North and East Kalimantan, the two provinces in Borneo I focus on, were until a few decades ago almost entirely covered with forests. You could find mixed agricultural fields scattered here and there, and most of the large-scale activities included logging for timber, pulp and paper. The landscape was still highly diverse: ecologically and culturally. Of course there were already development processes going on, but these weren’t as noticeable as they are now.
Ok, briefly back to the PhD. What am I actually researching and why?
In the past five years, I analysed how agriculture has developed in North and East Kalimantan and how this is related to the loss of forest: the types of agricultural crops that have been planted, how much forest these crops have replaced, and how this may continue in the future. This consisted of analysing interesting scientific articles, reports and satellite images, and multiple field visits. And nowadays, I am mostly writing everything down to finalise my dissertation. I’ll tell more in my next blogs!