Aceh's beach community starts to restore mangrove forest

Nani Afrida, The Jakarta Post, Banda Aceh

It's 5 p.m. on Ule Lheue Beach, but the sun is still bright, shining on the bent backs of a group of men working.

"We're planting mangroves," said Ismail, 45, on Friday. He and 19 other people, including a few teenagers, have spent the last two afternoons doing this. In the morning they work their regular jobs, such as driving pedicabs or picking through recyclable goods.

The blueprint for the reconstruction of Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, which calls for the planting of mangroves along the coast as part of a buffer zone, reaffirms the local wisdom among coastal communities -- that mangrove forests protect the inland from high tide and waves. Mangrove forests slowly diminished in size over the years, until they were washed away in the December tsunami, along with all the shrimp farms that were a main source of income for locals.

But Muhammad, another man planting 40-centimeter tall seedlings, said the local community still heeded the message of their forefathers to look after the mangroves.

He said community members had never cut down the mangroves like others who did so for the money they fetched as firewood.

Muhammad and Ismail, both fishermen, not only lost mangroves here. All the men planting the seedlings, together with survivors of Ule Lheue, lost their homes and now live in tents in front of the local mosque, Baiturrahim, the only standing building in the area.

With the help of British aid organization Oxfam, which provided the seedlings, the men are paid Rp 200 per seedling planted, which is targeted to reach 20,000 seedlings in this initial phase.

"I have nothing else, so I accepted this job," Ismail said, while tying the frail seedling to a stake to prevent it from being washed out to sea.

Muhammad is upbeat that the seemingly slow work will produce results in the form of sizable plants in a few months. "This was the site of a mangrove forest, they will surely grow well," he said.

Mangrove planting has also begun in other coastal areas such as Lamnga village in Krueng Raya district, Aceh Besar regency.

But as people are trying their utmost to get on with their lives, the government's plan to have mangroves planted a few kilometers from the coastline has met with some resistance, particularly from the fishing community.

A tsunami could occur tomorrow, but more likely some time in the distant future, if at all. But people must feed their families, and mooring their boats and residing or having auction and market places too far from beach would mean extra costs. Living even a few kilometers from the coast is unimaginable to fisherfolk. "We're fishermen, we live by the sea," a fisherman once said when asked about the government's plan.