Sustainability status of agroforestry systems in Timor Island, Indonesia

¹ Forestry and Environment Research and Development Institute, Kupang, Indonesia
² Watershed Management Technology Centre, Surakarta, Indonesia
³ Centre for Research and Development of Socio Economic Policy and Climate Change, Bogor, Indonesia

^* Corresponding author: ekopujiono78@gmail.com

Abstract

Agroforestry systems can be considered as sustainability concept. They are able to provide ecological, economical and sociological benefit. In order to help policy makers and stakeholder decide what action should be taken to make agroforestry sustainable, the identification of the sustainability status is needed. This study aimed to evaluate the sustainability status of agroforestry systems in Timor Island, one of the islands in Nusa Tenggara Timur Province, eastern Indonesia. The data was collected through combination of field observation and interviews with 38 respondents with purposively selected in three dominant agroforestry systems, namely: mixed-garden, mamar, traditional agroforestry and silvopasture. Multidimensional Scaling approach was used to analyse the sustainability status of agroforestry systems based on five dimensions (ecology, economy, social, institutional and technology) as well as 26 attributes. The attribute valuation was in ordinal scale based on sustainable criteria of each dimension. The criteria were ranked from 0 (the lowest) to 3 (the highest). The assessment of sustainability status was classified into: not sustainable (0-25%), less sustainable (25-50%), moderate sustainable (50-75%) and good sustainable (75-100%). The result revealed that the sustainability of all agroforestry systems were in moderate sustainable. This study found that, only 15 out of 26 attributes were categorized as sensitive attributes. Such data and information are important for the agroforestry farmer or other related stakeholder for improving appropriate strategies or action in sustainable agroforestry management.