Effort to involve community falls flat at Mt. Halimun

Effort to involve community falls flat at Mt. Halimun

By Yusran Edo Fauzi

MT. HALIMUN, West Java (JP): In a plan designed to marry
conservation needs with those of the surrounding community,
locals living in the eastern region of Mt. Halimun National Park
were employed three years ago to manage a guest house in the
area.

But the plan has all but failed, and today people have
returned to felling trees within the park.

The locals consist of seven "enclaves", inhabiting the
supporting and exploitation zones. The areas are surrounded by
lowland rain forest at a height of 500 meters to 1,000 meters
above sea level. It is secondary forest, already damaged by human
activities.

Hunters and illegal loggers have now turned their attention to
the forest at 1,000 meters to 1,500 meters above sea level in the
40,000 hectare park.

"Apparently it is hard to take repressive measures throughout
this national park. We focus more on taking preventive actions
toward enclave inhabitants," the head of TGH hall, Sudarmadji,
told The Jakarta Post.

The preventive measures included the guest house plan, devised
by a consortium of non-governmental organizations with a joint
mission to improve the economic welfare of local inhabitants in
Citalahab village, Bogor.

"Automatically, the guest house will make inhabitants maintain
forest preservation because a forest becomes the power of
attraction for visitors to stay," Sudarmadji said.

Many of Java's rare native animals, such as the Javan gibbon,
muntjac deer and Javan Hawk-eagle, are still found in close
proximity to the guest house.

The guest house is nestled among dense vegetation and located
in the Nirmala tea plantation. Mist often shrouds the view during
the day, but at night the vantage point offers a beautiful view
of the flickering lights of Bogor and Jakarta from the top of the
plantation.

It takes between six and seven hours to reach the eastern part
of the national park from Jakarta, traveling on the road to
Sukabumi.

The Citalahap guest house consists of three bamboo-walled
houses with seven bedrooms and a gazebo. The construction cost
was Rp 50 million, which was paid for by the consortium. At the
grand opening in 1997, the guest house became the property of the
local inhabitants.

Suhara from Citalahap was its first operations manager, with
dozens of locals helping him as daily management staff. They were
trained by the consortium and they were confident there would be
many guests.

Suhara was so optimistic he renovated the front part of his
home as a homestay at a cost of Rp 6 million. He said it could be
used if there were not enough rooms at the guest house. Others
followed suit by also building homestays.

In the following months guest houses and homestays were built
in the villages of Leuwijamang, in the north of the park, and
Ciptarasa, in southern Halimun.

Luxury

In mid-1998, the administration of the national park worked
together with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
to build two large, luxury houses on raised platforms in the
valleys near the Cikaniki River, 1 km from Citalahab guest house.

Then minister of forestry, Muslimin Nasution, designated the
Rp 1 billion properties as the Cikaniki Research Station. They
not only have a laboratory, presentation room and office, but
also six bedrooms, kitchenettes and other three-star hotel
facilities. They were intended for researchers from the Ministry
of Forestry, Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and JICA.

"It is natural that we also have guest houses ... to support
the national park as a place for research," Sudarmadji argued.

He acknowledged that other visitors also used the facilities
for recreation "but we weren't competing with the guest houses
managed by locals for guests".

Still, the number of guests for Citalahab's guest houses
decreased, while Cikaniki often hosted visitors. The forestry
ministry distributed brochures about the site, and guests were
able to make bookings through a mobile phone number.

In contrast, there was no telephone service to Citalahab.

At the eastern entrance to the park in Kabandungan
subdistrict, Sukabumi, visitors were offered information about
the Cikaniki guest houses, but there was no information about
Citalahab.

"At the end of 1998 the consortium closed down as it felt it
was not able to prove that guest houses increased the welfare of
local communities," Suhara, 60, said.

The guest house revenues were never enough to share every
month. Only a small number of villagers who managed the guest
house daily received individual shares of only 30 percent of
annual revenues. The remainder was used for operational costs and
to build a musholla (Islamic prayer room), and a public toilet.

Fortunately, the Nirmala tea plantation, a concession of the
Sinarmas Group, employs people from around the area. Priority is
given to people from four villages surrounding the plantation.

In early 1999 the guest house project was taken over by
Yayasan Ekowisata Halimun (Halimun Ecotourism Institute), but the
Citalahab guest house still has few visitors. During the New
Year's holiday there was not a single guest, although the regular
room rate was slashed by 50 percent to Rp 40,000.