Bali botanical garden suffers from lack of attention

Prapti Widinugraheni, Contributor, Jakarta

Mid morning at the Eka Karya Botanical Garden in Bali, and few gardeners are about. Its paths, neat and tidy, run between large Balinese statues. Light showers fall, but the air is cool and crisp at 1,300 meters above sea level in the highlands of Bedugul, north-central Bali.

Moving amid labeled plants on the hilly terrain, the foliage opens out to reveal magnificent views of Lake Beratan. A 2.5- metre-tall flower droops sadly in its pen. Other wonders seem isolated and starved of attention.

Eka Karya Botanical Garden has great potential, but little has been done in the last 42 years to maximize it.

"This is the youngest botanical garden in Indonesia, but also the largest in terms of area. It is the only one to have been established since Independence and developed solely by Indonesians," said head of the botanical garden Ida Bagus Ketut Arinasa.

It may sound like an excuse for the garden's patchy development, but Arinasa was in fact emphasizing that many years and much hard work were needed before Eka Karya could reach the stately level of the 188-year-old, Dutch-initiated Bogor Botanical Garden in West Java. The government's Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) manages both gardens and two others located in Cibodas, West Java and Purwodadi, Central Java.

"Everything is much harder for us. We have to clear the shrubs or select the trees to be cut to make way for planting space. We must dig out tree stubs, level out the land, prepare the soil for planting and sowing," he said.

But perhaps most difficult and painful of all was realizing that there were factors affecting the garden's slow and difficult development that were beyond their control.

"We would be very happy if the garden's status was clear; it would be nice if LIPI owned, or was given, this land instead of merely borrowing it from the Ministry of Forestry," he said.

When the garden was founded in 1959, the area -- then owned by the Bali provincial administration -- measured about 50 hectares. In 1976, 129.2 hectares were added to the gardens. By then, the land no longer belonged to the administration, but the Ministry of Forestry; LIPI used it under a lend-and-use scheme involving no financial transaction. When measurements were taken in 1993, it became clear that the gardens covered only 154.5 hectares.

"This is the area we have been managing since then, under a 20-year lend-and-use scheme with the forestry ministry," Arinasa said. But 25 years on, the ministry and LIPI are still discussing the agreement for this scheme, so there is still no definite date -- or year -- specifying when the first 20-year period of the contract should end.

"As researchers, the situation makes it hard for us to work in peace because we don't know what will happen, or who will own our research and plants in, say, 20 or 30 year's time. So much energy and money have already been put into the gardens, it would be a shame to see it one day turned into a plantation, for instance. It would be a disappointment for LIPI and for plant conservation, research and inventory efforts in general, all of which are the main objectives of Indonesia's botanical gardens," Arinasa said.

He said the main point of disagreement between LIPI and the Ministry of Forestry was the latter's objection to "converting forests into non-forest areas". The forests on which the gardens were established consist mainly of trees planted between 1933 and 1973 for reforestation purposes. These forests make up most of the gardens.

"By giving the forests to LIPI, statistics would show a decline in total forest area. This is something they don't want. But they should be aware that in terms of plant conservation and preservation of hydrological and ecological functions, the botanical gardens' objectives are much the same as any forest's," he said.

As a result of the lend-and-use scheme, Eka Karya's development has become extremely slow. Red tape at the forestry ministry ensures that at least several months are needed before Arinasa and his staff get permission to cut down even one tree to make way for a plant collection or building. A planned man-made lake to hold collections of aquatic plants has been designed to curve and follow the sloping terrain in such a way that only a minimum number of trees needs to be felled.

Arinasa said another problem the gardens faced was a lack of manpower. With a staff of only 109, the gardens could only afford one person per hectare. Compare this with the 87-hectare, well- established Bogor Botanic Gardens that has a staff of about 300, or almost three people for every hectare.

"Shortage of personnel, especially researchers, is a big problem. But there is little we can do because of the government's "zero growth" policy. This even means we can't replace staff who retire or die," he said. So far they have coped by using contract workers and researchers, but he insisted this was not ideal.

"Committed staff, especially scientists, are important for developing the gardens," he said.

Despite the shortcomings, there are still things worth seeing at the Eka Karya Botanical Garden. The garden is home to a herbarium, seed collection and nursery, and hosts a living collection of trees, ferns, orchids, cacti and other plants of scientific, economic, cultural and aesthetic value.

Thanks to Balinese culture, three temples adorn the garden while laboratories and office buildings are built in unique traditional designs. If all these man-made efforts fail to impress, the garden's lovely scenery provides solace for the visitor.