Land Use Dynamics and Development of Oil Palm Plantation in Kubu Raya and Sanggau Regencies During 1990-2013

Abstract

Land use is the result of the intervention of humans to land in order to satisfy the needs of life the material and spiritual, and it changes in line with the growing number of people's activities in regulating economic, social and cultural life. Land use patterns in Kubu Raya and Sanggau regencies for three decades changed significantly. Forest land cover in the decade 1970s in Kubu Raya was 100%, then it was started to open until 1991 for smallholder plantations, large plantations and mix plantations. While, in the Sanggau regency, in the period of 1996-2005 land cover forest and agroforestry change decreased significantly, which was followed by increasing plantation. The objectives of this research were to identify land use/cover change in Kubu Raya and Sanggau regencies and to determine the development of oil palm plantation that occurred during the years 1990-2013. The spatial data land use/cover was obtained from the Ministry of Forestry, which were reexamined using Landsat satellite images with the Land Cover Classification System of the Ministry of Forestry (SNI 7654: 2010). During the 1990-2013 period, land-use change had occurred dynamically. Forest land use consistently decreased while non-forest land such as open land, shrubland, swamp shrubland, and oil palm plantation relatively increased. In general, oil palm plantation in Sanggau regency increase was largely derived from the conversion of non-forest land use. In the period 1990-2009 the increase of oil palm land use was from secondary swamp forest while in the period 2009-2013, that was from non-forest land.

Keywords: Land use/cover change, oil palm plantation