Species Richness of Yapen Island for Sustainable Living Benefit in Papua, Indonesia

Abstract

The objective of this study was to precisely identify the types of utilization of the forest resources in two local communities. All forest plants used were identified and classified based on their types and classes during data collection. Semi-structural interviews through questionnaires were undertaken to obtain daily information. The results showed that there were a total of 64 forest plant life forms and categories extracted for various reasons. Most of the subject forest plants were found in the surrounding lowland tropical forest, the dominant categories were monocotyledons followed by dicotyledons, pteridophytes, and thallophytes. A strong positive correlation was determined between how frequently a species was used and the benefit value that was gained (0.6453), while a strong negative correlation was observed between the value of plant’s benefit and the difficulty of access to those plants (-0.2646). Frequency of use and the future prospect of forest plant availability (-0.1405) also showed a negative correlation.