intimately linked: humanity depends on services of ecosystems for its wealth and security. (Folke et al, 2002) For example; During 1967-1996, forest area in the basin decreased by a total of 222,661 ha, a dramatic decline of 70 per cent. Over this time span, the area under rubber increased by 154,095 ha, an increase of 76 per cent. As a consequence, the basin is beset with problems related to the degradation of the watershed as well as to conflicting land uses. These issues have contributed to a decline in the quality of life for the basin's population (Tanavud et al, 1999) Moreover; humans can transform ecosystems into more or less desirable conditions. Humanity receives many ecosystem services, such as clean water and air, food production, fuel, and others. Yet human action can render ecosystems unable to provide these services, with consequences for human livelihoods, vulnerability, and security. Such negative shifts represent loss of resilience (Folke et al, 2002).

In our social-ecological system it is the case that because of the government’s National economic and social development plans, a new approach, and the area declined in resilience after the large economic growth. Deforestation for rubber-plantations caused erosion and loss of biodiversity. (Sungkharat et al., 2010, Sutiwipakorn & Ratanachai, 2004). This was leading to decrease in ecological and social resilience (Tanavud et al, 1999). There can be said that the system is past the exploitation phase (r) of Gunderson and Hollings (2001) adaptive cycle. This is the phase where agriculture is profitable and where the pressure on the system is not yet concerning. However, the pressure on the system steady increased as the growth of the agriculture intensified. This is the point where a so-called regime shift, a phase transition, can occur. A real threshold is not easy to distinguish within our system. But looking at the current changes, such as the fast loss of biodiversity, erosion and salinization, it is clear that the system is no longer in the conservation phase. Because

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of these rapid changes, we want to conclude that the system is currently between the conservation phase (K) and the release phase (Ω) of the adaptive cycle. There can be said that the system is ‘falling’. There is no sign of reorganization of the system yet, the next step in the adaptive cycle. The past decades have evidenced overexploitation of the rich natural resources and environment in various economic activities, without reasonable effort to properly conserve and rehabilitate them. The system has undergone changes that are irreversible (Sutiwipakorn & Ratanachai, 2004).

The resilience of the system is currently at a low rate. When a hazard is occurring, such as heavy rainfall and severe flooding, which are trended to increase, the system could fall even lower and could decrease even more in resilience. (Sdoodee & Rongsawat, 2012). External influences could affect the system in a severe way. Climate change is such an external influence. The top 10 of the most vulnerable for climate hazard provinces in Thailand are those surrounding the Bangkok area and those located in the south. These provinces are highly exposed to the threats of sea level rise and frequent floods (Yusuf & Francisco, 2010) Meteorological data in Songkhla province during 30 years (1981-2010) was analysed to exhibit climate change scenario. It was found that maximum and minimum temperatures trended to increase 0.52°C/30 years and 0.55°C/ 30 years, respectively (Sdoodee & Rongsawat, 2012).

An apparent tipping point, such as one triggered by a flooding, is not detected in our system, but is likely to occur in the future when there are no signs of reorganization of the system (Sutiwipakorn & Ratanachai, 2004). Meeting the desires of individuals while sustaining ecological “public goods” is a central challenge in natural resources conservation. Indigenous communities routinely make common property decisions balancing benefits to individuals with benefits to their communities. Such traditional knowledge offers insight for conservation and on which to premise ecologically sustainable relationships between people and the natural world. (Becker & Ghimire, 2003).

4.4 Step 4. Resilience management

The final step will be an evaluation of the whole process and the implications of the emerging understanding for policy and management actions. The resilience analysis

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identified the processes that determine the system's important control variables. This set of processes leads to a corresponding set of actions that can enhance or reduce resilience and that, therefore, form the basis for resilience management and policy. The social-ecological system of Songkhla Lake Forestry has undergone many changes in the past decades. The National Economic and Social Development Plans (NP) created boosting industrialization, growing cities, increasing agricultural yield and fisheries but consequently caused a steady decline of the upstream forests, a steady decline of the mangrove and peat swamp forests and soil erosion and sedimentation in the waterways and in the Lake. (Sutiwipakorn & Ratanachai, 2004) These are problems that affect all stakeholders; government, local communities, NGO’s and the private sector. And there is a growing awareness that actions should be taken. There has to be recognized that the resilience is very low and that the situation is becoming dangerous with regard to flooding’s and or heavy rainfall (Sdoodee & Rongsawat, 2012). As described in resilience analysis, the Songkhla Lake Forestry is currently in between the conservation (K) and release (Ω) phase. In our view the system is in between those phases because the system has very little resilience left due to the high connectedness. Both the social and the ecological aspects of the system are very closely linked. This makes the system vulnerable for disturbances either internal or external. The system is not completely in the release phase because we see the system as still moving lower in the cycle towards the release state. We do not think there is going to be a sudden disturbance, which will result in a tipping point for the whole system. However we do acknowledge that there always is a chance of sudden climatic hazards, which could lead to sudden changes in the system and in the adaptive cycle. We view that the system will probably move somewhat slowly towards the release state (Gunderson and Holling, 2002).

In order to create a new equilibrium for the system it is however necessary to go into the release phase because after the release phase comes the reorganization (α) phase. This phase is crucial in creating a new, sustainable system because in this phase resilience is once again high and there are many opportunities to start over, so to say. Due to the many opportunities this phase offers possibilities for creativity, which is important for creating a new sustainable social-ecological system in the Songkhla

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Lake Forestry. But how can this be accomplished? Our ideal future scenario would be the third, the development oriented scenario. This is how we hope to reach our goal. However, there is no attempt to keep the system on some predicted, optimal path. Rather, the policies are aimed at a set of rules (incentives and disincentives) that enhance the system's ability to reorganize and move within some configuration of acceptable states (walker et al, 2002).

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5. Conclusion

In this paper the resilience of the Songkhla Lake Forestry was analysed. This was done with the resilience and management analysis approach. With this approach we could investigate the forestry system, by looking at the history of the forestry, the ecosystem services and stakeholders. With that information we were able to create three possible future scenarios for the Songkhla Lake Forestry. These scenarios were a business-as-usual scenario (everything stays as it is, government is centralized), a continuing conservative scenario (forest become protected areas focusing on sustaining the forest, not the local communities, little decentralization) and the last scenario is the development oriented one. In this scenario there is decentralization, local communities are more involved in decision-making and the government is a co-manager, not a decision maker.

The resilience of the system is now analysed and in the Songkhla Lake forestry the resilience is very low at the moment. The connectedness is very high and because of this, the resilience is low. This is a result of the many ecological and economic changes in the area in the past decades. The system is in between the conservation phase and the release phase of the adaptive cycle. It is of crucial importance to increase the resilience of the system in order to create a resilient, manageable social-ecological system.

In order to answer the main research question: “How can a resilient social-ecological forestry system be created in the Songkhla Lake Basin, Thailand.” We will use the scenarios that we created in step 2. We believe, as already briefly discussed in step 3 and 4, that the forest management should be a co-management between the local communities and the regional and national government. Community forestry could be the approach to create sustainable forestry’s that are mainly management by the people with the right knowledge and knowhow. The government is, however, still an important player and could facilitate reforestation and make sure that the local communities get the power they need. This can be done by decentralization en devolution of power by the government.

Although we focus on the sustainability of the forest together with the local communities such a scenario as scenario 2, the continuing conservation scenario, is not necessarily bad. That scenario focuses more on conservation and sustaining the forest in Thailand, not regarding the many communities and people living in it. That

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approach is very affective if you want to sustain the forests because, management correctly or not, people always use the resources of the forests they live in and even if it is done in a perfect way, it will lead to small version of deforestation.

We rather see scenario three put into action because we believe that indigenous people and communities should be able to continue their lifestyle and livelihood and we believe that could work together with sustaining the forestry.

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