Misman might look like your ordinary villager, but the 59-year-old community figure is responsible for transforming his barren Central Java village of Selopuro into Indonesia’s first certifiable sustainable forest.
JP/Slamet Susanto
Before the 1980s, Selopuro village, Batuwarno, Wonogiri, Central Java, was 646.5 hectares of stony ground with little vegetation. Coupled with an annual water crisis, the unproductive area meant its population lived in poverty.
Today, however, more than 250 hectares of the village have become forests, almost 70 hectares are now rice fields. There are a little over 90 hectares of gardens, 250 hectares of non-irrigated fields, 240 hectares of state forests and 4 hectares of other areas.
The lush forests in Selopuro have been recognized as a Sustainable Community Based Forest Management (PHBML) zone. In 2004, the nonprofit agency Indonesian Ecolabel Institute (LEI) established Selopuro forests as Indonesia’s first certified sustainable forests. While preserving the ecology, Selopuro community forests offer economic benefits without abandoning local culture.
Misman is behind the success of Selopuro’s replanting drive. It is through the initiative, patience and struggle of this father-of-three that locals have become environmentally conscious and voluntarily replanted their home village to reap greater rewards.
As a secondary school student in 1968, Misman was dismayed by the denuded environment of his village and the dire poverty of its population. Without replanting, Selopuro was infertile and only cassava, an annual and low-yielding crop, could be grown. Water springs could not be found and a yearly water crisis plagued the area, forcing locals to spend a third of their time searching for water.
Of the thousands of village residents, only Misman and a neighbor attended secondary school (SMP).
“Most of them were just making ends meet so they didn’t give much thought to studying,” said Misman.
Inspired by the lyrics of a folk song, Ibu Pertiwi (Motherland) that describes the natural wealth of the country, Misman, now the husband of Suminem, 51, became convinced that a green mountainous zone would be a blessing to its community members.
The SMP student began to realize his dreams of greening his barren village. Walking home from school, Misman took the trouble to find seedlings of plants growing wild, which he later planted in neat rows and nurtured on his parents’ 2-hectare plot of land.
“It was a self-help endeavor as I had no money to buy seedlings, so I trekked up and down the hills to find them,” he recalled. Meanwhile, Misman was campaigning for replanting. In the beginning of his struggle, he was frequently scorned because fellow villagers would not believe that growing trees could promote their wellbeing.
“They said I was nuts, doing it just for fun. They couldn’t grasp the idea of replanting for economic improvement,” he pointed out. Yet he carried on his one-man campaign whenever he went out and met people, apparently boring them. Residents gathering for some purpose would even disperse as Misman approached to avoid his greening “lectures”.
Undaunted, Misman kept motivating local people until some of them followed his example. Six years later, in 1976, Misman managed to form eight greening groups and for the first time received 4,000 seedlings in aid.
“Now, there’s no need to urge neighborhood people to grow trees. Residents willingly do so and even buy seedlings themselves because reforestation is more profitable,” Misman noted.
To compensate for every tree cut down, they prepare 25 seedlings and care for the young plants to ensure their growth. The hilly limestone area can normally be planted with corn as an annual crop, producing 1 ton per hectare on average, or worth about Rp 7 million (US$762) assuming the selling price is Rp 7,000 per kilogram.
If the same area is planted with sengon trees, for instance, a hectare will produce 500 trees, which in five years sell at Rp 800,000 to Rp 1 million per tree, thus yielding far bigger profits on average. To meet short-term needs, secondary crops or tubers can be grown as an intercrop among the trees.
The verdant community forests in Selopuro have had a vast economic impact on the rural community.
New water springs have emerged and their abundant supply has freed villagers from water shortages, caused a spread of grassland and a rapid growth in cattle breeding. The new springs arising in the post-greening period have been utilized since 2000.
Through collective efforts, locals have drilled wells and installed an electric pump to raise the water and channel it into a reservoir at a higher level for distribution, through the force of gravity, to hundreds of village homes. Based on village community data, 16 new water springs are still to be tapped.
The green community forests and lavish new water sources have set the local economy in motion.
Extensive grazing areas supply sufficient cattle feed, resulting in fast-developing cattle breeding activities, with each household raising a cow and three to five goats.
Employment is increasing too. Benefiting from the forest waste, in the form of teak and mahogany branches of 5 centimeters in diameter, villagers have started producing handicrafts. In cooperation with a local furniture firm, the products of Selopuro are entering the export market.
“Now, with the forests thriving, I don’t want to see any more forest destruction. I’ve seen the trauma of environmental damage; it led to disasters and impoverishment,” concluded Misman.
| 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|