Abstract
The ongoing expansion of plantation agriculture has changed the ecological, demographic, and social conditions of Southeast Asia’s forested areas, yet little is known about hunting practices in these novel landscapes. Using information from 73 in-depth interviews with hunters, agricultural workers and wild meat dealers in the Jambi province of Sumatra, Indonesia, we describe contemporary hunting practices, including how hunting methods, wildlife harvest and consumption rates vary between different indigenous and immigrant ethnic groups. Hunting is now primarily a commercial endeavor for harvesting wild boar (Sus scrofa) meat; over 7500 wild boars were sold in Jambi City alone in 2011. The Muslim majority avoids wild boar for religious reasons, but there is substantial local and export demand driven by Chinese and Christian Batak. We conclude that hunting within oil palm plantations may reduce crop damage from wild boar and also yield large amounts of wild meat with relatively little by-catch of threatened animals.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Achard, F., Eva, H. D., Stibig, H.-J., Mayaux, P., Gallego, J., Richards, T., and Malingreau, J.-P. (2002). Determination of deforestation rates of the world’s humid tropical forests. Science 297: 999–1002.
Alfred, R., Ahmad, A. H., Payne, J., Williams, C., Ambu, L. N., et al. (2012). Home range and ranging behaviour of Bornean elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis) females. PloS One 7: e31400.
Angelsen, A., and Kaimowitz, D. (2001). Agricultural technologies and tropical deforestation. CAB International, Wallingford.
Bennett, E. L., and Dahaban, Z. (1995). Wildlife responses to disturbance in Sarawak and their implication for forest management. In Primack, R. B., and Lovejoy, T. E. (eds.), Ecology, conservation and management of Southeast Asian rainforest. Yale University Press, London, pp. 66–86.
Bennett, E. L., Nyaoi, A. J., and Sompud, J. (2000). Saving Borneo’s bacon: the sustainability of hunting in Sarawak and Sabah. In Robinson, J. G., and Bennett, E. L. (eds.), Hunting for sustainability in tropical forests. Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 305–324.
Bewley, T. (2002). Interviews as a valid empirical tool in economics. Journal of Socio-Economics 31: 343–353.
Bieber, C., and Ruf, T. (2005). Population dynamics in wild boar Sus scrofa: ecology, elasticity of growth rate and implications for the management of pulsed resource consumers. Journal of Applied Ecology 42: 1203–1213.
BPS (2010). Badan Pusat Statistik, Indonesia. Http://www.bps.go.id/ [accessed June 2012].
Bradshaw, C. J., Sodhi, N. S., and Brook, B. W. (2009). Tropical turmoil: a biodiversity tragedy in progress. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 7: 79–87.
Brashares, J. S., Golden, C., Weinbaum, K., Barrett, C., and Okello, G. V. (2011). Economic and geographic drivers of wildlife consumption in rural Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 108: 13931–13936.
Caldecott, J. O. (1988). Hunting and wildlife management in Sarawak, vol. 7. IUCN, Cambridge.
Clayton, L., and Milner-Gulland, E. J. (2000). The trade in wildlife in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. In Robinson, J. G., and Bennett, E. L. (eds.), Hunting for sustainability in tropical forests. Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 473–495.
Colchester, M., Jiwan, N., Andiko, Sirait, M., Firdaus, A. Y. Surambo, A., and Pane, H. (2006). Promised land: palm oil and land acquisition in Indonesia. Forest Peoples Programme, Perkumpulan Sawit Watch, HuMA, and the World Agroforestry Centre, Indonesia.
Corlett, R. T. (2007). The impact of hunting on the mammalian fauna of tropical Asian forests. Biotropica 39: 292–303.
Cramb, R. A., Colfer, C. J. P., Dressler, W., Laungaramsri, P., Le, Q. T., Mulyoutami, E., Peluso, N. L., and Wadley, R. L. (2009). Swidden transformation and rural livelihoods in Southeast Asia. Human Ecology 37: 323–346.
Curran, L. M., and Webb, C. O. (2000). Experimental tests of the spatiotemporal scale of seed predation in mast-fruiting Dipterocarpaceae. Ecological Monographs 70: 129–148.
Dinas Perkebunan Provinsi Jambi (2011). Laboratuium Lapangan Dinas Perkebunan Provinsi Jambi, Indonesia.
Dinas Perkebunan Provinsi Jambi (2012). Laporan Perkembangan Sarangan OPT (Organisme Pengganggu Tumbuhan), Perkebunan Provinsi Jambi, Indonesia.
FAO (2012). FAOSTAT Database, UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Rome. http://faostat.fao.org/faostat [accessed 25 June 2012].
Fitzherbert, E. B., Struebig, M. J., Morel, A., Danielsen, F., Bruhl, C. A., Donald, P. F., and Phalan, B. (2008). How will oil palm expansion affect biodiversity? Trends in Ecology & Evolution 23: 538–545.
Fox, J., Fujita, Y., Ngidang, D., Peluso, N. L., Potter, L., Sakuntaladewi, N., Sturgeon, J., and Thomas, D. (2009). Policies, political-economy, and Swidden in Southeast Asia. Human Ecology 37: 305–322.
Fujinuma, J., and Harrison, R. D. (2012). Wild pigs (Sus scrofa) mediate large-scale edge effects in a lowland tropical rainforest in peninsular Malaysia. PloS One 7: e37321.
Gibbs, H. K., Ruesch, A. S., Achard, F., Clayton, M. K., Holmgren, P., Ramankutty, N., and Foley, J. A. (2010). Tropical forests were the primary sources of new agricultural land in the, 1980s and, 1990s. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 107: 16732–16737.
Harrison, R. D., Tan, S., Plotkin, J. B., Slik, F., Detto, M., Brenes, T., Itoh, A., and Davies, S. J. (2013). Consequences of defaunation for a tropical tree community. Ecology letters. doi:10.1111/ele.12102.
Hirawan, F. B. (2011). The impact of palm oil plantation on Indonesia’s rural economy. In Intal Jr., P. S., Oum, S., and Simorangkir, M. J. O. (eds.), Agricultural development, trade and regional cooperation in developing east Asia. ERIA, Jakarta, pp. 211–266.
Ickes, K. (2001). Hyper-abundance of native wild pigs (Sus scrofa) in a lowland dipterocarp rain forest of Peninsular Malaysia. Biotropica 33: 682–690.
Ickes, K., Paciorek, C. J., and Thomas, S. C. (2005). Impacts of nest construction by native pigs (Sus scrofa) on lowland Malaysian rain forest saplings. Ecology 86: 1540–1547.
INRN (2003). Indonesian National Research Network, Indonesia Unreached People Groups. Indonesian National Research Network, Jakarta.
IUCN (2012). The red list of threatened species, version, 2011.2. Http://www.iucnredlist.org [accessed 25 June 2012].
Kawanishi, K., and Sunquist, M. E. (2004). Conservation status of tigers in a primary rainforest of peninsular Malaysia. Biological Conservation 120: 329–344.
Koh, L. P., and Wilcove, D. S. (2008). Is oil palm agriculture really destroying tropical biodiversity? Conservation Letters 1: 60–64.
Koster, J. (2008). The impact of hunting with dogs on wildlife harvests in the Bosawas Reserve, Nicaragua. Environmental Conservation 35: 211–220.
Laurance, W. F., Carolina Useche, D., Rendeiro, J., Kalka, M., Bradshaw, C. J. A., et al. (2012). Averting biodiversity collapse in tropical forest protected areas. Nature 489: 290–294.
Li, T. M. (2011). Centering labor in the land grab debate. Journal of Peasant Studies 38: 281–298.
Luskin, M. S. (2010). Flying foxes prefer to forage in farmland in a tropical dry forest landscape mosaic in Fiji. Biotropica 42: 246–250.
Luskin, M. S., and Potts, M. D. (2011). Microclimate and habitat heterogeneity through the oil palm lifecycle. Basic Applied Ecology 12: 540–551.
Maddox, T., Priatna, D., Gemita, E., and Salampessy, A. (2007). The conservation of tigers and other wildlife in oil palm plantations. The Zoological Society of London, London.
Margono, B. A., Turubanova, S., Zhuravleva, I., Potapov, P., Tyukavina, A., Baccini, A., et al. (2012). Mapping and monitoring deforestation and forest degradation in Sumatra (Indonesia) using Landsat time series data sets from 1990 to 2010. Environmental Research Letters 7: 034010.
Miettinen, J., Shi, C., and Liew, S. C. (2011). Deforestation rates in insular Southeast Asia between 2000 and 2010. Global Change Biology 17: 2261–2270.
Mohd. Azlan, J., and Sharma, D. S. K. (2006). The diversity and activity patterns of wild felids in a secondary forest in Peninsular Malaysia. Oryx 40: 36–41.
Naughton-Treves, L., Mena, J. L., Treves, A., Alvarez, N., and Radeloff, V. C. (2003). Wildlife survival beyond park boundaries: the impact of slash- and-burn agriculture and hunting on mammals in Tambopata, Peru. Conservation Biology 17: 1106–1117.
Nijman, V. (2010). An overview of international wildlife trade from Southeast Asia. Biodiversity and Conservation 19: 1101–1114.
Nyhus, P. J., and Tilson, R. (2004). Characterizing human-tiger conflict in Sumatra, Indonesia: implications for conservation. Oryx 38: 68–74.
Pangau-Adam, M., Roske, R., and Muehlenberg, M. (2012). Wildmeat or Bushmeat? Subsistence hunting and commercial harvesting in Papua (West New Guinea), Indonesia. Human Ecology 40: 611–621.
Peluso, N. L., and Lund, C. (2011). New frontiers of land control: introduction. Journal of Peasant Studies 38: 667–681.
Redford, K. H., and Robinson, J. G. (1991). Neotropical wild life use and conservation. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Rigg, J. (2006). Land, farming, livelihoods, and poverty: rethinking the links in the Rural South. World Development 34: 180–202.
Robinson, J. G., and Bennett, E. L. (2000). Hunting for sustainability in tropical forests. Columbia University Press, New York.
Rye, S. (2000). Wild pigs, ‘pig-men’ and transmigrants in the rainforest of Sumatra. In Knight, J. (ed.), Natural enemies: people-wildlife conflicts in anthropological perspective. Routledge, London, pp. 104–123.
Sandker, M., Suwarno, A., and Campbell, B. M. (2007). Will forests remain in the face of oil palm expansion? Stimulating change in Malinau, Indonesia. Ecology and Society 12: 37.
Sayer, J., Ghazoul, J., Nelson, P., and Klintuni Boedhihartono, A. (2012). Oil palm expansion transforms tropical landscapes and livelihoods. Global Food Security 1: 114–119.
Shine, R., Ambariyanto, Harlow, P. S., and Mumpuni (1999). Ecological attributes of two commercially-harvested python species in Northern Sumatra. Journal of Herpetology 33: 249–257.
Shively, G. E. (1997). Poverty, technology, and wildlife hunting in Palawan. Environmental Conservation 24: 57–63.
Sodhi, N. S., Koh, L. P., Brook, B. W., and Ng, P. K. L. (2004). Southeast Asian biodiversity: an impending disaster. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 19: 654–660.
Suryadinata, L., Arifin, E. N., and Ananta, A. (2003). Indonesia’s population: ethnicity and religion in a changing political landscape. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore.
Tomich, T., van Noordwijk, M., Budidarsono, S., Gillison, A., Kusumanto, T., Murdiyarso, D., Stolle, F., and Fagi, A. M. (2000). Agricultural intensification, deforestation, and the environment: assessing tradeoffs in Sumatra, Indonesia. In Lee, D., and Barrett, C. (eds.), Tradeoffs and synergies: agricultural intensification, economic development and the environment. CAB International, Wallingford, pp. 221–244.
Wilkie, D. S., and Curran, B. (1991). Why do Mbuti hunters use nets? Ungulate hunting efficiency of bows and nets in the Ituri rain forest. American Anthropologist 93: 680–689.
Wilkie, D. S., and Lee, R. J. (2004). Hunting in agroforestry systems and landscapes: conservation implications in West-Central Africa and Southeast Asia. In Schroth, G., Da Fonseca, G. A. B., Harvey, C. A., Vasconceles, H. L., and Izac, A.-M. N. (eds.), Agroforestry and biodiversity conservation in tropical landscapes. Island Press, Washington DC, pp. 346–370.
WWF (2004). “Flying squads” address human-elephant conflict in Sumatra. http://wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?16470 [accessed 25 June 2012].
Acknowledgments
We are indebted to N. Sembiring, S. Purwoaji, and Tandrianto, B. Silangit, P. Lim. D. Darius for help in the field, W. Widodo and Dinas Kehutanan Jambi, Dinas Perkebunan, Dinas Pertanian dan Pangan, and Balai Konservasi dan Sumber Daya Alam and PORBBI and PERBAKIN for their cordiality, insights, and resources. I. Ray and K. Fiorella provided methodological help designing the study. B.S. Ramage, L. Macaulay, and H.M.W. Salim provided useful comments on earlier drafts. Discussions with C. Kremen and J.S. Brashares and their labs at UC Berkeley helped guide our research and analyses. Three anonymous reviews provided detailed comments that greatly improved an earlier draft of this manuscript. M.S.L. and L.C.K. were supported by the US National Science Foundation’s GRFP.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Luskin, M.S., Christina, E.D., Kelley, L.C. et al. Modern Hunting Practices and Wild Meat Trade in the Oil Palm Plantation-Dominated Landscapes of Sumatra, Indonesia. Hum Ecol 42, 35–45 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-013-9606-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-013-9606-8