However, illegal logging is now a thing of the past following an intensive campaign by a non-profit conservation organization that promoted the concept of sustainable living among the residents.

The Alam Sehat Lestari Foundation (Yayasan ASRI) has been working in the environment and health sectors in Sukadana, the capital city of North Kayong regency in the province, since its establishment in 2007. Because of its unique and innovative programs against illegal logging, the group received the prestigious Kalpataru environmental award in 2016.

The group developed a program that combined environmental conservation with healthcare services, as the lack of such services nearby was what drove residents to cut down trees in the national park, Yayasan ASRI founder Kinari Webb said villagers living in the park did not have proper access to health care, which forced them to travel for hours to the nearest town. As they did not have fixed incomes, cutting down trees and selling the logs was their way of earning money.

Webb said about 60,000 people lived in the conservation forest area while about 120,000 more lived on the fringes of the Mount Palung National Park.

“The people were aware that cutting down trees is a bad thing. However, they just didn’t have another choice,” she said in a discussion called “Planetary Health Talks” held in @america in South Jakarta last week.

Under the program, Yayasan ASRI opened a health clinic in the area, from which anyone could get free health care by giving seedlings, manure or handicrafts in return for services.

The foundation recorded 82,000 visits to its clinic since it opened in 2007, thanks to the non-payment system. Moreover, it received almost 18,000 seedlings of 30 different species from patients in 2018.

Webb said the NGO also teaches people about organic farming.

“They did not know how to make compost before we took them to Java to learn about sustainable agriculture,” she said.

Meanwhile, the foundation’s conservation manager, Mahardika Purba, said through the campaign and the programs, the number of illegal loggers in the national park had dropped to 150 individuals in 2017 from 1,300 a decade earlier.

Mahardika said the remaining 150 were “the most hardcore loggers” among those who had taken up livelihoods in other sectors, such as farming, fishing and construction.

To convince them to abandon their illegal logging, the foundation implemented a chainsaw buyback program in 2017, in which loggers would be given money to start businesses after selling their chainsaws.

“We have bought 103 chainsaws from them. We want them to move into sustainable livelihoods to feed their families,” Mahardika said.

He said that the loggers had cut down about 16,000 mature trees since 2017.

A reforestration program has also helped the authorities create a treed corridor between two existing forests in the national park.

“Having worked with the national park officers, we have successfully restored some of the critical habitat of orangutan,” he said.

The director of conservation areas at the Environment and Forestry Ministry, Dyah Murtiningsih, said the foundation’s programs were in line with the ministry’s goal to preserve forests, highlighting that community empowerment was pivotal for forest protection.

“In a bid to preserve, the government can’t work alone. We must involve other parties,” Dyah said.

The head of Mount Palung National Park, Matheas Ari Wibawanto, said some residents were still committing illegal logging. Out of 108,000 hectares of conservation forest in the National Park, approximately 3,000 had been used by communities for settlements.

The management of the national park, he said, used Yayasan ASRI’s example to take a softer approach to illegal loggers and involve them more in conservation efforts. (das)

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