It\u2019s a boardwalk winding through a dense forest of mangroves along the coast. The tangled root systems of the trees poke out of the water, like tent poles holding up the tree trunks.<\/p>\n
Teenagers in this town of roughly 3,000 people take selfies with the dense leafy canopy as a backdrop, while families stroll along the boardwalk.<\/p>\n
None of this may have been here if it weren\u2019t for Hidayat Palaloi.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore, this area was not like this, it was just empty land, coastline and a beach,\u201d says Palaloi, the head of a mid-sized conservation nonprofit based in Makassar, Indonesia, called the Indonesian Self Growth Foundation.<\/p>\n
A boardwalk cuts through a mangrove forest in the village of Tongke-Tongke, in South Sulawesi, Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Without the natural wave protection offered by the mangroves, the coastline in Tongke-Tongke was being eroded.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe erosion was constant,\u201d Palaloi says. \u201cPeople say some houses on the coastline disappeared and people had to move inland.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, there are miles of mangroves that protect the village here. That\u2019s partly thanks to Palaloi, who\u2019s been helping towns like Tongke-Tongke plant mangroves on the island of Sulawesi for more than two decades.<\/p>\n
The somewhat stern 51-year-old\u2019s motivation comes from a childhood tinged with tragedy.<\/p>\n
Palaloi grew up about 150 miles up the coast from Tongke-Tongke, in another coastal village in the province of South Sulawesi.<\/p>\n
Palaloi\u2019s family raised fish in ponds. But eventually, because mangrove forests had been torn down to make way for aquaculture in the village, erosion ate away at the coast until the ponds were enveloped by the sea.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor my family, these fish ponds were the main income, and when they failed, our income was gone,\u201d Palaloi says. \u201cMy family tried to get other work, but it wasn\u2019t enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
His family wasn\u2019t alone.<\/p>\n
A long history of mangrove removal
\nIn the 1980s and \u201990s, the Indonesian government backed the large-scale conversion of mangroves into ponds for raising fish and shrimp in what was called the \u201cblue revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n
This aquaculture strategy is part of the reason why the country has lost 40 percent of its mangroves in the past three decades. The sprawling island nation of Indonesia still has about a quarter of the world\u2019s mangrove forests, but they\u2019re disappearing faster there than anywhere else.<\/p>\n
The conversion of mangrove forests to aquaculture ponds like this one in Tongke-Tongke has accelerated erosion on the Indonesian coastline.<\/p>\n
Credit:Carolyn Beeler
\nAfter many of Indonesia\u2019s mangroves were stripped away, erosion hit coastal communities hard.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw for myself how erosion hurts people, and I knew I didn\u2019t want to see another community experience what mine did,\u201d Palaloi says. \u201cSo that\u2019s why I started doing this [conservation] work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tongke-Tongke, an early mangrove success story
\nIn the 1980s, Tongke-Tongke was starting to look a lot like Palaloi\u2019s hometown.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe floods happened from January until April,\u201d says Tongke-Tongke resident Saenuden, who lived not far from the coast in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery day, the water came into the house almost two feet above the floor,\u201d Saenuden says. \u201cIt was uncomfortable, to say the least.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saenuden and other villagers started planting mangrove seedlings in tidal zones, but there was infighting among the different conservation groups and fishermen, and people threatened to chop the trees down for firewood.<\/p>\n
Palaloi stepped in to mediate in the late \u201990s. He and two of his staffers lived in Tongke-Tongke for years, staying with local residents on a rotational basis to build alliances with residents all over town.<\/p>\n
Palaloi successfully politicked enough to get community members working together, helping them to create a master plan for their village and expand their mangrove planting efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think if he didn\u2019t help us to resolve the conflict, I\u2019m not sure that this mangrove forest would be here now,\u201d Saenuden says.<\/p>\n
Palaloi\u2019s method is to tap local leaders like Saenuden to plant mangroves and then monitor the health of the trees. He sees his role as enabling community members to envision and complete their own projects, rather than dictating what communities should do.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s spread the gospel of mangroves to roughly 20 different communities around South Sulawesi.<\/p>\n
In the communities where he works, Palaloi stresses the economic advantages of mangrove restoration projects, including higher crab and fish yields.<\/p>\n
Selling the economic advantages of mangroves
\nPalaloi recruited a crab fisherman named Bachtiar to lead mangrove planting in an industrial area on the outskirts of the city of Makassar about eight years ago.<\/p>\n
The protected waters around mangrove roots serve as excellent nurseries for one type of crab harvested in the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter we planted all the mangroves, our business started to grow,\u201d Bachtiar says. \u201cOne person can catch about 10 kilograms per day. Before, you could just catch one or two kilograms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bachtiar has opened a crab processing facility since the mangrove project launched. The day I visited he was buying crabs from local fishermen, and about a dozen women were picking the meat out of the shells of cooked crabs to pack them for freezing and shipment.<\/p>\n
Bachtiar says telling his neighbors that mangroves are good for business was key in getting them to help plant and maintain the coastal trees.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost all of the people around here are crab farmers,\u201d Bachtiar says. \u201cSo there are economic and also conservation motivations to continue this project.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crab pickers at a processing facility on the outskirts of Makassar, South Sulawesi, Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Palaloi pitches mangrove projects based on their economic benefits in most of the villages where he works, just like he did outside of Makassar. In Tongke-Tongke, villagers have a co-op to grow and sell mangrove seedlings to other villages looking to emulate their success.<\/p>\n
Sumber : https:\/\/www.pri.org\/stories\/2016-12-23\/one-man-planting-mangroves-indonesia-stave-tragedy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s a boardwalk winding through a dense forest of mangroves along the coast. The tangled root systems of the trees poke out of the water, like tent poles holding up the tree trunks. Teenagers in this town of roughly 3,000 people take selfies with the dense leafy canopy as a backdrop, while families stroll along the boardwalk. None of this may have been here if it weren\u2019t for Hidayat Palaloi. \u201cBefore, this area was not like this, it was just empty land, coastline and a beach,\u201d says Palaloi, the head of a mid-sized conservation nonprofit based in Makassar, Indonesia, called…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artikel-id"],"yoast_head":"\n