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PhD defense Rika Ratna Sari
On October 30 Dr. Rika Ratna Sari succesfully defended her PhD thesis entitled 'Managing tree diversity for social-ecological resilience: Cacao and coffee agroforestry patterns, processes and games'. Interested to read more, please find Rika's thesis through this link.
Summary
Managing tree diversity for resilient cacao and coffee agroforestry requires interdisciplinary approaches to studying social-ecological systems through understanding the feedback between patterns, processes, and farmers’ choices. This thesis focuses on comprehending the rationale of farmers’ decision-making, including its ecological and economic consequences in two study areas in Indonesia. Active, adaptive, and diverse decision-making observed among farmers in cacao- and coffee-based agroforestry contributes to the preservation of multiple ecological functions, enhancing the social-ecological resilience of the system and facilitating income diversification. The simplified representation of key patterns and processes as understood by a researcher in a game format can enhance the two-way communication between farmers and researchers, leading to additional insights and deserves to get a permanent place in the toolbox for agroecological research within and beyond agroforestry.