Study on The Characteristic of Sunda Parahiyangan Landscape for A Model of Sustainable Agricultural Landscape

Abstract

Agricultural landscape (agroecosystem) is a unified system of ecology and socio-economic and also spiritual-culture that involved in production of foods, shelters, clothes, fibers, biofuels, and other agricultural products. Sustainability of agroecosystem is needed to support the continuity of life, especially for rural communities that relied strongly on agricultural resources. Sundanese society as a rural and mountain society has its own traditional ecological knowledges (TEK). TEK of Sundanese society could be a filter for modernization that negatively affects socio-cultural life of the society itself, as well as damages the nature and environment. Regarding to the role of TEK, it is necessary to do an explorative and descriptive-qualitative study of the various forms of TEK in the context of sustainable agriculture. The qualitative method was used for collecting relevant data to the characteristic of Sunda Parahiyangan landscape. The Data were collected by using Rapid Participatory Rural Appraisal (rPRA) through semi-structured interview, Focus Group Discussion (FGD), and field survey. Data analysis used Landscape Characteristic Assessment (LCA) to analyze character of Sunda Parahiyangan landscape, Knowledge-Based System Methodology to analyze TEK, National Research Council (NRC) and Community Sustainability Assessment (CSA) to analyze sustainable agricultural landscape. The sustainability of agricultural landscape was proposed to achieve USDA’s sustainable agricultural landscape criteria. The study results indicate that the Sunda Parahiyangan agroecosystem has unique characteristics as a result of the adaptation of society to nature and environment through a learning process from generation to generation in a relatively long time period. The character at rural landscape that has been created is a mountainous agricultural landscape type with abundant water resource as a main element. Therefore, Sundanese society called as mountain people (urang gunung) and water people (urang cai). In general, this character is reflected in some Sundanese’s agroecosystems such as kebun-talun (forest garden), sawah (paddy field), and pekarangan (home garden) that located in the surrounding settlement area. Furthermore, kabuyutan concept is one of the TEKs related to understanding and utilization of nature and environment. Kabuyutan is focused on revitalizing the role of forest (mountain) as a buffer of agroecosystem balance by calculating and deciding protected area (leuweung larangan/protected forest and leuweung tutupan/conservation forest). To support the sustainability, integrated between traditional and modern concept by practicing agroforestry system with low external-input and sustainable agriculture (LEISA) system and also applying Islamic management could be applied in utilizing and managing agricultural resources.