Aceh's beach community starts to restore mangrove forest

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.