Lesley Potter,
BA, Dip Ed, MA (Melb) PhD (McGill) Visiting Fellow, Department of Human Geography

Biographical Statement

I retired as Associate Professor from the Department of Geographical and Environmental Studies, University of Adelaide in December 2003 and became a Visiting fellow at ANU in March 2004. My PhD research was conducted in Guyana, where I taught geography in the local university through the 1970s. I returned to Australia in 1980 and after a year as Visiting Lecturer at the University of Canterbury, I joined the University of Adelaide in 1981. I immediately began research in Southeast Asian environmental history (especially that of Indonesia) and in current rural issues in Indonesia. I pursued aspects of this research for 23 years while at the University of Adelaide, in between stints as Head of Department, consultancies for CIFOR (the Center for International Forestry Research) and undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and supervision. I am now continuing my research and writing at the ANU.

Research Interests

My research has been on two fronts: a) historical analysis of forests, grasslands and land-use change in Southeast Asia, especially colonial and postcolonial impacts of government policies on small farmers; and b) current ethnographic studies at village level in Indonesia, especially in parts of Kalimantan and Sumatra. The recent focus has been on smallholder producers of tree-based commodities such as oil palm, rubber and coffee, and on community forestry. Publications currently in press or forthcoming include a study of smallholder coffee growers in southern Sumatra, an overview of oil palm in Kalimantan, a detailed analysis of small farmer resistance to oil palm in West Kalimantan and an examination of the impacts on land use of current government policy towards the Kalimantan-Malaysia borderlands.

Key Publications

• (with H. Brookfield and Y. Byron) In Place of the Forest: Socio-economic and Environmental Transformations in Borneo and the Eastern Malay Peninsula, United Nations University Press, Tokyo, 1995.
• A forest product out of control: Gutta Percha in Indonesia and the wider Malay World, 1845-1915', in P. Boomgaard, F. Colombijn and D. Henley(eds), Paper Landscapes: Explorations in the Environmental History of Indonesia, Verhandelingen van het Taal- Land en Volkenkunde, No 178 Leiden, Netherlands, 281–308, 1997.
• (with J. Lee) Tree Planting in Indonesia: Trends, Impacts and Directions, Occasional Paper No 18, Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor, Indonesia, 1998.
• (with J. Lee and K. Thorburn) 'Re-inventing Imperata: Re-valuing grasslands in Indonesia', Development and Change, 31(5), 1037–1053, 2000.
• 'Forests versus agriculture: Colonial forest services, environmental ideas and the regulation of land use change in Southeast Asia' in Lye Tuck-Po, W. de Jong, Ken-ichi Abe, The Political Ecology of Tropical Forests in Southeast Asia: Historical Perspectives, Kyoto University Press and Trans Pacific Press Kyoto and Melbourne, 29–71, 2003.
• (with S. Badcock) 'Cash crop smallholders, capitalism and adat: Studies in Riau Province, Indonesia', Asia Pacific Viewpoint, 45(3), 341–356, Special Issue, L. Potter and F.M. Cooke (eds), 2004.
• 'Commodifying, consuming and converting Kalimantan's forests, 1950-2002', in P. Boomgaard, D. Henley and M. Osseweijer (eds), Muddied Waters: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Management of Forests and Fisheries in Island Southeast Asia, KITLV Press, Leiden, 373–399, 2005.
• 'Commodity and environment in colonial Borneo: Conservation ideas, forest conversions and economic value, in R.L. Wadley (ed.) Histories of the Borneo Environment: Economic, Political and Social Dimensions of Change and Continuity, KITLV Press, Leiden, 109–136, 2005.
• 'An overview of migration and deforestation in Southeast Asia: 1880 to 2002', in W. De Jong, Lye Tuck–Po, Ken–ichi Abe (eds), The Social Ecology of Tropical Forests: Migration, Populations and Frontiers, Kyoto University Press and Trans-Pacific Press, Kyoto and Melbourne, 174–194, 2006.
• (with S. Badcock) 'Can Indonesia's complex agroforests survive globalisation and decentralisation?', inJ. Connell and E. Waddell (eds), Environment, Development and Change in Rural Asia-Pacific: Between Local and Global, Oxon and New York, Routledge, 167–85, 2007.
• (with J. Lee) 'Managing imperata grasslands in Indonesia and Laos', in M. Cairns (ed.), Voices from the Forest: Integrating Indigeneous Knowledge into Sustainable Upland Farming, Washington DC, Resources for the Future Press, 113–21, 2007.
• 'Governance, tenure and equity in Asia-Pacific forests' in C.J. Pierce Colfer, Ganga Ram Dahal and D. Capistrano (eds), Lessons from Forest Decentralization: Money, Justice and the Quest for Good Governance in Asia-Pacific, London and Sterling Va, Earthscan, 23–48, 2008.

Career Highlights

Winning several large ARC grants, which enabled me to conduct field and archival research in Southeast Asia and archival work in Holland, France, Spain, the USA and the UK.