The Study Site
Bungo district is located in the province of Jambi, on the eastern piedmont of the Kerinci
Seblat Range, in the centre of Sumatra Island (Figure 1). Three main geomorphological units
can be distinguished in the district. The piedmont of Kerinci Seblat Mountains, in the southwestern
part of the district, is of broken topography, on a granite bedrock, with altitudes
ranging from 200 to 1400 masl. Slopes are mainly covered with rubber agroforests, with
remaining patches of secondary forest in the less accessible areas. Depressions behind river
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levees have been converted into rice paddies. Villages in this area are quite isolated,
sometimes not yet connected to the asphalted road network. The transition area between the
piedmont and the eastern plain has altitudes ranging between 100 to 450 masl, and
moderately hilly topography with large valleys, on granite bedrock. In this area villages and
agricultural land are easily accessible; monospecific plantations of rubber and oil palm are
more frequent; riversides formerly converted into rice paddies have been left fallow since the
late 1990s, when farmers preferentially turned to rubber cultivation. The third
geomorphological unit is the eastern alluvial plain, with an altitude under 200 masl. The
bedrock material here is mainly tuff. This area is the most developed, with a dense road
network and the capital city of the district, Muara Bungo. The first oil palm estate was
introduced by the transmigration program in this area in 1983. Since 2000 the development of
independent oil palm smallholdings has been reported in many parts of the district in the
vicinity of estates (Bonnart 2008, Feintrenie and Levang 2009). The landscape is changing
quickly in Bungo, with a high conversion rate of forests and agroforests into oil palm and
rubber plantations. The dense forest cover has decreased from 42 to 30% of the district area
between 1993 and 2005, and rubber agroforests from 15 to 11%; in contrast oil palm
plantations have increased from 4 to 19 % whereas rubber monoculture plantations are nearly
constant from 26 to 27% (Ekadinata and Vincent 2010).