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‘Catatan dari Tepi Hutan’: Communities honor local wisdom to manage forests
A new book reveals how local people exercise their local wisdom to manage forests in a sustainable way.
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Author Bambang Supriyanto poses with his book, "Catatan dari Tepi Hutan" (Notes From the Forest’s Edge) during its launch in Jakarta (A.Kurniawan Ulung/-)
F
or people in Ammatoa Kajang village in South Sulawesi, the forest is a stairway that connects Earth and the sky through which departed spirits go back and forth.
They, therefore, will drive anyone who damages the forest out of the village, along with his or her family members — the highest form of punishment imposed. They are not allowed to return to the village.
“For indigenous people in Kajang, the forest is like the self. If we damage it, we damage ourselves. The [responsibility] to take care and protect the forest is preserved from generation to generation there,” said Bambang Supriyanto, the Environment and Forestry Ministry’s director general of Social Forestry and Environmental Partnership.
He recalled he was asked to walk barefoot during his visit to the village. He was told that the Earth was like a mother and that humans were supposed to unite with it. Therefore, footwear that separated the two entities was forbidden.
He shared the story in his book, Catatan dari Tepi Hutan (Notes From the Forest’s Edge) during its launch in Jakarta.
Published by Tempo Publishing, the book highlighted the government’s social forestry program that enables local communities to manage state forest areas not only to garner social and economic benefits but also to protect it on the back of their local wisdom.
Bambang said the book aimed at making more people understand that local communities no longer needed to be afraid of being chased and arrested by forest police or being accused of forest encroachers when they had a management permit.
