WALHI LAMPUNG TANAM 5000 BIBIT BAKAU

Lampung, 5 September 2007- Buntut kritisnya kondisi hutan bakau di Indonesia, WALHI Lampung menginisiasi kegiatan tanam bakau di Dusun Bunut Selatan, Desa Bandar Agung, Kecamatan Sragi, Lampung Selatan. Kegiatan ini diadakan di sela-sela agenda South – North Consultation, Selasa (4/9).

Dalam kegiatan tanam bakau ini, WALHI Lampung mengikutsertakan seluruh peserta South – North Consultation yang berasal dari pelbagai negara, seperti Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, Swedia, Venezuela, Honduras, Spanyol, Senegal, Nigeria, Thailand, Srilanka, dan Afrika Selatan.

Mukri Friatna, Direktur Eksekutif WALHI Lampung, saat dikonfirmasi menyebutkan, “Kegiatan tanam bakau ini adalah buntut keprihatinan WALHI atas rusaknya hutan bakau di Lampung. Sekitar 136.000 hektar dari 160.000 hektar lahan bakau rusak. Untuk itu, kami mengawali diri untuk melakukan penyelamatan atas kekritisan kondisi hutan bakau di Lampung yang hanya tersisa sekitar 1700 hektar.”

Dalam kegiatan itu, masing-masing peserta dibekali ± 10 pohon bakau untuk ditanam di lahan bakau Dusun Bunut Selatan, Desa Bandar Agung, Kecamatan Sragi, Lampung Selatan. Melihat luas areal lahan bakau yang tersedia, juga kondisi hutan bakau yang ada, misalnya, di Dusun bunut Selatan, patut disebut bahwa fakta ini harus dijadikan sebagai momen untuk menyelamatkan hutan bakau Indonesia. Terlebih, rusaknya hutan bakau lebih disebabkan oleh ekspansi industri pertambakan skala besar.

“Di tahun 1982, hutan bakau Indonesia seluas 4,2 juta hektar. Namun, kini, areal itu hanya tersisa 1,9 juta hektar di tahun 2007. Dari data yang kami peroleh, ekspansi industri pertambakan skala besar di Indonesia meningkat 14% dari tahun 2001 (luas areal: 435.010 ha) hingga tahun 2005 (luas areal: 778.000 ha). Untuk itu, stop ekspansi industri pertambakan udang global menjadi hal yang niscaya bagi pemerintah. Jika tak bertindak cepat dan terpadu, hutan bakau Indonesia akan segera musnah,” ungkap Riza Damanik, Manajer Kampanye Pesisir dan Kelautan WALHI.

Walhi Jambi with BBC

It is now Friday 27th July and we have been in Jambi for 10 days – and it’s been very action packed. The most important thing is the Jambi/Achmadi story is now much clearer. Please note that he spells his name differently and he has no surname.

The context is that Jambi is a province that was colonised by the Javanese in the ‘70s for the purpose of establishing and maintaining a palm oil industry. Achmadi and his father-in-law, like millions of other Jambi farmers, rely totally on palm oil for their livelihood and know no other way of making a living. And they have always used fire as their prime method of land-clearing to plant palm oil.

Patrick tells us this in Jakarta. He is working with a local environment group called WALHI, who are committed to stopping land-clearing and the fires. Their campaign plan is to call on the Governor of Jambi to institute a moratorium on all logging in the province. Patrick plans to visit the Governor in the near future in order to discuss forest management and measures to control the fires.

In the town of Jambi, we meet Hari, the son of a palm oil farmer. He works part-time in town for a community organization. It is the day of a local fund-raising event, involving rap music, and there he sees a flyer posted by the environment group, WALHI outlining the effects of fire as a method of land-clearing and why they have to stop.

Hari is curious. His family, like millions of Javanese farmers, is totally dependent on palm oil and have always used fire as their main method of land clearing. He knows his brother-in-law, Achmadi, is preparing for a major burn-off on his land very soon, and so he visits WALHI and gets some printed information on fire prevention and their rationale for stopping deforestation and fires.

Hari travels home to his village – Sungai Bahar- for a harvest of palm oil. He joins his father, Kundori, and brother-in-law, Achmadi in cutting the palm fruit on their small plantation. It’s a community event and other men from the village are helping out. At the end of the day, they have a large pile of fruit which is loaded onto a truck. Hari travels with the truck to the palm oil factory where he helps unload and gets payment based on the weight of the load.

We can, at this point, or later, track the journey of the palm oil fruit through the factory to where it is shipped off to sea ports for export. We can also trace the palm oil all the way to Europe, specifically Holland.

At the end of the harvest day, Hari is in his bedroom (with his Britney Spears and body-building pictures on the walls) reading the WALHI papers. He looks very concerned.

The next morning, Achmadi arrives at Kundori’s house on his motorbike with his wife and daughter. They live a few blocks up the street, but travelling in the village by bike rather than walking is a status issue. At breakfast, Hari brings out the WALHI papers.

A huge row ensues. Achmadi and Kundori think the WALHI proposals are outrageous, unfair to them and unworkable. They have always used fire and believe they do so responsibly. They use a wizard to protect the outer zone of the areas they burn and believe this magic stops the fires from spreading and causing too much smog. They cannot accept that their fires are causing climate change or affecting Singapore and Malaysia.

Back at his house, Achmadi and his wife are getting ready for a wedding in their street. As they get dressed, Achmadi tells his daughter, Daya, 5, that it is because of palm oil that he is able to feed her and send her to school. He says that is why he must to clear and burn his new land to plant more palm oil

A truck loaded up with palm oil passes by the wedding house as Achmadi and his family arrive by motorbike. It is a very elaborate, traditional Javanese wedding, with colourful clothing, music, dancing and plenty of food. Achmadi is well regarded his community, and it is clear that the feast and gifts of money to the wedding couple are all paid for by region’s palm oil industry.

Back in Jambi, Hari and Achmadi visit WALHI again. Achmadi confronts Arief with his concerns about their proposed fire abatement proposals. The arguments are heated and passionate, and yet Achmadi comes away still determined to light his fire.

The WALHI director, Feri rings Patrick in Jakarta and tells him about the visit from an angry farmer, Achmadi, and why he still insists on burning. Patrick says he will raise the issue of small-time farmers with the Governor when he meets him.

Patrick’s wife, Avi, tells us about the Orang Rimba, the local indigenous people who have been displaced by the government and Javanese people and lost their traditional right to manage their own forests. Avi is working with one particular group of Orang Rimba who still live the traditional forest life, but are seriously threatened by the expanding palm oil business. She has given a young man in their community a video camera and laptop computer to document their way of life as a preservation tool.

Arief, from WALHI takes us deep into the forest where we meet the Orang Rimba people ourselves and hear how the logging and burning for palm oil is depriving them of their home and traditional lifestyle. They are endangered and want to the government to give them a protected area.

Patrick arrives in Jambi. He is met by the Governor’s advisors and taken via the VIP welcome room. Clearly the Governor regards this meeting as important. At his hotel, Patrick meets briefly with Feri from Walhi to talk about the questions Patrick will ask the Governor. In particular, they talk about the challenge of convincing local small farmers to stop logging and burning, and the need for alternatives.

Patrick goes to the Governor’s palace for his meeting with Governor Zul. The Governor is clearly passionate about stopping the fires and agrees that no peatlands should be logged or burnt at all. Patrick is surprised and pleased with this outcome. When Patrick raises the issue of the small time farmers, the Governor says he would like to meet Achmadi.

In the meantime, Achmadi continues planning for the fire he intends to light sometime in the near future. This involves organising many people, including a magic man, a spiritual leader, about 15 men to help with the fire, other support people including cooks, food and fire lighting equipment. Leonard begins following Achmadi as he makes these preparations. Achmadi is also cutting down the last remaining trees on his property.

The meeting between Achmadi and the Governor will take place on Thursday 2nd August. Achmadi is taking his brother-in-law, Hari to support him, as he believes Hari will be more confident with the Governor. I have no idea what the outcome of this meeting will be, and that creates the drama for the film - will the Governor be able to convince Achmadi not to burn?

Cathy Henkel: Friday 27th July

Indonesian fishermen threatened by coastal highway development

by Oyos Saroso H.N.

Date: 21-03-2007

Source: The Jakarta Post

The Bandarlampung municipality in Indonesia will tear down thousands of houses along the beach of Lampung Bay, many of which belong to the fishing community, following the planned construction of a coastal highway. The highway forms part of Bandarlampung municipality's Water Front City project, which it hopes will help ease traffic in the city. The new 5-km traffic artery starts at the Ujung Bom fish auction center in South Telukbetung district and ends at the Panjang district container port. At least 3,000 houses line the beach stretch. Their razing is being disputed by residents and the Indonesian Port Administration (Pelindo) in Lampung. Head of Bandarlampung Development Planning Board (Bappeda), Juhandi Goeswi, said the highway project was initiated by Lampung Governor Sjachroedin Z.P. "This is an alternative to Jalan Yos Sudarso, which is always jam packed. Visitors can also enjoy the coastal view when they visit Lampung," he said. The Water Front City project was actually conceived under former Bandarlampung mayor Suharto during his 1999-2004 term. The municipality had planned a city center along the waterfront, equipped with various public facilities, housing and recreation areas. To aid the construction effort, three companies have been carrying out land reclamation operations in the Lampung Bay area since 2003 using rocks from Bukit Camang in Bandarlampung. The reclamation of dozens of hectares of beach area has attracted protests from residents and non-governmental organizations, who have been staging rallies targeting the municipal council and Bandarlampung municipality almost every day. The planned mass-eviction of residents living along the beach, and their subsequent relocation to other areas, has also sparked protests. Director of the Lampung chapter of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) Mukri Friatna said the project has not been adequately supported by an environmental impact study and was environmentally damaging. Many upper-class residences now line Lampung Bay, while the livelihoods of traditional fishermen are threatened, he said. Lampung Fishermen Union secretary M. Yamin said local fishermen were not willing to be evicted and forced to live in rented flats. "How much would the rent be?" Yamin asked. "Just to have food on the table is difficult, let alone to pay for rent." Yamin said that fishermen's lives had become tougher in the past four years due to the land reclamation project and that those with small boats now had to seek fish further out at sea. "We will not catch fish if we don't venture further because the fish have all gone to the middle of the sea," he said. Bandarlampung Mayor Eddy Sutrisno said his office would not be rash in evicting people and that the municipality would familiarize the public with the Water Front City project before relocating the fishermen.

©The Jakarta Post