TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsAs forests shrink in Bogor, a family defies the odds to grow trees
“Our whole family, including our two children, participated directly in planting, arranging and caring for the trees. We didn’t rely on any outside workers. Planting trees is easy, but taking care of them is the hard part,” Rosita said.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Rosita Istiawan, 64, stands in the forest she and her family nurtured on Jan. 12 in Megamendung district, Bogor regency, West Java. Purchased as barren land in 2001, the plot was transformed into a lush forest now home to around 44,000 trees. (JP/Theresia Sufa)
R
ows of tall trees rise skyward in Megamendung district, Bogor regency, West Java, their dense canopies closing overhead to create a rare pocket of shade in an area better known for disappearing green space.
But this green oasis was not always so lush. Just a few decades ago, it was barren land with little vegetation. The transformation is the result of decades of dedication by 64-year-old Rosita Istiawan and her late husband Bambang Istiawan, who nurtured the soil back to life.
"My late husband worked in an oil drilling company and only came home once a year. He dreamed of spending his later years living in a house on the edge of a forest. But in Megamendung, where we live, there were no forests, so we challenged ourselves to create one and make his dream a reality," she told The Jakarta Post recently.
Rosita and her husband began saving diligently, and in August 2001, they managed to purchase a 2,000-square-meter plot of land in Megamendung. The site was an abandoned cassava farm, left uncultivated because most of the local residents worked as villa caretakers.
Read also: Southeast Asian communities spearhead forest restoration
The land itself was shaped like a bowl, its steep slopes forming a natural basin. There, Rosita planted a variety of Indonesia’s endemic trees, including Rasamala, Puspa, Meranti, Ebony and Sonokeling, determined to turn the barren terrain into a thriving forest.
Rosita also partnered with a local forest farmers’ group to practice agroforestry, planting fast-growing vegetables like water spinach and bok choy amid the young hardwood trees.
