A friend to tribespeople in need

Haidir Anwar Tanjung, The Jakarta Post, Pekanbaru

Most "modern" people might find it difficult getting on with people who live in the jungle, struggling to fill the silence with some polite small talk. And you can generally forget about city dwellers and jungle residents from becoming fast friends.

However, Rudi Syaf has proven to be an exception to the rule, with his love and compassion for the Kubu, a small tribe that lives in the wilderness of the Bukit Barisan National Park in Jambi province.

The tribe prefers to call themselves Orang Rimba, or people of the jungle, because "Kubu" is usually associated with backwardness. Only a few thousand in number, the survival of the tribe is very much in question, particularly if deforestation continues unchecked.

Rudi, an activist with the Jambi-based non-governmental organization Warsi, became interested in forestry and jungle tribes when he was a student at the School of Agriculture at the University of Jambi.

In his student days, Rudi was an active member of the Association of Nature Loving Students. He was also active in forest conservation efforts and set up a non-governmental organization, Gita Buana (Song of the Earth), in 1987

After graduation, he cofounded Warsi in January 1993 as an organizational network established by 20 non-governmental organizations in four provinces in Sumatra: South Sumatra, West Sumatra, Jambi and Bengkulu. Its focus was the conservation of natural resources and community development.

Originally, Warsi had its office in Jambi city. Then in April 1994 the office moved to Bangko, the capital of Sarolangun Bangko regency. Today, its headquarters has returned to Jambi city.

Rudi and his colleagues spend much of their time living alongside the jungle dwellers, providing them with legal advocacy and introducing them to more "modern" values, such as basic education and health services.

Rudi's ambition is to save the Kubu as they are pushed back by modernity. The tribe suffers from many social problems brought about by development near the forest, such as transmigration, land clearance by forest concessionaires, the development of plantations and so forth.

"We NGO activists are concerned about their survival and their future," Rudi told The Jakarta Post.

He has placed a number of Warsi environmentalists in areas where the jungle people are found, such as the Bukit Duabelas National Park and in the buffer zone around the Kerinci Seblat National Park. Warsi members are also stationed at the Bukit Tiga Puluh National Park, which covers land in three provinces: Riau, West Sumatra and Jambi.

The activities of Warsi are supported by the group Cultural Survival of the U.S. and also by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Indonesia.

In the southern part of the Bukit Tiga Puluh National Park in Jambi, Warsi -- in cooperation with the WWF -- has conducted a study on the lives of the jungle people. Warsi was responsible for the study, while two WWF representatives were included on the five-person research team.

In 1996, the work that Rudi and Warsi were doing with the jungle people caught the attention of an international non- governmental organization, the Norwegian Rain Forest (NRF) Foundation. Later, a long-term agreement was signed by the Norwegian government, Warsi and NRF to follow up on the work that Warsi had done over a five-year period (1997-2002).

"Warsi and the NRF are making efforts to provide educational and health services and, most importantly, to save the homes of the jungle people in the remaining forest around Bukit Duapuluh and Bukit Tigapuluh national parks, and also along the middle area of the Trans-Sumatra highway," Rudi said.

Warsi helps provide the children of the jungle residents with basic education, in cooperation with the government. Because the tribe is nomadic, it is quite difficult to teach the children. When they move from one place to another, the school that the local administration built for them through the Ministry of Social Affairs is simply abandoned.

To provide the children an education, Warsi also teams up with a number of anthropologists engaged in research of the jungle people. As part of this cooperation, the anthropologists are ready to teach the children reading, writing and arithmetic.

"This is effective because the anthropologists follow the jungle people, so the children's education is not disrupted," Rudi said.

Warsi also is monitoring the trade in rare animals, such as Sumatran tigers and rhinos. In April 1999, Warsi began cooperating with WWF Indonesia to become one of the nodes in the network established to monitor the trade in Sumatran tigers and rhinos.

Warsi is responsible for monitoring the trade in central Sumatra. As part of this work, Warsi collects data on the poaching of Sumatran tigers and rhinos, as well as the network responsible for selling these animals.

As could be expected, Warsi's environmental work sector often faces impediments. The biggest hurdle, Rudi said, is the difficulty entailed in convincing the public that conservation is important not only for them, but also for future generations. This process will take a long time and will require much work.

"It is man's natural instinct to exploit nature. Those engaged in large-scale logging have lost their conscience and a loud voice is needed to stop them," he said.

Rudi said numerous parties were involved in illegal forest exploitation and illegal logging, but law enforcement efforts remained weak.

"The forests, even those categorized as conservation areas, are open to the public. We have to do more than just trying to catch illegal loggers," he said.

The forests in Sumatra are fast disappearing due to logging and land clearance for plantations. The World Bank has warned that at the current rate of deforestation, little will remain of the Sumatran forest by 2005.

"It will require much more concerted efforts to save the forests," Rudi said.