T

he effort to grow casuarina trees along the coastal areas of Patihan village in Bantul regency has yielded a lot of advantages for local residents, from having a green zone to protecting their ability to farm.

But these efforts over the last three years have also come with their fair share of hardships.

Patihan villagers made an agreement that anyone who deliberately cut down the casuarina trees that they had been growing would be fined Rp 1 million (US$104).

“We have been applying this for the last three years,” Rakidin, a local, told The Jakarta Post recently.

He said that applying the fine had been very hard in the beginning, especially because they had to fine one of their neighbors.

The real test came when a villager cut down a tree because he planned to build an eatery at the location. The village was divided — one group wanted to forgive the offender while the other wanted to uphold their agreement and fine him.

“For the sake of our future, we finally decided to firmly implement the agreement, while at the same time building awareness among us of the importance of preserving the trees,” Rakidin said.

Thanks to the years of hard work, 20 hectares out of the village’s 60 sandy coastal area have now been converted into a green zone, covered with over 10,000 casuarina trees or cemara udang as the trees are known locally.

“The trees are so dense that they form a shady area under them that resembles a tunnel. Visitors later named the area Goa Cemara [Casuarina Cave] Beach because of the way the area looks,” said Sumaryono, the chairman of the Goa Cemara farmers’ group.

The casuarina trees, according to him, served many functions. They can act as a tsunami breaker as well as a barrier for the strong winds from the sea. They also absorb the sea spray carried by the wind.

“As a result, we can now grow vegetables on the beach,” Sumaryono said, adding that previously they could not grow anything on the sandy coastal area.

One of the special vegetables grown in Patihan, according to him, are sweet potatoes because they have a different taste and aroma compared to the ones grown in ordinary soil.

“We have been overwhelmed with orders for this commodity,” he said.

Sumaryono said locals had started planting casuarina trees on the beach in the 1990s. However, their efforts met a host of challenges, including the theft of their seeds by bonsai growers.

The villagers organized regular patrols to watch over the trees in shifts.

However, three years ago, the villagers decided to try a different approach by imposing fines.

To further speed up the planting, the money collected from fines was used to buy seedlings, in addition to the ones they had grown on their own or had received from donors.

“We still have some 10 hectares left to plant,” said Sumaryono, inviting donors to donate seedlings.

“Don’t worry, just come. We will take care of the seedlings until they really grow well,” he promised.

Just last week, they received a donation of 1,000 casuarina seedlings from the Yogyakarta provincial office of the Development and Finance Monitoring Agency (BPKP).

“We donate these as parts of our eco-office program,” said office head Condro Imantoro, adding that the program required office personnel to actively get involved in the environmental activities that were supported in part by staff
donations.