Benefitting from Agroforestry: West Lampung, Sumatra

By Barrie | September 14th, 2007 | No Comments

A number of factors have contributed to the success of the agroforestry system in West Lampung, which is one of the country’s major coffee producing areas. Coffee — particularly the robusta variety — remains the regency’s major commodity, accounting for 65 percent of the robusta coffee production in the province.

Farmers in West Lampung have been growing coffee on private plantations and on communal land before and after the 365,000 hectares of hills and forests spanning Tanggamus, West Lampung, and Kaur regency were declared a protected public forest.

What arouses greater concern, however, is the illegal logging of centuries-old trees in the national park, which risks the livelihoods of farmers in the coastal area of Krui, West Lampung. None of the tycoons behind West Lampung’s illegal logging industry have been arrested so far.

“In fact, the Krui people have grown resin-producing trees for centuries. Formerly, anyone caught felling a resin-producing tree was subjected to a fine. These species’ resin production has provided a sustainable source of income for the local community and has also become one of the country’s agroforestry success stories,” said Joko Santoso, an environmentalist with Lampung Forest Watch (LFW).

Kurniadi of the Association of Resin Producing Communities said illegal loggers could get Rp 150,000 on average for the trunk of a resin-producing tree, most of which are centuries old and over a meter in diameter. They will then saw the trunk into four sections, selling each for Rp 500,000.

Nonetheless, farmers in several parts of West Lampung have developed other kinds of agroforestry.

Instead of resin-producing trees, some villages in Sumberjaya and Way Tenong districts have made coffee their main crop. But even if coffee prices fall, farmers will not be out of business because they can still harvest areca nuts, candle nuts, durians, bananas, beans and other secondary crops.

Unlike the resin-based agroforestry in Krui with its trees grown mostly on communal land, coffee agroforestry usually utilizes state-owned land. The critical state property is managed by local residents under an agreement through the community forest program. Also called wana tani (forest village farming), agroforestry is a natural resources management system that combines forest or tree management with short-term plant or agricultural crop cultivation.

Models of agroforestry range from the simple combination of a crop or tree species and several agricultural commodities, to a complex mix of various tree species and diverse agricultural crops. In Tribudisyukur village, Sumberjaya district, for instance, local farmers also grow candle nuts, durians, pepper, areca nuts and papaya in addition to coffee as their core commodity.

Agroforestry crop variations normally combine perennial crops with seasonal or short-term agricultural commodities, main crops as food sources or economic commodities with auxiliary crops, productive crops with supporting plants — like coffee or cacao with shade trees — and also mix various seasonal crops or those with different harvest times like rice, cucumbers, coffee, resin and durians.

“With such diverse crops and varying harvest times, farmers will be reaping their crops throughout the year,” said Rama Zakaria, director of the Nature and Environment Lovers Family Circle (Watala). After assisting West Lampung farmers for almost 20 years, Watala has found out that agroforestry can be a solution to poverty: “It’s a fact that lots of farmers around forests in Indonesia are structurally poor. But those in Sumberjaya and Way Tenong, West Lampung, prosper through agroforestry”.

Saving the forest and farming

Tribudisyukur is one of the villages in Bukit Rigis forest in West Lampung. Built by retired servicemen of West Java’s Siliwangi military division in the ’50s, the village has a long history, starting with the ex-soldiers’ struggle to open the forest, reclaim land for crop cultivation and build roads.

The Siliwangi retirees moved to Lampung under a transmigration program for the Indonesian Military designed by the National Reconstruction Agency (BRN). The BRN program was meant as a token of government appreciation for the contribution of independence war veterans. Now the progeny of these Tasikmalaya-born fighters can enjoy lush green crop expanses with asphalted roads between West and North Lampung.

Despite the mountain and forest environment, visitors will not find many poor villagers there because all of them have paddy fields and plantations with abundant harvests. They grow paddy for daily consumption, while the other needs like housing, children’s schooling and health expenses are covered by income from estate crops like coffee, pepper, candle nuts, durians, cacao and areca nuts.

“Many of us were poor in the past. After the government issued a provisional permit allowing locals to manage the forest seven years ago, we can now maintain plantations. Since then, we have taken good care of the forest so that we can keep growing estate crops in compensation,” said Engkos Kosasih, former village chief of Tribudisyukur and current chairman of the Bina Wana (forest development) farmers group.

The forest management license is known as the community forest program (HKM) or community-based forest management (CBFM).

In Indonesia, the HKM model applied to Tribudisyukur is a pilot project. “A lot of farmers from different parts of Indonesia have done comparative studies here. Some researchers from Vietnam, the U.S. and Germany have also visited our village,” Engkos said.
With the successful HKM program, at the end of May 2007 West Lampung Regent Erwin Nizar handed over a 25-year community forest management license to the Bina Wana farmers group, with which over a dozen smaller groups are affiliated. The long-term permit also requires the prevention and control of illegal logging, the prevention of forest fires and the control of illegal hunting, as well as the planting of timber-producing and multipurpose trees.

The license concerns forest management rather than ownership so that it cannot be transferred. It is also liable to revocation if the license holder fails to carry out their obligations and abide by the relevant laws or to complete their working plans as specified.

According to one study, the community forest program realization in Tribudisyukur has increased local people’s preparedness to maintain timber estates and grow multipurpose plants benefiting the less advantaged.

In addition, the HKM program can boost land value and community income, promote investment in tree planting and land cultivation, and enhance the value of agroforestry’s environment services. With the introduction of HKM and agroforestry to Tribudisyukur by the end of the 1990s, the severely damaged Bukit Rigis forest has now been restored.

“But only the West Lampung portion of Bukit Rigis is now green, while the other part in North Lampung remains damaged by persistent squatting. We can do nothing because it’s beyond our territory,” Engkos Kosasih pointed out. Any trespasser or illegal logger trying to steal wood from the village will be driven off or apprehended by locals, so that no more illegal activities can be found in West Lampung.

Meanwhile, the protected forest on the slopes of Bukit Rigis has also been converted from barren land into a mixed agroforestry area with robusta coffee as its main crop. As catch-crops, pepper, bananas, magnolia, cinnamon, candle nuts, areca nuts and others are also grown to meet the varying heights of plants required.

“HKM indeed requires the planting of short, medium-height and tall trees. Tall timber trees must be conserved for the ecosystem. By the multiculture system, estate harvests take place the whole year,” said Watala director Rama Zakaria.

‘Warem Tahu’ for increased bargaining

One evening at the end of July, about 10 people from Sumberjaya district arrived at a modest wooden house in Simpang Sari village, West Lampung. It was the secretariat of Watala, a non-governmental organization in Lampung that has assisted forest farmers for over a decade. The visitors were the chairmen of farmer groups associated in Warung Rembuk Tani Hutan (Warem Tahu), a discussion forum for farmers.

The Warem Tahu members were dealing with various problems related to HKM implementation. Actually, the forum has its own meeting place, a big building beside the secretariat, but it cannot be used during the night because it has no lights. Yet its members are seen as the figures behind the success of West Lampung’s community forest program.

Despite the absence of a formal organizational structure, Warem Tahu is respected by forest farmers and prominent figures in West Lampung regency. It is these Warem Tahu negotiators who led to the granting of the 25-year forest management license. They were also actively involved in the birth of the regional bylaw on community-based natural resources and environment management.

The farmers and groups that are granted the 25-year license — previously a five-year provisional permit — are first screened by Warem Tahu. Erfan, a high school teacher in West Lampung and a Warem Tahu activist, said the forum had no leaders. “Its chairman is the member who hosts the meeting, so the post is alternately held,” he added.

According to him, the discussion group was formed at the end of 1990 to strengthen the bargaining position of farmers, who had for decades been made scapegoats in the cases of forest fires, squatting and illegal logging in protected areas. When the reform period started, a lot of people around the forest took revenge by converting forested land into coffee plantations.

“The situation could not be left unchecked as the forest would have been destroyed by the locals. We sought a middle path by providing advocacy for residents whose huts were burned down by security personnel, while also trying to jack up their bargaining power. We convinced the regional government and councillors that farmers could cooperate in forest conservation as long as they were given the concession to manage the forest,” he said.

As a win-win solution, the government launched the HKM program in 2000, enabling the farmers living near protected and production forest zones to manage the areas for plantations. However, continued Erfan, farmers remained wary of their future. “It’s because the management license lasted for five years, meaning that they had to give up the fruits of their toil only after one coffee harvest. So we urged the West Lampung regent to issue the 25-year license,” he recalled.

In the HKM forest in West Lampung, farmers are now engaged in coffee agroforestry, combined with areca nuts, sonokeling (hardwood) and durians for conservation. Watala director Rama Zakaria acknowledged that Warem Tahu activists had improved farmers’ business deals. “The long-term license is one proof. Warem Tahu is effective in its advocacy for being close to farmers and cooperating with regional officials. Farmers are not necessarily always opposed to the government,” Rama said.

Along with the village chief, the regency natural resources management board, the forest unit head and the relevant NGOs, Warem Tahu makes annual reports on the results of its monitoring and evaluation groups of farmers under HKM program licensing.

Apart from training some 6,000 farmers to manage 40,000 hectares of critical forested land, Warem Tahu also teaches residents around protected areas to grow multiculture crops.

“It’s in fact a mutual learning process to achieve a common goal. We wish to see farmers in our forest live in prosperity and the forest environment better conserved,” Erfan said.

Oyos Saroso