InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – The research report by Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia (WALHI) entitled "Ekonomi Nusantara: Tawaran Solusi Pulihkan Indonesia" in 2019 – 2021 in five ecologic landscapes, such as, peat, high land – forests, forest hill, lower ground, and coasts, revealed that the practices of Ekonomi Nusantara ran well and became the main pillar of people’s lives.
“The practices of Ekonomi Nusantara would be optimally running in the local if the people’s areas where they cultivate and manage are officially acknowledged and protected. Until now, WALHI has been developing about 1,3 million hectares that many communities cultivated. From the development, we successfully identified 77 kinds of food sources and potential commodities to be the source of welfare for the communities and the main contributors to develop economy in national and global scale,” Executive Director of WALHI, Zenzi Suhadi said, as in the official statement to InfoSAWIT, Thursday (2/5/2024).
One sample from the successful practices in Ekonomi Nusantara was from Sri Hartati, the representative of Kelompok Usaha Perhutanan Sosial (KUPS) Bayang Bungo, West Sumatera Province. She and her friends successfully produced derivative products from forest plants, such as, nutmeg syrup which becomes the mainstay product from Nagari Kapujan and won a micro, small, medium business competition in Regency of South Pesisir.
Astrid Hasan, the representative of community in Village of Kalaodi, North Maluku did contribute in a discussion. “The villagers of Kalaodi do not recognize the concept of land owner but only know tree ownership based on the nutmeg, and clove trees where they are in intercrops with walnut, cinnamon, durian, and betel nut,” Atrid said.
The villagers of Kalaodi still maintain the tradition – the land for social interests and always prioritize natural conservation to get every decision about natural resource management and cultivation.
Chairman of Badan Pengurus Nasional Asosiasi Pengelola Perhutanan Sosial Indonesia (AP2SI), Roni Usman also told that it would be significant to acknowledge and protect the areas where the people cultivate. He delivered sample about the success in Village of Ibun, West Java Province. The villagers successfully cultivated forest areas responsibly and recovered most of the former open areas to be green again.
From the research result and field practices, the conclusion is that acknowledgement and protection to wilayah kelola rakyat (WKR) would be the basic to realize the vision of sustainable Ekonomi Nusantara and would be partisanship with the local. This would contribute not only to realize environmental recovery but also escalate the villagers’ welfare.
That is why priority to WKR protection would be the strategy to maintain economic, ecologic, and social sustainability in Indonesia and this country would be the leader in the climate change issues and delivering samples for other countries to develop fair and equal economic development. (T2)
