Incorporating gender specific land-use decisions in agent-based land use models

Abstract

Gender specificity in response to land-use options and agents offering new investment opportunities has received little attention to date. It may influence ecosystem services delivery especially to areas under conservation agreements (such as those targeting reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation). This study compares the land-use decisions of men and women, and assesses the implications of their decisions on provisioning of ecosystem services in the context of the Minangkabau ethnic group in central Sumatra, Indonesia. This is the largest matrilineal society in the world and men and women farmers have their own management decisions with regards to their land. In this paper, we explored how men and women differ in terms of land-use perspectives and ecosystem services' preferences and how these differences affect the land-use pattern and delivery ecosystem services. Due to its complexities, we combined sex-disaggregated surveys and role-playing games to parameterize the gender-specific agent decision making; and simulated the agent-based model (i.e., Land Use DynAmic Simulator or LUDAS) to explore the effect of the disparities between men and women in land-use decision making. In this paper, we present the key factors that make the two different based on the abovementioned methods. The simulations showed gender specific trends of land-use change; a majority of men preferred tree-based system (such as rubber agroforestry), whereas a majority of women preferred food and cash-based crops. Thus, women-dominated landscapes emitted more carbon than men-dominated landscapes. On the other hand, provision of ecosystem services is affected by gender specific roles, which often been misrepresented in many land-use change models.