Destruction has occurred on 30,000 hectares at Mt. Leuser National Park. Rehabilitation initiatives are now taking the form of partnership forests. Forests are preserved and locals enjoyed access to economic sources.
By
ZULKARNAINI
·5 minutes read
Kompas/Zulkarnaini
An area of Mt. Leuser National Park near Alur Baning village in Babur Rahmah district, Southeast Aceh, Aceh, is seen in this photo taken on Sunday (11/3). The area will be rehabilitated through a reforestation program that involves farmers, the government and nongovernmental organizations.
Destruction has occurred on 30,000 hectares at Mount Leuser National Park. Rehabilitation initiatives are now taking the form of partnership forests. Forests are preserved and locals enjoyed access to economic sources.
Zulkarnaen, 32, of Alur Baning village, Babur Rahmah district, Southeast Aceh regency, Aceh province, said he was desperate when he opened land in Mt. Leuser National Park (TNGL). At the time, he opened 1-hectare of land for corn, cacao and other crops.
Zulkarnaen said he cut down trees in the national park as he had no land of his own. His parents’ 1-hectare land was not large enough to be split between him and his nine siblings.
“I have no skills other than farming. If I didn’t go into [the National Park], I would have had no land to earn money for my family,” he said.
On Sunday (11/3/2018), Zulkarnaen carried stink beans, dogfruit and candlenut seeds on his motorbike. In line with his participation in TNGL’s rehabilitation program, he collected the three-month-old seeds into baskets before he sowed them on his 1-hectare land. “The location is a bit far. It is 3 kilometers from here,” said the father of three.
Mariot, 60, another farmer from Lawe Sigala, Southeast Aceh, had worked on his land in TNGL for far longer, since the 1980s. At first, he grew candlenut. However, during the palm oil boom in the 2000s, he started cultivating palm oil.
After the TNGL forest rehabilitation agreement, Mariot reverted to growing candlenut. “I regret cutting down my candlenut trees and replacing them with palm oil. Candlenut was also promising,” Mariot said.
Mariot planted candlenut on his 2 hectares located in TNGL. Some of the candlenut trees are over one-year-old.
He said he hoped the national park management would not drive away farmers whose trees bore fruit. Mariot said this was his only source of income. “I am old. In the future, these candlenut trees may be my only source of income,” Mariot said.
Kompas/Zulkarnaini
A sumatran orangutan is seen in a tree in this photograph taken on May 6, 2017 at the Ketambe Research Center in Mt. Leuser National Park, Ketambe district, Southeast Aceh, Aceh. The Leuser ecosystem is the only place where orangutans, rhinoceroses, elephants and tigers live together. Environmental destruction threatens the survival of the protected animals.
Biosphere reserve
Mt. Leuser National Park, measuring 1,094,692 hectares in area, stretches across two provinces, namely Aceh and North Sumatra. The national park bears two globally recognized status, namely as biosphere reserve since 1981 and as world heritage since 2004. Both status were given by UNESCO.
The national park’s reforestation in Southeast Aceh starts in Alur Baning village. In the beginning, 1,800 hectares of areas will be rehabilitated. The target is to reforest 30,000 hectares in five years.
The rehabilitation involves local farmers, the national park management office, the Environment and Forestry Ministry, the Southeast Aceh regency administration and the Leuser Conservation Forum. Farmers are given the right to manage reforested areas but are banned from destroying them. This is deemed the wisest solution to protect the forest and improve locals’ welfare.
Forest encroachment was rampant between 2006 and 2012. Locals sporadically opened land inside the national park. Apart from growing crops, many of them also cultivated palm oil.
Encroachers came not only from within Alur Baning but also from neighboring districts and even from North Sumatra. Encroachment varied in size, between 1-hectare and 10 hectares per individual.
Leuser Foothill Farmers Association chief Muslim said monitoring in the national park was loose and it was relatively easy for locals to open land in the protected area. “There was some sort of neglect,” Muslim said.
Long before locals started encroaching the national park, Muslim said, two lumber mills had operated inside the national park. It was only after the lumber mill was closed that locals began encroaching the forest. “How could a lumber mill operate in the national park and locals be banned?” Muslim said.
Kompas/Zulkarnaini
A worker tends to seedlings on Sunday (11/3) in Alur Baning village, Babur Rahmah district, Southeast Aceh, Aceh. The seedlings will be used in a reforestation program for Mt. Leuser National Park.
In 2014, the national park management and local police improved land monitoring. Locals’ crops were cut down and locals were banned from work on the land.
At first, farmers resisted this effort. They demanded that the government give them land management permits. Farmers held protests several times at the regency administration office and the national park representatives’ office in Kutacane. As a result, the police arrested five farmers for damaging property at the national park representatives’ office. The five farmers were later freed after Aceh then-deputy governor Muzakir Manaf vouched for them.
Through a long process, a proper solution was found, namely in collaborative forest rehabilitation that involves farmers, the government and civil society organizations. Muslim said that this was the best solution for farmers.
Leuser Conservation Forum’s Alur Baning rehabilitation supervisor Hasyimi said reforestation was done in stages. Currently, 55 hectares have been reforested with 5,500 trees. “The target is to reforest 30,000 hectares in five years,” Hasyimi said.
Farmers are urged to establish groups to make the reforestation effort easier. There are seven farmers groups comprising 113 members.
National park management office head Misran said land management should not change the land status and that locals only had the right to manage land.
