Bringing down the house

Matheos Viktor Messakh , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Tue, 05/12/2009 2:02 PM | Environment

Bought and sold: Building materials businesses, such as this one under Slipi flyover, are inadvertently helping the environment. JP/Ricky Yudhistira

It might seem much easier to destroy than to build, but when it comes to a house, that's not always the case, especially for house owners in Jakarta.

After all, it's easy enough to find someone to help when you want to build a house, but unless you are very rich, you will find it much too expensive to pay a big company just to knock your house down.

Abdul Jalal, 40, has been working in the business of house demolitions for half his life. When he came to the capital from Jepara 20 years ago, his brother had already started the business from a hut in Slipi, Central Jakarta.

After his brother's death three years ago, Abdul took over the business, running it from a plot of rented land in Palmerah, South Jakarta.

Abdul is one of the thousands of people from Jepara in Central Java who are flocking to Jakarta, offering their services for anybody wanting to tear down their house.

Most of these workers have never even owned a house in Jakarta - they are only renting a plot of land or setting up on the pavement - but their presence in the city has turned out to be a boon for many.

Not only do these workers offer their services for demolishing buildings, they also buy buildings if they think the materials could have a good resale value.

"We mostly take the scrap metal, ceramics, wooden elements such as doors or window frames and roof frame elements," said Abdul, who said he bought old buildings at prices ranging from Rp 3 million to Rp 40 million.

"Sometimes we chip in to pay for a building if we have estimated the value of the building's materials."

As destroying a house has been a lifetime job for many people from the Jepara community, never doubt their ability to estimate the value of the materials of a house they want to buy.

"Give us about one to three hours and we will come up with a price," said Haryanto, a house demolisher in Slipi, Central Jakarta.

Although the industry did not begin out of any intention to recycle materials in the sense of modern "green" concepts, the way they process the materials from demolished houses does indeed match the concept of recycling.

Abdul Jalal and Haryanto said that what they took accounted for up to 75 percent of the building materials.

"We'll even take a 50-centimeter piece of wood because it would be useful for a window's furrow, for example," said Abdul.

Some scrap material is sold as is, while other parts need to be modified to fetch a better price in the market.

Roof tiles and ceramics are usually sold to customers as they are, or offered to regular customers at prices that vary according to quality, maker or even color.

"Red ceramics made by a brand such as Toto or Kia usually sell for around Rp 250,000 to Rp 300,000 higher than other brands or the same brand with a different color," said Abdul.

Wooden parts usually require some modification or even a total overhaul.

A secondhand door leaf sells for about Rp 100,000, and a new door leaf sells for between Rp 850,000 and Rp 900,000. A modified secondhand door is priced at around Rp 300,000 to Rp 400,000.

"Those who want a good quality window leaf but can't afford to buy a new one usually go for a modified one," said Abdul. "From our experience, the quality of used wood is usually better, perhaps because it has a lower moisture level so it isn't as affected by the weather."

As with wooden materials, metal also tends to be redesigned to fetch a better price. Material such as cast iron will usually be reworked into iron fences or window bars, while aluminum roofs are usually sold to construction projects as temporary fences.

Materials from walls are mostly used to build up the ground, while ceiling elements such as asbestos cement board, gypsum or plywood ceiling are always thrown away.

However, owners must pay more if they want the debris to be discarded.

"We usually settle the price before the demolition and if they want to throw away the debris we will charge them more, because we will have to pay trucks to take it to the garbage dump," said the worker, who recently bought a 300-meter-square house in Tomang, West Jakarta, for Rp 15 million.

According to architect Eko Prawoto, houses built from recycled materials will not only be cheaper than those built new, but will always have a more distinctive design.

"If we need four window-frames but we only have three, then we deal with how to make them look good even though they are an odd number," said Eko, who has developed a reputation for designing houses made from used materials, including for artists Djadug Ferianto and Butet Kertaradjasa, in Bantul, Yogyakarta.

Eko, who graduated in architecture from the Berlage Institute in Amsterdam in 1993, said he generally used secondhand floor or wall tiles, window and door frames and leafs, as well as pillars.

"Mainly it is easy to reuse materials for wood constructions, but metal constructions are harder."

Eko's experience has been the same as that of the house demolishers, finding that used wood tends to be better quality than new wood.

"In the old days people only cut wood with a diameter of more than 40 centimeters, meaning the wood used was of good quality. This kind of wood is weather-resistant," he said.

The 51-year-old lecturer at the Yogyakarta's Duta Wacana Christian University said houses made from recycled materials tended to be connected with the environmental movement because they used recycled materials, but that the initial concern was generally related to economics and/or a love of antique materials. One client, he said, "collected his materials for six years".

Yet even though the business of collecting and building with used materials was never intended as a "green" campaign, sprouting rather from people's need to make a living from what they knew, it could provide an opportunity for the government or environmental activists to raise awareness about the benefits of using recycled materials.

As Abdul Jalal said, "We really started for profit-based reasons, but we will be very happy if someone wants to train us in how to help protect the environment

A time to break down, a time to build up

Tue, 05/12/2009 2:02 PM | Environment

Spare parts: Metal and timber are among the building materials recycled from old houses to build new ones. JP/Ricky Yudhistira

Just as the Madurese people are famous for collecting scrap metal, the Jepara people are well known for collecting housing materials.

There are probably thousands of people from Jepara now residing in Jakarta who are engaged in the business of recycling building materials, most of which they source from demolished houses.

Nobody knows for sure how long these Jepara communities have been eking out a living in this way, but Haryanto, a house demolisher in Slipi, said his father, who started the business, came to Jakarta as a construction worker when the Istiqal Mosque was built in 1961 and the Senayan Sporting Complex in 1962.

As trust itself is hard to build and easy to destroy, the house demolishers tend to prefer to work with their own kind, whether as workers or as partners to chip in to buy a wrecked building.

"This is a family business. Most people who join us here are related to each other. We prefer to work with our own people because the calculation for the materials we intend to buy is based on our own experience and the profit doesn't come overnight," said Haryanto.

The 39-year-old Jepara native said that the members of the community are scattered around Jakarta, but when someone needs workers to demolish a house or more money to buy a building, they will contact each other.

"We can easily call each other," said the father of two, who rents a house in Bintaro, South Jakarta, and travels to Jepara at least once a month to visit his children. "There are many groups and each group consists of hundreds of people."

Haryanto, who has seven employees, said in the case of a big house, he can always seek help from other Jepara communities in Jakarta, or even ask for some more people from Jepara.

In his experience, a house can be priced from as low as Rp 2 million through to Rp 50 million. Workers are paid between Rp 80,000 and Rp 100,000 a day. It can take six workers to destroy a 300-square-meter house in 10 days, he said.

Jepara people are also known for their wood-carving skills.

And perhaps they might all enjoy the Chinese proverb that says, "fools build houses and wise men buy them."

- JP/Matheos V. Messakh

Steven Starr: For love of water

Matheos Viktor Messakh , THE JAKARTA POST , JAKARTA | Tue, 04/07/2009 12:04 PM | People

JP/J.B. Djwan
Bob Marley’s anti-war activism was an inspiration for Steven Starr, but the US filmmaker went one step further, taking on a problem that causes more deaths worldwide than war: Lack of access to clean water.
Starr first met Marley in 1978; he became the concert promoter for Bob Marley & The Wailers and worked with the Marley family on various projects for 20 years, which, he told The Jakarta Post, was an experience that “changed my life”.
“Something in me shifted and from that point on all the work I have done has taken the form of helping people to express themselves, to find a way to communicate with others and to solve problems.”
Starr was in Bali and Jakarta last week for a lecture and screening of the award-winning film he produced, Flow: For Love of Water, a feature-length documentary about the global water crisis by French-born American director Irena Salina.
Starr, born on Long Island in 1957, studied media at university, before going on to build a career at William Morris Agency. He left the agency in 1991 to produce Johnny Suede, which won the Golden Leopard at the Locarno International Film Festival. His other credits include writing, directing and producing Joey Breaker, which won an Audience Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and the Ace Award-nominated series The State for MTV and CBS, which he co-created and produced.
He became well known for his approach to media democratization. As well as co-founding the Los Angeles Independent Media Center, Starr founded AntEye.com, a user-generated video site where video creators, voted for by their peers, were awarded micro-pilot budgets, and ChangeTv, a user-generated digital cable network designed to filter online video onto cable and reward creators.
One of Starr’s most acclaimed projects is Revver, a video-sharing website launched in 2005 that helps creators make money from their work by attaching short ads to their films. In 2006, Revver was named the Most Influential Independent Website by Television Week, nominated for an Advantaged Technology Emmy Award and praised by Red Herring as one of the 100 most promising startups.
“I’m a crazy man,” Starr said of his innovative projects. “I tend to approach a project from whatever curiosity I have.”
In June 2007, Starr stepped down as Revver’s CEO to concentrate on the postproduction of Flow, which he and Salina had begun in 2003.
“It was the time when all the filming has been finished and we have to do the postproduction work. It requires a lot of attention and focus and we were hoping that we might be invited to Sundance Film Festival. We really wanted to make sure it came out well.”
The film, released in cinemas on Sept. 12, 2008, premiered as a Grand Jury Prize nominee at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. It has won numerous festival awards, including the International Jury Prize at the Mumbai International Film Festival and the Grand Jury Award for Best Documentary at the United Nations Film Festival.
Part of Flow’s success, Starr said, was “because many people are now using the film as an awareness tool”. As such, it was screened for the UN General Assembly on the 60th Anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and triggered a call for people to sign a petition seeking to include access to clean drinking water as a basic human right.
“We are lobbying them to open up the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was written in the late 1940s in a time when water wasn’t even a consideration,” Starr said. “There is no mention of water at all in the articles. It is the single most important substance on the planet and our future is at stake.”
The 84-minute film maintains that the privatization of fresh water is unethical, a topic that Starr discusses passionately.
“Absolutely the film is anti-privatization of water. When you turn water into a commodity, your
responsibility is to shareholders and not to the people who need it,” Starr said.
“You can’t rely on commercial interests for your water supply: Water is more than commerce, water is life. If you hold up a bottle of water and you hold up a little bottle of gasoline — which do you think costs more?”
Flow not only identifies the problem and names the culprits, but also looks at the people and institutions providing local and practical solutions.
“Many issues around water are extremely local but the crisis around the world is similar: Limited water supply. It is not reaching the people who need it the most, and there are corporate interests that are aggressively trying to gain control over the local water supply.”
Starr hopes that the film will educate people about the planet’s water crisis, pointing out the film itself was never a for-profit venture.
“A documentary is an active passion. If you want to make a documentary, it cannot be from a hope to make money. It has to be from an opportunity to do something useful for others,” Starr said.
“The only reason we picked up our camera is because we wanted to learn, to answer a question. So you have to have a really good question and a lot of passion to carry you through whatever it takes to run around and get your question answered.”

Kamir Raziudin Brata: Finding a holistic solution

Matheos Viktor Messakh , THE JAKARTA POST , JAKARTA | Tue, 02/17/2009 11:52 AM | People

Kamir Raziudin Brata: JP/Matheos V. Messakh

When talking about how people treat the environment, Kamir Raizudin Brata can’t help but laugh.

The land ecology lecturer explained that he was at loss as to why many people claim to have found solutions to environmental problems when in reality they disregard environment principles in the process or simply shift the problem somewhere else.

He said it is simply not fair to blame upstream Puncak for “sending in” floods to Jakarta every year, or expect the hilly area to serve as the city’s water absorption area.

“We forget that Jakarta has its own rain and by saying ‘expect’, it means we put so much burden on a certain area, while leaving another with no burden at all,” the lecturer of the Bogor Agriculture Institute (IPB) said.

“We can’t solve enviromental problems by disregarding environmental principles. The best way to conserve the environment is to share the burden as equally as possible.”

He said that from generation to generation people only look for shortcuts to deal with environmental problems -- treating only the symptom and not the cause.

“I’m afraid we have started to believe that flooding is an oversupply of water, so that the best way to handle floods is to throw the water away somewhere else,” Kamir said.

“Flooding happens because the land has lost its capacity to absorb rainwater and we must do something to help the soil do its work better because it is human being who reduced the capacity of the soil.”

For more than 30 years Kamir has been defending his belief that the best way to conserve land and water is to let every component of the ecosystem do its part to equally share the burden of the environment.

Kamir is the inventor of the biophore absorption method, a technique which prevents flooding and conserves water by drilling holes in the ground.

The method, which he developed in 1976, his first year teaching at IPB, solves both water and waste management problems. By drilling holes no bigger than 30 centimeters wide and 100 centimeters deep, an organic waste bin is created which also increases the absorption of rainwater.

He said the method was so simple that nobody pays attention to it.

“Maybe it is because it’s so simple that people don’t believe it actually works,” Kamir said, laughing.

He said many have called his invention a simplification of water and waste problems, but nobody has successfully refuted its effectiveness.

“What I’m waiting for now is not testimony but to find the weaknesses of the method,” he said.
The man, who was born in West Java town of Cirebon on Dec. 12, 1948, said that with his invention he was trying to stick to the simple rules of soil and water conservation he learned from his former teachers.

But many people, including some of his former teachers, were upset with him for revealing that many efforts to conserve the environment have been conducted against environment principles.

“Shifting the quantity of material and energy into another part of the world will simply cut back the burden in that place but add the burden in another,” he said. “This is the environmental principle and everybody knows it.”

Just like global warming, he said, the problems can not be solved by merely depending on austerity, but have to utilize all components of the ecosystem.

“An ecosystem is a system formed with interdependency between its components. All components must be considered in any conservation effort to make sure nothing is wrong,” he said.

“We should be ashamed of ourselves for throwing our waste away to another place just because we want our place to be clean, but we just make another place dirty.

“It’s so easy to claim to be a friend of the enviroment. But throwing away waste to another place like developed countries do is no solution. What about the places that they throw their waste away to, are they not the part of environment?”

Kamir is willing to face anything to defend his ideas, including spending five and a half years to finish his master in Soil Physic at the University of Western Australia. “Although my thesis is against the mainstream, they were fair to me,” he recalled.

He also had to abandon his doctoral studies to uphold his ideas.

Being an inventor does not bring him riches and glory.

For his research, he even took up a bank loan which he still has to pay back. “My employee card is still with the bank. I still have four years to pay my debt,” he said.

Dig this: A hole solution

Matheos Viktor Messakh , THE JAKARTA POST , JAKARTA | Tue, 02/17/2009 1:08 PM | Environment

Simple way: Researcher Kamir Raziudin Brata shows his solution to deal with flooding and waste problem: by digging holes in the ground. JP/Matheos V. Messakh

For years flooding and waste management have been the two biggest problems for Jakarta. But researcher Kamir Raziudin Brata has a simple solution to both – dig holes in the ground.

The technique – so simple that it has been ignored since he first concieved it in 1976 – preserves water, naturally retains soil humidity, prevents flooding, stores carbon and can securely dispose of household waste.

The lecturer at the Bogor Agriculture Institute (IPB)’s Soil and Natural Resource Science Department based the technique on the hidrological cyclus principle.

He conceived absoption holes that give land the ability to absorb more water and procces organic waste into compost, while at the same time maintaining the soil’s role as a carbon sink.

The holes – called biophore absorbtion holes – are tunnel bored into the soil, enabling organisms to become more active and plants to take root easily.

The technique utilizes organic waste to allow organisms to actively create hollow spaces inside the soil, which then fill with air and serve as channels to absorb water more rapidly.

The more holes, the better the soil can absorb water, and this minimizes the possibility of flooding.

He said that human activities are unavoidable, but this method can increase the ability of the land to absorb water.

“Even land being used for farming or plantations has less ability to absorb water, even less is in a city with cemented ground everywhere,” Kamir said.

He said that even in a virgin forest rainwater does not directly reach the ground to be absorbed by land – most rainwater is caught or intercepted by plants and crops, which increase the rate of absorption.

Forest soil has more hollow spaces, created by the roots of the trees and other organism, which creates a channel for water.

“This is called biophore, but now that most land has been turned into farms, plantations, residential areas or public spaces, the biophore under the ground has been greatly reduced and has even dissapeared in some places,” he said.

Up close: An earth auger created by Kamir to facilitate the drilling. JP/Matheos V. Messakh

By drilling a hole no bigger than 10 centimeters wide and 100 centimeters deep in the ground, the space of absorbtion is vertically broadened to 3,140 centimeters squared.

The rainwater absorbtion does not only prevent flooding, but is also the best way to conserve water.

“The most healthy way to store rainwater is to let the ground absorb it and not catch it all in a container,” Kamir said. “Rainwater absorbed into the soil becomes
mineral water.”

All other methods to catch rainwater in man-made containers, such as infiltration wells, man-made lakes or large containers, can catch only a limited amount of lower quality water.

A hydrology cyclus, Kamir explains, is only good after rainwater has been mostly absorbed into the ground and after certain natural processes have occoured.

Besides broadening the space for water absorbtion, the biophores can also process organic waste.

He said that if each household in Jakarta put their organic waste in their biophore hole every day, 55 percent of the city’s waste problem would be solved.

The utilization of organic waste, Kamir said, activates the compostation process, which creates more hollows in the soil for water, but also reduces carbon emission.

“Human beings, as a component of the ecosystem, don’t have to work alone. Many people talk about biodiversity but they ussually forget about the biodiversity below ground.”

His idea is the result of trying to solve the problem of how to store water and at the same time reduce carbon emmissions.

“By this method, waste and water management is treated equally, it doesn’t have to compete with other land purposes.”

Composting underground also solves the world’s carbon and methane emission problem, as the gasses are captured by the soil.

“Never separate water management and carbon emissions. Many organic wastes are turned into
compost but if the composting process is made in the athmosphere, carbon emissions are still relatively high, though not as high as with burning waste.”

In order to facilitate the drilling of the biophore holes, Kamir has designed an ‘earth auger,’ made of a ¾ inch pipe, with several attachment sizes depending on the diameter of the hole needed.

Since no sophisticated equipment is needed, it can eaasily be done at home. “One doesn’t need to be rich to help others. We don’t need expensive or sophisticated things to help the environment,” he said.

After the city was heavily flooded in February 2007, the long forgoten and simple method is back in the spotlight.

The Jakarta administration has also started to recognized the technology and, with a 2008 gubernatorial instruction, aims to speed up of the drilling of biophore holes across Jakarta.

The regulation stipulates that a subdistrict should have had at least 100 augers by the end of 2008 in order to speed up drilling.

The Cipinang Elok subdistrict in East Jakarta has seen good results since drilling 2,000 holes in 2007.

“After drilling 2,000 holes, floods are no longer as high as they used to be,” Saksono Soehodo, head of a neighborhood unit in the subdistrict said.

The IPB’s biophore team, lead by Kamir, has calculated that, in order to reduce organic waste and flooding during the rainy season, Jakarta should have no less than 76,000 holes.

The State Ministry for Environment plans to issue a regulation requiring houses and commercial building owners across the country to build facilties to store rainwater or face punishment under the Environment Law of 1997.

However, with growing attention to technology, business speculation arises.

Kamir said the IPB’s biophor team calculated a price of no less than Rp 200,000 (US$17) for each auger to cover its production costs and tax.

In order to ensure quality, the team have appointed CV La Conserva as the single license holder for the mass priodcution of the auger. However, he said, many variations of the auger have been sold at lower prices.

Since he invented the technology in 1976, Kamir is reluctant to apply for patent rights. It was only a year ago that IPB applied to acquire the rights; the result is not yet known.

“I just want to prevent this [technology] being turned into a sort of project because it’s not expensive. It works even without making a project out of it.”

For more information on the technology see: www.biopori.com

Baru Sadarun: Fighting to preserve coral reefs

Matheos Viktor Messakh for The Jakarta Post , Natuna, Riau Islands Tue, 09/23/2008 10:07 AM People

Some might think that growing market demand might worsens coral reef exploitation, but diving instructor Baru Sadarun has his own rationale.

For the 40-year-old man, as long as people realize the economic value of coral reefs, they will be more than happy to help preserve them.

He believes that coral reef conservation had been opposed in many places because the conservation effort was usually separated from people's daily lives and activities.

"There is a growing misconception that conservation is similar only to protection," Sadarun told The Jakarta Post.

"In fact, conservation should also be related to how people use natural resources...any conservation efforts will be opposed if people are only prohibited from the conservation area and cannot gain anything from it."

For Sadarun, coral reefs can be preserved if people in the designated conservation areas are able to use them as a fishing resource or as ecotourism sites, or for coral reef farming and trading (of fish and coral), or for other functions that will not harm the environment.

"It's time to introduce people to sustainable management, so they won't be allergic to conservation, but love it because they will gain far more benefit from doing it."

Sadarun might have learned from his experience on local resistance to coral management.

When he was conducting coral reef registration for the Southeast Sulawesi government in the Padamara islands in 1997, he was attacked by local fishermen with a fish bomb while diving.

"The fishermen might have thought that we wanted to disrupt their source of income...I was just lucky. I was found unconscious by my team, which came after they heard an explosion."

Born to a fisherman's family in Raha, Muna regency in Southeast Sulawesi on July 23, 1968, Sadarun has been an avid observer of coral reefs since he was a young man.

After completing high school in Raha in 1991, Sadarun left his village to study marine technology at Sam Ratulangi University in Manado, where he graduated in 1995.

"I am the son of a fishermen and I wanted to know the science of the coral reef. People in my home village have been making a living from coral for centuries and I wanted to know whether what they had been doing was right or wrong."

After graduating, he dived into the marine world through his work as a coral researcher for the Southeast Sulawesi government and also as a lecturer at Haluoleo University in Kendari.

Provoked by reports of coral reef destruction in the country, he completed his master's degree in marine technology focusing on coral reef transplantation, at the Bogor Institute of Technology in 1998.

"I have read many reports on coral destruction since my undergraduate studies, with many people shouting out loud about destruction, but no-one offering any solutions," said the man who received Man of the Biosphere Award from Unesco in 2001 for his research on coral reef transplantation.

Sadarun's interest in coral research was not an easy path at the start. Many of his colleagues said he was crazy during his early research years and his parents objected to his work.

"My people regarded the sea as teki which means sacred. They argued that we can only make a living from the sea, but are not allowed to play around with it.

"Initially they opposed my work but they became more favorable when they realized that I was actually repairing it and not harming it," said the man who is expecting to defend his doctoral thesis in Bogor Institute of Technology in November.

Sadarun said coral trading was one the prospective sustainable livelihoods for fishermen and people who lived along coastal regions, provided they knew how make a living from the sea, without creating a threat to it.

For Sadarun, who is now a section head for marine ecosystem rehabilitation at the Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries, many people who opposed coral reef trading, including academicians, activists or even government officials, did not really understand the nature of coral, especially its ability to grow.

"There will be no lost resources if trading is carried out with a replication strategy. Moreover, many people are becoming familiar with transplantation techniques. The problem arises only when we allow exploitation without any efforts towards the replacement of the resources."

Sadarun criticized many scholars who relied too much on James W. Nybakken book on Marine Biology which he said "did not convey enough information about coral reefs in the country."

"Nybakken claims that coral reefs can only grow about one centimeter a year, but in my experiments in several coastal areas such as in Mataram in West Nusa Tenggara, I found out that massive corals grow by between three to seven centimeters a year," said the man who has been diving in Australian, Japanese and Indonesian waters.

To assist his interest on coral reef research he also attempted to reach the highest rank in diving. He holds master dive and diving instructor certificates from the International Association for Diving Schools in Japan, gained in 2004 and 2008 respectively.

The father of four year old Steven Muhammad argued that knowledge about coral reefs in Indonesia is restricted by the lack of diving skills among scientists.

"How come they can be so sure about coral, if they cannot dive or have no interest in under water swimming," said the man who introduced diving as part of local content for marine and fisheries studies at Haluoleo University in 1996.

Although he agreed that coral reef destruction is faster than natural restoration, he believes there are still a huge quantity of coral resources in the country which have not yet been explored.

"On average, most of the sites that have been destroyed are no deeper than 10 meters below sea level. Between 15 and 20 meters depth, we still have a huge amount of coral resources," said the man who has organized several surveys on coral reefs in the country.

He is optimistic that Indonesia -- as one of the six Asian Pacific countries with rich marine diversity and probably the largest coral resources in the world -- should be able to boost its coral conservation through law enforcement and man-made conservation, using techniques such as coral transplantation, with which he has been working.

"As the country with the largest number of coral species and the largest coral coverage, there is no reason why we should oppose coral trading. What we need is regulation."

Natuna fishermen work to preserve coral reef

Matheos Viktor Messakh for The Jakarta Post

Eight years ago, fisherman Mohamad Delan used potassium cyanide and dynamite bombs for fishing. The 38-year-old knew it was illegal and was caught twice by the marine authorities, but he was never worried.

The man, one of 1,456 fishermen in Sepempang village in Bunguran Timur subdistrict of Natuna regency, Riau Islands, could always bribe his way out of trouble.

"We used to pay the navy base commander Rp 1 million a month. If we caught only one napoleon fish (cheilinus undulatus) a day, we could pay off all of our debts," he told The Jakarta Post during a visit to the island recently.

"In fact, by using potassium or bombs we could catch up to three napoleon fish a day."

But Mohamad has a different perspective these days. He and the other fishermen have joined the Coral Reef Rehabilitation and Management Program (Coremap), since the program was launched in the regency, back in 2004.

By joining the program, he said his income had dropped, from about Rp 4 million (US$430) a month to about Rp 2 million. But he said he did not have any regrets, adding that he cared more about his family and the environment.

"If I'm jailed, who is going to feed my family? A big income doesn't make any difference ... Besides, what will happen to our children if we continue using potassium and bombs?

"In 1999, before Coremap came here, it was even difficult to find a small octopus, but now we can easily find them," he said.

Of the 25,531 households in this outer island regency, 6,440 households or 25 percent depend on fishing.

With the support of Coremap, Sepempang village, together with nine other coastal villages in the regency, has established their own coral reef conservation institution (LPSTK). The other eight villages are Sabang Mawang, Pulau Tiga, Sededap, Tanjung, Sepempang, Kelanga, Pengadah, Kelarik Utara and Cemaga.

The 264,778-kilometer-square regency has 16 districts, 69 villages and six subdistricts.

Each village that has established it own LPSTK decided on its protected sea area through village consensus. Until now, Natuna has a total 142,977 hectares of protected sea.

These protected areas, which have been ratifed by a 2007 bylaw, are divided into core zones where fishing activities are not permitted and buffer zones where people are allowed to fish using environmentally friendly means.

Each LPSTK comprises several groups of people that are responsible for surveillance and monitoring of their protected area. They conduct public awareness activities to preserve the coral reefs.

Like other villages in the regency, Sepempang also introduced a new village regulation in 2006 to prevent the use of destructive fishing techniques such as cyanide and bombs. Punishments for using these methods vary from oral warnings to prosecution.

"We try to educate people in various ways, but we only bring them to court if they refuse to stop bad habits," Coremap's monitoring, controlling and surveillance coordinator for Natuna, Buyung Priyadi said.

But legal efforts and public awareness might not be enough on their own to preserve the coral reefs, which have co-existed with local island communities making their living from the sea for centuries.

Coremap also provides training for local groups in job skills for alternative livelihoods and has provided access to a revolving fund to help local fishermen start small businesses.

Of the 100 groups that have been established since 2005, 20 percent have received training, tools, materials and funding to start their own businesses, community-based management coordinator for Natuna regency, Eldi Saputra said.

A total of Rp. 9.78 billion has been disbursed to these groups within the last two years.

"We will likely approve any proposal on activities that will have a positive direct impact on people's lives," Eldi said.

"Our main goal is to change habits, not to change people's livelihoods. As fishermen, they have the right to make their living from the sea, but using different methods."

The approved, alternative livelihood projects since 2004 include seaweed farming, fish-breeding in keramba (net cages in water) and home industries such as fish crackers krupuk, wickerwork and crude palm oil production.

Keramba and seaweed farming have received the best responses, said Eldi, because the two sectors have established and prospective markets.

"People prefer to raise napoleon fish and groupers (serranidae), especially the tiger species (epinephelus fuscogatus) and the rat species (cromileptis altivelis), because they fetch higher prices on the market," said Eldi.

"Breeders can directly sell them to Hong Kong ships that come to the islands or to brokers."

Coremap's official, Zuriati, said in general there have been significant changes in people's livelihoods since revolving loan funds were disbursed starting in 2004.

"There is no doubt that keramba and seaweed farming has brought better living standards for the people, but for home industries we need to expand into larger markets. And in order to do that, we need better packaging as well as more consistent production," she said.

The Natuna Islands are a 272-island archipelago, located in the Natuna Sea between east and west Malaysia and Kalimantan. The Natuna Sea itself is a section of the South China Sea.

Of the regency territorial area, 97.3 percent or (262.156 square kilometers) is covered by sea, so its coral reefs have a huge potential for natural and economic resources.

Coral reef distribution in Natuna covers around 828,34 square kilometers or about 0.32 percent of the regency's sea area.

The type of coral reefs frequently found in Natuna include Acropora, Fungia, Merulina, Montipora, Pachiseris, Pectinia, Pavona, Pocillopora, Potites and Styllopora.

For the last two years, Natuna has received about Rp. 9.78 billion for the Coremap program.

Coremap executive secretary Jamaluddin Jompa said that according to a Coremap assessment, coral reef degradation in Indonesia was mostly caused by human intervention, so consquently the program emphasizes public awareness and the introduction of alternative livelihoods.

"The core problem is the human aspect, not on the coral reef itself, so it's more strategic to focus on the core of the problem." Jompa told The Post recently.

"As an expert in coral reefs I have to say that man-made rehabilitation is not a solution for coral reef degradation in Indonesia. It's lot easier to change people's bad habits than to spend hundreds of millions of rupiah on man-made rehabilitation programs with little possibility for success," said Jompa.

Meanwhile, Coremap's assistant director, Sadarun, said for long-term preservation, people needed to be able to see direct benefits from coral reef preservation to prevent program failure.

"It's dangerous if programes are only designed to preserve reefs without any benefits for the efforts of those involved," said Sadarun.

‘It’s very, very alarming. It’s a warning signal.’ (Michel Jarraud, Secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization)

As six months of winter darkness descend over the top of the world, temperatures are falling and the Arctic Ocean is again freezing. But the damage has been done. The National Snow and Ice Data Center reports that just 1.65 million sq. mi. (about 4.3 million sq km) of Arctic sea ice survived the summer’s annual melt. That’s the smallest amount left over after September since scientists began keeping records. And they estimated the Arctic ice may have shrunk by half since the 1950s. Worse, the melt is accelerating. The Arctic may be ice-free by the summer of 2030, far earlier than previous predictions. Though melting sea ice doesn’t cause oceans to rise, it can speed global warming by exposing more dark water to sunlight. The machinery of the Arctic climate is mysterious, but this much seems clear: what begins in the north will eventually touch all of us.
By Bryan Walsh.

Change the world 9 to five: # 1. Avoid Waste

"If each one of the UK's ten million office workers used one less staple a day, 120 tonnes of steel would be saved every year"

(Leo Hickman's A Good Life)

OK, this sounds like a boring, worthy bit of advice.

And maybe it is.

Someone has calculated that if everyone in UK offices saved one staple a day, that would be 120 tonnes of metal saved a year.

As the old blues song nearly had it, '120 tonnes and what do you get?

Another day older and deeper in debt.'

I can't take staples very seriously, to be honest. But the person who worked out that calculation takes all this stuff very seriously.

And if they've gone to all that trouble, the least you can do is think about it.

I mean, look at this staplefree stapled page. It's pretty cool, isn't it?

FYI: This page has been stapled with a Stapless Stapler available to buy from our shop.

Experts urge govt to counter allegations of carbon flux

Thursday, June 28, 2007
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Experts recommended Wednesday that the country respond to the international community's allegations that Indonesia is the world's third largest carbon dioxide emitter due to the burning of peatland areas.

A recent calculation of emissions by the Netherlands-based Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics has placed Indonesia behind only the United States and China. Indonesia has jumped to third place from 21st position in 2005.

"I don't know how they came to this conclusion. We have to be suspicious because we are suspected now. We have never calculated our own carbon emissions before," Bambang Setiadi, deputy head of research, science and technology development at the Research and Technology Ministry, told a seminar.

At the seminar, attended by peatland experts from universities, government organizations and NGOs, it is expected that strategies to advise policymakers in Indonesia and Malaysia on the restoration, rehabilitation and sustainable utilization of peatlands will be devised.

Bambang said Indonesia needs to prepare solid grounds on which to counter the new statistics, especially at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to be held in Bali in December this year.

Contradicting Bambang's presentation, Herwin Simbolon, a forest ecologist from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said LIPI had been conducting research on peatland in Central Kalimantan for a decade, and calculated that the international count on the country's carbon flux was likely accurate.

"We may be debating methodology, but the most important thing is to look for the ways of solving the problem and not just prepare for defending ourselves in the international forum," he added.

Tropical peatland covers approximately 45 million hectares, 12 percent of global peatland. Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam contain nearly 70 percent of this resource. Indonesia, with 22 million ha, has around one half of all tropical peat.

Peatland in Southeast Asia is recognized as an important reservoir of biodiversity. It exhibits a range of important ecological and natural resource functions, including carbon storage.

Data from LIPI show that the carbon flux in Central Kalimantan has sharply increased since the conversion of one million ha of peatland into rice fields from 1995 to 1997, and especially with the construction of large canals throughout the area.

The project was part of former president Soeharto's plan to convert 1.4 million ha of peatland in the province into agricultural land. The project was later abandoned.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a decree on March 16 this year to expedite the rehabilitation of the converted peatland in Central Kalimantan. The project has been allocated around Rp 9 trillion (US$989 million) from the state budget.

Central Kalimantan Governor Agustin Teras Narang, who also spoke at the seminar, said the rehabilitation might not fully restore the self-regulatory mechanisms of water absorption on the peatland.

"This means that we have to close some canals that have caused the peatland to lose its natural function of absorbing water. This has caused floods in the rainy season and droughts in the dry season," Narang said. (02)

Going nuke 'only way' to prevent power crisis

Wednesday, June 27, 2007
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Developing a nuclear power plant to boost the nation's energy supply is the most feasible way of preventing a future energy crisis, experts say.

At a seminar on nuclear waste management held Tuesday, nuclear experts agreed a nuclear power plant is necessary because domestic oil reserves are dwindling and alternative energy sources had yet to be tested.

"When it comes to nuclear reactors, the public will always highlight the (1986) Chernobyl case, but they don't know that the safety technology has been improving," Hudi Hastowo, chairman of the National Atomic Energy Agency (BATAN), told reporters on the sidelines of the seminar.

"Moreover, the quality of every nuclear facility, including nuclear power plants, is subject to the review of various national and international institutions."

Citing a March 28, 1979, mishap at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania, Hastowo said that although the technical aspects of the incident were on par with Chernobyl, plant workers and members of the nearby community went uninjured because the facility's security system was highly sophisticated.

The Middletown accident heralded sweeping changes to emergency response planning, reactor operator training, human factor engineering, radiation protection and many other aspects of nuclear plant operation.

He said Indonesia has safely operated three nuclear research reactors, located in Yogyakarta, Bandung and Serpong, for several years without incident.

In 2006, following the formulation of the National Energy Policy 2003-2020 by the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced a plan to begin construction of a nuclear power plant in 2010.

Expected for completion by 2016, it will produce 1,000 Megawatts of electricity for Java, Bali and Madura. It will be the first nuclear power plant to provide energy to the public and industry.

Hastowo also said that alternative, safe energy sources such as wind, solar, microhydro and biofuel were not yet being developed in Indonesia because of the high generating and technology costs involved in their utilization.

"The electricity crisis we are now facing will not be eased by 2025 unless we start developing a nuclear power plant now," he said.

Emy Perdanahari, electricity program director at the energy ministry, said that by 2025 renewable energy sources such as solar, wind and biofuel, in addition to nuclear, should account for 17 percent of national energy supply. Coal should account for 33 percent, gas for 30 percent and oil for 20 percent, she added.

Former state minister for research and technology, Muhammad A.S. Hikam, said the government must explicitly announce that Indonesia is certain to go nuclear and support this with regulations.

"The further acquisition and development of nuclear technology is inevitable for Indonesia. We used to be the leading country in Asia in the acquisition of nuclear technology. Many countries, such as Pakistan, Thailand, South Korea and even Japan, once learned from us, but now we have to learn from them," said Hikam, who is also a member of the Expert Commission on Nuclear Power.

Hikam recommended the government manage the current row over the nuclear plant wisely, adding that public policies tend to have more social aspects than technical aspects for consideration.(02)

Depression hits mudflow victims

Wednesday, June 13, 2007
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The results of a psychiatric survey have revealed an increasing trend toward mental health problems among victims of the Lapindo mudflow in Sidoarjo, East Java.

The survey of some 3,000 mudflow victims who have taken refuge in Pasar Baru Porong in Sidoarjo was conducted early this month by a team of psychiatrists from the Surabaya branch of the Indonesian Mental Health Doctors Association. It found symptoms of chronic depression among the victims.

"The mudflow is different from the tsunami in Aceh or the earthquake in Yogyakarta because it is continuously happening and nobody knows when it is going to stop. Unlike depression among the tsunami or earthquake victims, depression among the mudflow victims is chronic and progressive. This is exacerbated by the uncertainty of the government's response," Dr. Nalini from the psychiatric association told a seminar held by the Indonesian Doctors Association on Tuesday.

She said the victims complained of anxiety, sadness and sleep problems, which in turn could lead to a deepening of the depression caused by the loss of their personal effects.

"These problems should have been resolved in the early months of the disaster. The lack of treatment has led to a chronic depression," Nalini said.

The team also found signs of psychosomatic illnesses such as high blood pressure, a reduced appetite, oversensitivity and frequent quarreling between family members, as well as increasing marital problems such as divorce, infidelity and prostitution.

Nalini said the depression among the victims is lowering their quality of life, which is partly apparent in decreases in their "fighting spirit".

"They have been coopted by their feelings of powerlessness. They are only waiting for aid and cannot empower themselves. They are also becoming paranoid, easily provoked and influenced by any agitation. This is not only happening in Sidoarjo, but also in Aceh and Yogyakarta to some extent," she added.

Nalini accused the government of putting the nation's health status at great risk by repeatedly leaving many cases unresolved.

She said that rather than leave the mudflow case in the hands of PT Lapindo Brantas, the government should take over.

"The key is in the government's hands. PT Lapindo is obviously guilty, but the government is the regulator. It is the government that should be responsible for the people. They shouldn't wait until the situation explodes like a time bomb," she said.

Dr. Fachmi Idris, chairman of the Indonesian Doctors Association, told the discussion that health encompasses not only physical factors, but also mental and social factors.

Citing the World Health Organization's definition, Fachmi said: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely an absence of disease or infirmity."

Having made slow responses and partial approaches to many manmade and natural disasters, the government has only created more social and mental health problems, Fachmi said. (02)

Govt slammed for choosing coal

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Greenpeace has berated the government for replacing petroleum with coal to meet the nation's energy needs, highlighting that carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants are one of the main contributors to human-induced global climate change.

"Coal produces 29 percent of carbon per energy unit higher than oil and 80 percent of carbon higher than gas," Red Constantino of Greenpeace International told a press conference Thursday.

The government has announced that coal will replace oil within the next ten years to meet domestic energy demands. Indonesia plans to build coal-fired power plants to generate around 10,000 megawatts of electricity by 2009.

Constantino said that as an archipelagic nation, Indonesia is highly vulnerable to climate change. If sea levels rise, many regions in Indonesia could be submerged, he said.

The environmental group predicts that by 2030, 72 hectares in Jakarta will be submerged, and that by 2050, 160 ha of the city will be underwater.

Greenpeace called on the Indonesian government to join the "energy revolution" fueled by renewable, efficient energy sources in a global effort to ensure energy security and to avoid the more severe impacts of climate change.

"Clean coal and cheap coal are big industry's lies. Coal carries huge costs in the form of severe pollution, climate change and the displacement of local communities. Coal is artificially cheap only because the great bulk of these costs are passed on to taxpayers," Constantino said, adding that clean and sustainable energy alternatives are widely available.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace Southeast Asia climate and energy campaigner Nur Hidayati said industry was being bullish about Indonesia's export potential at a time when the world has no choice but to reject climate-killing coal.

Hidayati labeled a meeting of coal producers and buyers scheduled to take place in Bali from Monday through to Wednesday as "a meeting of climate criminals".

"Every dollar spent on coal is a dollar diverted away from energy efficiency and renewable energy -- the real energy solutions," Hidayati said.

"With proper investment of US$60 billion a year, renewable energy alone could produce 58 percent of electricity demand by 2050. Indonesia can lead Southeast Asia toward real sustainable development only if it leaves behind coal."

In December, Bali will host a United Nations climate change conference that is crucial to the next phase of post-Kyoto Protocol greenhouse emission cuts. (02)

Mengubah Dunia dengan hal-hal kecil

Langkah 1#

Kurangi kantong plastik sebisa mungkin

Jika setiap orang di negara ini menggunakan minimal 1 kantong plastik setiap harinya, berarti dalam setahun sekurang-kurangnya harus diproduksi 90 milyar (360 x 250 juta) kantong plastic untuk memenuhi kebutuhan orang Indonesia.

Sebuah kantong plastik membutuhkan waktu 500 tahun untuk membusuk di tanah. Satu hari berbelanja, berdampak sampai 500 tahun.

Ada pilihan lain. Orang menyebutnya ‘tas belanja’ yaitu menggunakan satu tas yang sama setiap kali berbelanja. Selain mengurangi dampak pada lingkungan juga modelnya stylish dan elegan.


Link