Rasman Nuralam: JP/ Indra Harsaputra

A natural disaster that claimed the lives of four villagers nine years ago was the trigger for former illegal logger Rasman Nuralam to change his life.

Today, the 39-year-old resident of Cibuluh village in Cianjur works alongside villagers to help the environment through the preservation of a spring, which has been developed into a micro hydroelectric power plant producing 550 kWh of electricity.

"I'm currently campaigning about the importance of preserving the forest because the forest has a lot of potential to generate electricity, such as by taking advantage of the spring," Rasman said after the opening ceremony for the plant. "Water is a cheap form of alternative energy that is also environmentally friendly."

Micro hydroelectric power plants have been developed in 13 areas in Indonesia, including in Riau, Lampung, Toraja in South Sulawesi, Cibulug in West Java, and Trawas in Mojokerto, where Rasman works.

The Indonesian government, through the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry and the State Ministry for the Development of Disadvantaged Regions, has allocated Rp 1 billion (US$95,000) for alternative sources of electric power for six million Indonesians living in remote regions.

Although some remote regions do have access to electricity, Indonesia needs a further Rp 120 billion for the 80 million people or 19 million families who still do not have power.

That stated amount does not include the cost of increasing deforestation, which is proceeding at a rate of around 1 million hectares a year, with nearly half of Indonesia's 120 million hectares of forest already damaged because of illegal logging.

This is damage Rasman contributed to, as an illegal logger in the Simpang mountain range, a nature reserve in the West Java town of Cianjur, before he became an activist and conservationist.

"The Simpang mountain range is like heaven for illegal loggers," he said. "It's not just the village communities who depend for their livelihoods on illegal logging but the activities are also protected by some people, including officials and the police."

Rasman said that between 1945 and 1974 there weren't many illegal loggers because the villagers and the village head looked after the forest and its ecosystem, with a special regulation in the village that prohibited the felling of trees.

As times changed, the responsibilities of the village head and the community toward the forest started to disappear, especially as illegal loggers were not punished. Rather, the authorities seemed to protect the loggers and enjoyed the returns from selling logs, Rasman said. Before long, local community members started to join in.

Eventually, communities moved completely from farming to illegal logging because of the lack of government support helping them improve their lives.

The villagers lived in poverty and isolation, with minimal access to infrastructure and information, and no electricity.

Rasman was one such villager. "I can't count how many trees I've cut down, because since I was young I helped my father to fell the trees in the forest," he said.

Selling timber from illegal logging brought him about Rp 3 million to Rp 4 million every month. He sold the timber to brokers, and to avoid arrest paid a levy to the guards of up to Rp 1 million every month. He could earn a lot more as an illegal logger than as a rice or cassava farmer.

"From that money I was able to buy some hectares of gardens and the rest I used to gamble, get drunk," said Rasman. "The wealth that I got made me more and more determined to fell trees."

Even before flood disaster struck, conflicts with farmers over water use began to erupt in the villages, which had been safe and peaceful.

After the floods swept through, claiming lives, the government started to campaign to make people aware of the need for tight monitoring of the timber cutters' activities.

Some illegal loggers were arrested, including Rasman, who was caught with the evidence of his activities: a chainsaw and a 20-meter-long Kinabanen tree with a diameter of 1.5 meters.

He spent two weeks in jail, during which time his wife Sunarsih, begged him, "Let's live in poverty and have a life of harmony."

"At that time I cried," Rasman said. "I started praying straight away because I felt guilty; I was concerned about my family and the environment that was damaged because of my actions."

After his release, Rasman was a changed man, and began his protest against his former colleagues.

His assignment was to enforce village regulations prohibiting the logging, as in the days before 1974. This drew a strong reaction from the other loggers, and Rasman and his family were subject to repeated threats. But Rasman's wife kept giving him the spirit to stand up to the loggers.

"I went around the villages to educate the communities and I went to some places where the trees had been felled," he said. "I'm the initiator of the forest guard volunteer units that sought to halt illegal logging activities in the Raksabumi forest."

To overcome the conflict over water and to help get electricity into his region, Rasman and other villagers started to build a waterwheel at the edge of the Cimaragang River.

In 2004, after attending a course at an electronics factory in Bandung, Rasman started to build the micro hydroelectricity unit, as it could produce more energy than the water wheel, which the villagers found difficult to operate.

"Six of our community members died through electric shocks when they tried to operate the waterwheel. And some of the waterwheel parts were lost or stolen by thieves," he said.

The construction of the micro hydro unit in his village was funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF). Thanks to the hydroelectricity, around 120 families in Rusman's village have electricity, at a cost of Rp 10,000 to Rp 25,000 per month for each household.

"They finally realized that if the trees are cut down the water resources will be damaged, but now they can enjoy electricity," said Rasman.

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