Jambi village has unique take on conservation

Jon Afrizal, The Jakarta Post, Jambi

"Ke atas tidak berpucuk, ke bawah tidak berakar, di tengah-tengah di makan kumbang" (Like a withered plant, without leaves nor roots, and its stem eaten away by the beetles).

This is the curse that will be directed at illegal loggers if they dare to damage the community-owned forest in Batu Kerbau village, Pelepat district, Bungo regency.

The preserved forest (386 hectares) of Batu Kerbau, which forms part of a total forest area measuring 776 hectares, has been declared a traditional community forest through Bungo Regental Regulation No. 1249/2002.

"The curse is intended to serve as shock therapy for illegal loggers," the traditional leader of Guguk village, Datuk Muhammad Rasyid, told The Jakarta Post.

Muhammad Rasyid, the former village chief, who retains the title of Datuk Sinaro nan Putiah, said that timber could only be taken from the traditional forest in the public interest, such as, for example, during the construction of the Al-Istiqomah mosque in the village.

As an effort to uphold customary law, those who plunder natural resources in the traditional or protected forests face sanctions, such as a fine amounting to one cow or ox, between 20 and 100 gantang of rice (one gantang is the equal to four liters), between 20 and 100 coconuts, a certain amount of cooking ingredients, or between four and eight kayu of cloth (one kayu is equal to about 20 meters), as well as cash fines of between Rp 500,000 and Rp 2.5 million.

"If they don't accept the sanctions, the violators will be reported to the police to be prosecuted in accordance with state law," he asserted. Sanctions may also be imposed on Muslims based local residents -- such as reciting religious texts up to 40 times.

The efforts made by the village over the last few years have proved highly successful and gained recognition when the village received a national-level Kalpataru Award last year.

The Batu Kerbau village chief, Tafrizal, said that application of customary law had restored the quality of the Batang Pelepat river, which runs through the village. It was once polluted by mud from the soil erosion resulting from illegal logging in upstream areas.

Now, the 800 families living in the village can use water from the river once more for their household needs. Besides that, the people can once again exploit the deeper parts of the river, locally known as the Lubuk Larangan, which literally means the "Prohibited Deep Pools", which play host to many kinds of fish. The people are only allowed to harvest the fish once in every three years, which allows fish species like semah, barau, meta, dulum, baung, bajubang belang and belido to mature and reproduce.