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Community Development

The local communities

Traditionally, indigenous people of the area gathered rainforest products such as rattan, resins and honey for their own use and for trade. They fished in the many rivers that criss-cross the rainforest and have conventionally followed a type of shifting cultivation that, at low rates of population density, had little long-term impact on the forest. Small patches of forest would be burnt, the soil cultivated for a while before the community moved to another patch, leaving the vegetation to re-grow.

Unbearable pressures

In the past 20 years, however, the pressures upon these communities have become unbearable. The loss of forests and the expansion of timber and oil palm plantations have robbed the people of their resource base. Few indigenous people in central Sumatra are now able to follow their former way of life.

 Preventing community displacement in Harapan Rainforest

About eight indigenous family groups live in Harapan Rainforest. They belong to an ethnic group called the Bathin Sembilan. If Burung Indonesia, the RSPB and BirdLife International had not intervened to have Harapan Rainforest designated for ecosystem restoration, it would most likely have been converted to agricultural or industrial tree plantations, and the families displaced.
Forest-dependent communities often find it difficult to benefit from plantation developments. The need to respond to seasonal income-earning opportunities in the forest – the fruiting season, for example – means that it is often difficult for them to hold down full-time jobs, and in some cases they are not used to permanent employment. These communities may also be less well educated than outsiders, to whom most of the jobs go.
Harapan Rainforest provides hope that the Bathin Sembilan can maintain aspects of their forest-based lifestyles.
The challenge is to enable them to sustain their wellbeing and develop economic opportunities – while supporting wildlife conservation goals. We will explore the possibility of offering long-term employment in a research station and in ecotourism, as well as in day-to-day forest management.

Working together to stop forest destruction

There are ongoing threats to the project's conservation programme and the work to develop sustainable livelihoods for indigenous people. 

Some of the greatest threats are the cutting and burning of the forest by economic migrants. Harapan Rainforest is in Sumatra's lowlands and is easily accessible by road, which means it's vulnerable to such misuse.

The indigenous Bathin Sembilan already have community rules to encourage environmental protection and sustainable resource use, but they struggle to stand up to external pressures.

That's why the Harapan Rainforest staff have been working hard to develop partnerships with Bathin Sembilan villagers, to join together to protect the forest.

Pak Russman, a local indigenous man who now works for Harapan Rainforest's patrol team, told us: 'As a forest patrol man, I help protect the forest from destruction by irresponsible men. We indigenous people would be very sad if outsiders were to destroy our forest.'