‘Re-planting the Rainforest’

In this 3-part series Alice Moffett shares her experiences visiting Rainforest Rescue’s Plant a Rainforest Project in Indonesia, including each location on the Orangutan Adventure Trek’s itinerary. In part 1 she had just viewed the Orangutans at the Bukit Lawang Orangutan Viewing Centre and in part 2 she stepped into the Gunung Leuser National Park for a refreshing and memorable rainforest trek. Now, for the final installation Alice takes some time with the community managed rainforest rehabilitation project and sees how a local community are ensuring a more sustainable future – one tree at a time.

I am so looking forward to meeting the people and organisation that Rainforest Rescue are working with to help conserve the Sumatran Orangutan and its habitat by supporting communities to rehabilitate illegally cleared rainforest within Sumatra’s Gunung Leuser National Park. The organisation is the Sumatran Orangutan Society – Orangutan Information Centre (SOS-OIC) and they are based Medan, Indonesia.

Imagine the hustle and bustle of Medan, Indonesia’s third largest city. Becak and bemo drivers (motorbike and small bus taxis) shooting this way and that, pungent street markets and heavy traffic, everyone busy with business to do. Here I meet SOS-OIC’s Founding Director, Panut Hadiswoyo and together we make our way out of the city to the site of the rainforest rehabilitation program. We drive for 2.5 hours through small villages connected by vast stretches of oil palm mono-culture plantations until we arrive at our destination, Langkat District, on the border of the Gunung Leuser National Park (GNLP). Children smile and wave at the site of the SOS-OIC car; easy to spot with a large orange Orangutan painted on the side.

Here, OIC is working with the community to rehabilitate 400 hectares of former rainforest that lie within the national park. Adding to the 6 million hectares in Indonesia that has already been converted to oil palm plantations[1], this land has been illegally cleared, destroying the habitat of the Sumatran Orangutan. The illegal encroachment has been stopped and the company responsible has been ejected from the park, however, their legacy of destruction remains.  Where the palms have been cleared only grasslands remain; degraded soil and bolting weeds create challenges for forest rehabilitation efforts.

A community managed cooperative called Ketapel has been established to manage the rehabilitation works. One of the group’s members, Bapak Sukirman puts down his tools to tell me his story. Bapak Sukirman works in both palm oil production and rainforest rehabilitation. His usual day begins with cutting down the fruit from the oil palms with a long bamboo pole to which a traditional knife (egrek) is attached. In the afternoon he dons his Ketapel shirt and joins the Farmer’s Group for tree planting and maintenance.

The Farmer’s Group Cooperative consists of 45 paid individuals plus family and community members who volunteer their time. Besides nursery care, planting and maintenance of new trees, members of the group also act as internal forest patrollers, committed to rehabilitating the forest and telling the oil palm companies where and where not to plant new oil palms.

Harmoniously, benefits are bestowed on the community, the forest and the Orangutan population. Bapak Sukirman tells me that the Project helps him and his community – his wage from the OIC rehabilitation program is more than one and a half times his wage from the palm oil company.

The GLNP is a UNESCO Tropical Rainforest Heritage Site and provides approximately half of the Sumatran Orangutan’s habitat range and provides essential habitat for other critically endangered species such as the Sumatran tiger. This ecosystem also provides an important water table for approximate 4 million people living in the provinces of Aceh and North Sumatra who are dependent on the park’s natural resources. Bapak Sukirman says that there is already a water shortage because the natural forest is being replaced by thirsty oil palms. Sometimes he and his community must go to other villages to get water. He says we must leave the forest intact for the next generation.

By supporting the OIC and Ketapel Farmer’s Group, Rainforest Rescue has helped to plant 5000 trees over 5 hectares in the past year. Within the project target area there are still a further 322 hectares that require rehabilitation – that means we need to plant another 322,000 trees.

By donating to Rainforest Rescue’s Plant A Rainforest Indonesia Project or by joining the Orangutan Adventure Trek- every $1 will plant a rainforest tree and every $1,000 will plant and maintain a hectare of rainforest while providing a sustainable alternate livelihood and income to a farmer with a good cause.

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[1] Adriansyah, F. 2006. Realising Sustainable Palm Oil Development in Indonesia – Chellenges and Opportunities. International Oil Palm Conference 2006. 10 pp