Kelekak, as a traditional agroforestry system of the Belitong Island communities, can be understood as a complex adaptive socio-ecological system that integrates ecological conservation with social and economic practices. This system consists of mixed gardens cultivating fruit trees, timber species, and forest vegetation edible by humans, forming a landscape mosaic with high vertical and horizontal heterogeneity.
The perspective of anthropology ecology, kelekak exemplifies how human communities mediate the distribution of biological resources while maintaining long-term ecological stability, internalizing principles of adaptive stewardship that balance food production, biodiversity, and carbon storage. The heterogeneous structure of kelekak produces biomass strata optimized for carbon sequestration, where timber trees, shrubs, and understory vegetation interact in nutrient cycles that support the accumulation of soil organic carbon.
Tali utan, as a riparian forest governed by customary rules, strengthens landscape ecological functions. These areas are regulated through management prohibitions socially enforced by the village shaman or dukun kampong, forming a socially sanctioned ecological reserve. Tali utan represents a sacred commons that internalizes social mechanisms to maintain carbon stocks, regulate water flow, and preserve habitat continuity. Riparian vegetation in tali utan reduces erosion, improves water infiltration, and supports habitats for fauna that are crucial for seed dispersal and trophic interactions, thereby enhancing ecosystem connectivity and improving carbon functions at the landscape scale.
Collectively, kelekak and tali utan function as micro to meso-scale carbon sinks, absorbing CO₂ in both aboveground biomass and soil organic carbon reserves. Tropical agroforestry studies indicate that heterogeneous systems like kelekak have significantly higher carbon storage potential compared to monocultures, as the combination of timber trees, legumes, and layered vegetation enhances carbon turnover and litterfall accumulation. Integrating tali utan as an ecological corridor supports carbon stock conservation in natural forests by minimizing human disturbances, allowing both systems to work synergistically to enhance landscape carbon integrity.
The heterogeneity of kelekak, tali utan, and natural forest patches creates a functional mosaic that optimizes edge effects, minimizes fragmentation, and strengthens the landscape’s capacity for long-term carbon storage. Ecological corridors in tali utan allow fauna, such as monkeys, tarsier, chevrotains, and birds, to move across the landscape, supporting seed dispersal networks essential for tree regeneration and maintaining structural diversity, a key factor in carbon sequestration.
Biodiversity within kelekak produces a redundancy effect, enhancing ecosystem resilience against environmental stress and anthropogenic disturbances. With hundreds of plant species combined with local fauna, kelekak facilitates multi-layered carbon storage, ranging from primary tree biomass, shrubs, and understory vegetation to soil carbon reserves.
Based on Socio-cultural, kelekak and tali utan serve as centers of social-ecological memory, where traditional knowledge, customary rules, and conservation practices are passed down through generations. Collective harvesting, social rituals, and informal education establish norms that mediate human-environment interactions, creating collective ecological intelligence critical for maintaining carbon stocks. The management of tali utan through customary prohibitions demonstrates how social structures can function as institutionalized mechanisms to ensure the sustainability of carbon functions at the community level.
Kelekak provides food by a bioeconomy perspective, like forest honey, and edible mushrooms, supporting food security and local income without compromising carbon stocks or biodiversity. Tali utan indirectly enhances this productivity by regulating hydrology, stabilizing soils, and maintaining habitats. This model reflects a socio-biodiverse bioeconomy, where economic and ecological values are generated simultaneously through community-ecosystem interactions.
The hydrological functions of kelekak and tali utan are highly relevant for climate adaptation. Tree roots prevent erosion, vegetation slows runoff, and groundwater reserves support surrounding agriculture. These functions enhance hydrological resilience, which in turn strengthens carbon resilience through vegetation stability and natural regeneration.
Philosophical perspective described these systems embody principles of ecological ethics, integrating sustainability, intergenerational responsibility, and human-nature balance. Kelekak and tali utan are not merely sources of carbon or food production but holistic manifestations of long-standing human-environment interactions, forming an ethno-ecological knowledge system effective in local climate change mitigation.
In the context of carbon trading, both systems can be measured, verified, and integrated into community-based incentive mechanisms. Species diversity, vegetation strata, and the continuity of tali utan enhance credibility as community-based carbon sinks, where social legitimacy ensures sustainable carbon functions and minimizes ownership conflicts.
Kelekak and tali utan form an ecological network, where landscape structure, customary rules, and traditional agricultural practices interact to maintain carbon stocks, habitat connectivity, and socio-ecological resilience. Faunal corridors in tali utan reinforce functional connectivity, enabling species regeneration, genetic diversity preservation, and long-term biomass accumulation.
Human-environment interactions in both systems illustrate co-production of ecosystem services, where social activities not only produce economic outputs but also maintain ecological functions. Carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and other ecosystem services are generated through embedded ecological norms, whereby communities mediate land use according to ecological capacity and cultural ethics.
The potential of kelekak and tali utan as carbon sinks also supports climate-smart landscape planning. By integrating traditional agroforestry, riparian forests, and customary rules, both systems strengthen adaptive landscape governance, allowing local communities to respond to climate change and external pressures while preserving carbon functions and biodiversity.
These systems enhance local food security and economic resilience through seasonal diversification. Kelekak provides a variety of fruits and forest products, while tali utan maintains soil quality and hydrology, resulting in adaptive socio-ecological-economic resilience.
Belitong Island with kelekak and tali utan represent ecological, social, and economic heritage, forming miniature sustainable landscapes with significant carbon storage potential. The integration of agroforestry, forbidden forest conservation, and local social rules demonstrates that traditional, locally grounded practices can serve as effective solutions for climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and community-based sustainable development.
Corresponding Author: Arry Aditsya Yoga | Researcher in International Law, Ecopolitology, and Anthropology.