Mammalian Use of a Buffer Zone Agroforestry System Bordering Gunung Palung National Park, West Kalimantan, Indonesia

One of the most common designs for nature reserves has a limited-access core reserve area surrounded by buffer zones or multiple-use areas (UNESCO 1974; Shafer 1990; Sayer 1991). MacKinnon et al. (1986) divide potential buffer zone functions into two categories, distinguishing between extension buffering that extends the core habitat of plants and animals and sociobuffering that provides goods and services for people. A current challenge is to identify existing land-use systems that can simultaneously fulfil both of these roles (McCauley 1991; Wind 1991). One potential candidate is the forest garden, a multispecies agroforestry system developed (among other places) in villages bordering Gunung Palung National Park in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. During a recent socioeconomic study of these forest gardens, I found that they appear to fulfil a socio-buffering function in that they provide a significant cash income to local villagers from various market crops (Salafsky, 1993a). As a part of this study, I also attempted to examine how effectively the forest gardens and associated habitats fulfill an extension-buffering function by looking at mammalian use of this agroforestry system. In this paper, I use