de Jong,Wilhelmus Adrianus

DE JONG, Wil
Professor, Center for Southeast Asian Studies

 

Areas of Specialty

Forest governance, forest transition

Since my childhood, growing up in rural settings in Holland, I have been fascinated by people’s intrinsic links to their natural environment. This led me to study agricultural sciences with specialization in forestry at the Wageningen Agricultural University and Research Center. After a brief stint of research in Holland, I moved to the tropics in 1982 to explore the cultural and economic dimensions of the role of tropical forests in people’s lives and societies. Initially I pursued my curiosity in the Amazon basin, but in 1995 relocated to Indonesia, where I lived for 12 years. After a few years of mostly Indonesia focused research, I shifted to comparative research projects carried out simultaneously in different countries, usually in more than one continent. I have had the privilege to work in Peru, Bolivia, Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam and Zimbabwe. In recent years, I have returned to my original stomping grounds Peru where I conduct research on tropical forestry governance topics.

 

Career

De Jong studied temperate and tropical forestry at Wageningen Agricultural University and Research Center, before moving to Peru, where he worked as a local scientist at various Peruvian national research institutions. He received his Doctorate in Agricultural Sciences in 1995 from Wageningen University, while affiliated with the New York Botanical Garden’s Institute of Economic Botany. He was employed as Scientist and Senior Scientist at the Center for International Forestry Research, with its headquarters in Bogor, and moved to the Japan Center for Area Studies at the National Museum of Ethnology in 2004. He moved to his present post at CIAS in April 2006.

 

Major publications

Journal articles
Strangers among trees: Policies and politics for foreign residents in northern Bolivian forests. W. de Jong and Sergio Ruiz. Under review Forest Policies and Economics.
Forest rehabilitation and forest transition. W. de Jong. Biotropica, 42(1): 3–9, 2010.
The evolution of the timber sector in lowland Bolivia: Examining the influence of three disparate policy approaches. Pablo, Pacheco, Wil de Jong, James Johnson. Forest Policy and Economics, 12 271–276, 2010.
Social geomatics: Participatory forest mapping to mediate resource conflict in the Bolivian Amazon. Peter Cronkleton; Marco Antonio Albornoz; Grenville Barnes; Kristen Evans; Wil de Jong. Human Ecology 38:65–76, 2010.
Do smallholders in the Amazon grow trees? L. Hoch, B. Pokorny, W. de Jong. International Forestry Review 11 (3) 1-12, 2009.
Future scenarios as a tool for decision making in forest communities. K. Evans, W. de Jong, P. Cronkleton. SAPIENS 1 (2): 39-46, 2008.
Conflicts on the way to communal forest management in northern Bolivia. W. de Jong, S. Ruiz, M. Becker. Forest Policy and Economics, 8, 447-457, 2006.

Edited volumes
Transborder governance of forests, rivers and seas. Wil de Jong, Denyse Snelder, Noboru Ishikawa, eds. Earthscan, London, 2010.
Forest policies for a sustainable humanosphere. W. De Jong, ed. CIAS Discussion Paper 8. Center for Integrated Area Studies, Kyoto University, 2009.
El manejo forestal comunitario en América Latina: experiencias, lecciones aprendidas y retos para el futuro. C. Sabogal, W.de Jong, B. Pokorny, B.Lauman, eds. 2008. Belem, Brazil. CIFOR, CATIE, 2008.
Transborder environmental and natural resource management. W. de Jong ed. 2008. CIAS Discussion Paper 4. Kyoto: Center for Integrated Area Studies.
Tropical forests and extreme conflicts. W. de Jong, D. Donovan, A. Ken Ichi. (eds.) Dordrecht, Netherlands, Springer, 2007.
The social ecology of tropical forests: Migration, populations and frontiers. W de Jong, Lye Tuck-Po, K. Abe eds. Kyoto University Press and Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2006.
The political ecology of forests in Southeast Asia. Historical roots of modern problems. Lye Tuck-Po, W. de Jong, K. Abe, eds. Kyoto University Press and Melbourne: Trans Pacific Press, 2003.