Tag Archives: swaraowa

16Nov/21

Caring for Our Natural Heritage: Mendolo Forest

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a gibbon, photoghraped by Hudi member of Mendolo youth farmers group

Mendolo village is located in the Lebakbarang sub-district of Pekalongan Regency. The Mendolo forest surrounds Mendolo village, and is officially a Limited Production Forest managed by Perum Perhutani, KPH Pekalongan Timur. This site contains one of the 16 critical areas of gibbon habitat in Central Java identified by a 2012 study, and boasts a high level of habitat suitability according to research on the distribution and habitat of gibbons (Widyastuti et al 2020, Setiawan et al. al 2012). SwaraOwa’s long-term projects in this area are all aimed at conserving the Javan gibbons that live here.

According initiate survey, the amount of potential Javan gibbon habitat in this region totals approx 300 ha, (equivalent to 87 football fields) with a gibbon four to six groups in the agro-forest habitat, that we called Wana-Tani in javanese language. other javan endemic primates such as Javan langur ( Trachypithecus auratus), Javan Surili ( Presbytis comata), and Javan slow loris ( Nycticebus javanicus) also occupied this habitat.  Their range comprises locations with natural vegetation of forest and shade grown commodities such as kopi robusta, Durian,Petai, Jengkol, banana, kapulaga,  and many more. A scheme which aims both to improve the local economy and promote agroforestry is a gibbon conservation project centered on this village.

SwaraOwa first became involved in Mendolo village in 2015, when we were tasked with assisting the Pekalongan district government in surveying and inventorying the protected flora and fauna of the Mendolo forest, among other sites . Nowadays, we pay this village a visit almost every month. These visits are part of our efforts to reach out and communicate with village residents, so that we can find out which local commodities in particular can be prioritised for further development.

Mendolo village is also known for its durian production. In areas where agroforestry is practised, durian is an intensively cultivated crop that is grown among wild trees valued for their wood. In the harvest season, this village supplies the durian markets of Pekalongan and surrounds. Although there is currently no research on how durian productivity relates to bio-ecological factors, there are indications that the presence of pollinators plays a role, more specifically bats and  insects such as bees. Honey is one commodity  related to durian agroforestry, being harvested in abundance when the durian trees flower.

Drinking honey, is daily activities for Mendolo villagers

Almost all residents of this village, especially the men, collect honey from the forest. This tradition has been passed down through the generations. Aside from being used for personal consumption, forest honey also contributes to the local economy. We had previously done a preliminary study to find out what potential harvesting forest honey held for this village. This study motivated the Beekeeping team, led by SwaraOwa’s Sidiq Harjanto, to start seriously experimenting with stingless bee.

The Mendolo Young Farmers Association is the driving force for conservation in Mendolo, fostering a spirit of togetherness and inculcating pride in the Mendolo forest. In the early days, meetings in Mendolo village and training sessions on post-harvest handling at SwaraOwa Yogyakarta eventually gave rise to a series of continually evolving projects spearheaded by young people in Mendolo. The project to enhance post-harvest processes for coffee has succeeded in establishing “Kopi Batir”, a small exercise in entrepreneurship that markets Robusta coffee beans grown in Mendolo. The project operates under the slogan ‘nepungaké seduluran’, Javanese for ‘forging strong friendships’, reflecting how this coffee aims to bring people together.

Orange minivet

Projects to promote the conservation of forest areas are emerging at a slow but steady pace, initiated by residents concerned about nature. Birdwatching activities have been and are being developed in Mendolo. These aim to promote the idea that birds and other flora and fauna around the village are an important asset that must be preserved because they promise locals significant economic and ecological benefits.

Activities to strengthen the protection of forest areas but must continue to be nurtured, initiatives from local community  to care for nature. Primates and birds observation activities are being developed in Mendolo (the photos above are some of the species encountered during the observation) the aim is To increase the capacity of the younger generation, recognize the important liars’ lives around the village, birds and flora and fauna are also village assets that must be preserved, it is not possible that they can then be economically more sustainable.

Some of the products from activities in Mendolo hamlet can be obtained through Batir Coffee and Owa coffee. Although still on a small scale, coffee and forest cultivated by local residents can help motivate residents around the forest and support gibbon conservation activities and forest conservation in the Mendolo forest area and its surroundings.

This field reports, part of Coffee and Primate Conservation Project 2021, written by Arif Setiawan in bahasa, and translated by TT Chan,   supported by Fortwayne Children’s Zoo, Mandai Nature, and Ostrava Zoo.

 

 

28Aug/21

Fabric Scraps for Conservation

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“This patchwork tote bag is made of fabric scraps from the garment industry in Pekalongan. Sokokembang is a hamlet in Pekalongan located right next to forests that are home to the Javan Gibbon. Some residents there sew at home for a living or work at a textile factory. SwaraOwa are currently helping several residents in Sokokembang to transform leftover fabrics and discarded materials from the garment industry into useful recycled products. Not only does this contribute to their livelihoods, it also reduces plastic waste and promotes the conservation of the Javan Gibbon.”

The garment industry is one of the foremost drivers of the local economy in Pekalongan. From the city, the textile supply chain stretches all the way to even the most remote villages near the forest. It all starts with cutting fabrics, sewing, attaching buttons and zips, then moves on to screen printing and colouring, sometimes using traditional batik-producing techniques that have been passed down through the generations.

In Sokokembang, one of the hamlets closest to the gibbon forests in the area, activities powering the garment economy are very much present, and have been at least since we first visited in 2006. Such activities form the main source of livelihood for 45% of families here, who contribute to the apparel supply chain by sewing parts of clothing. Other villagers grow various crops or rear livestock in their gardens and the forest. From when we started our projects in Sokokembang up until 2014, villagers engaged in sewing did not do this work at home, instead using the sewing machines and materials at their employer’s place. They worked most days, only having Fridays off.

Garment workers are crucial to the local economy, sustaining those who live around the forest. However, because of the nature of their work, they are generally not as intimately familiar with forest trees and animals as those villagers who enter the forest more frequently. They sometimes even describe Javan Gibbons as having tails! Gibbons, after all, are rarely seen. What these workers do know well is how gibbon calls sound, because these can be heard loud and clear every morning.

Noticing this, the Indonesian wildgibbon team braved the pandemic and tried to find ways of connecting gibbons to garment manufacturing, the sector that provides much of the jobs in Pekalongan. Seeing leftover scraps of fabric everywhere, mostly wasted, the team tried to bring Sokokembang hamlet a solution to this problem.

The solution came in the form of cloth bags. Making them involves villagers who already sew for a living. They form patterns using unwanted fabric scraps and connect them into a highly practical multi-purpose bag. This process is relatively uncomplicated and can be done on the sidelines of everyday sewing. To get the younger generation involved in Sokokembang, they were briefly trained by residents who were already proficient in sewing. After being given the finishing touches by the wildgibbon team, the bags look as illustrated, bearing the logos of Owa Coffee and Sokokembang.

At SwaraOwa, we firmly believe that conservation projects cannot succeed without being made to benefit local communities. Although not without its challenges, this project is just such an attempt to marry conservation activities with fostering an entrepreneurial spirit among locals — all proceeds will go towards supporting forests and livelihoods. By closely collaborating with the locals, we aim to make protecting nature and boosting the local economy one and the same cause, and hope that making conservation pay will encourage further conservation activities in the region and beyond.

 

written by : Elna Novitasari Br.Ginting dan Arif Setiawan, translated by TT Chan

26Feb/21

Sokokembang Forest, wild habitat of Javan langur.

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Photo story by Arif Setiawan

 

1. The Javan langur (Trachypithecus auratus) is a leaf-eating monkey classified as Vulnerable by the IUCN. Found in Java and nearby islands, it inhabits the Sokokembang forest near Kayupuring Village in the Petungkriyono District, Pekalongan, Central Java Province. They live in groups of two to 15 individuals and are polygynous, meaning that in each group there is one adult male and several females.


2. Javan langurs are often encountered along the forest road in leading to Petungkriyono. Although their numbers have not been researched to date, the SwaraOwa team have observed approximately six troops of langurs frequenting that road.

3. Newly born Javan langurs are orange, but turn black after an average of 2.9 months (Trisilo et al. 2021). Their orange fur makes the babies stand out and allows the adult members of the troop to look out for them and make sure .


4. Javan langurs move on all fours (quadrupedal). They spend most of their lives in the trees and only occasionally come down to look for insects and other food in the understorey or forest floor.

5. Javan langurs are a protected primate species under Indonesian law.


6. Javan langurs are often lethargic because they need time and energy to digest the tough leaves that make up their staple diet. When seen dozing off on a tree branch, these langurs may actually be waiting for the digestive bacteria in their guts to break down their food, much like ruminants.

7. In February 2021, we counted a total of six females with babies in the Sokokembang forest – some were still orange, while others had black fur like their mothers.


8. We also observed two langurs grooming each other. Aside from keeping langur fur free of parasites, grooming also serves as a social activity to strengthen group ties and relieve tension or stress.

9. Being relatively dense, Petungkriyono Forest is suitable habitat for Javan langurs. The fact that some langurs are easily observed along the road and not too bothered by humans can be used to promote ecotourism (primate-watching) in the area. However, measures will need to be implemented to ensure humans keep a distance and do not litter or feed the langurs.

24Jan/21

2020 in review: Humming optimism amidst adversity

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Overview

In January 2020, against the backdrop of a nascent pandemic, work continued unabated to organize conservation activities targeted at primates, gibbons in particular. The gibbons in Central Java and the Mentawai Islands form the twin foci of our conservation activities and have provided us strong motivation to step up conservation at the site level.

Javan gibbon landscape

Mentawai – Education & ecotourism

In South Siberut, we initiated a campaign centered on wildlife photography in collaboration with Uma Mentawai Malinggai (UMM), an organization dedicated to preserving local folk art. The campaign aimed to promote photography as a means of preserving culture and biodiversity, and to equip UMM members with new skills. We armed two UMM members with cameras that they used to document local fauna and natural history, and encourage the local community to part with non-traditional hunting practices.

This program has delivered some tangible results, with a book on the birds of Mentawai and another on Mentawai primates having been published. Active collaboration with local residents has also encouraged them to take ownership of their natural environment by serving as ‘paraconservationists’[read report here]. As such, the message we spread emphasized the importance not only of primates, but also of other components of Mentawai’s biodiversity and the value of indigenous culture.

The activities scheduled for January were intended to promote the conservation of primates in Mentawai through primate-watching tours. A promotion had in fact already been launched on a dedicated website (https://wildgibbonindonesia.com/ and a test run had likewise been conducted blending endemic primate species with highlights of local culture. Read the trip report here. However, after a promising start, progress has slowed since March 2020 owing to the pandemic. Being mainly targeted at tourists from abroad, the project has been affected by cancellations of all tours booked at the end of 2019.

Central Java – Cancelled visits

In March 2020, we had been due to receive staff from the Ostrava Zoo and a representative of the Czech ambassador to Indonesia at our project activities in Sokokembang and the village of Mendolo. Both sites play a crucial role in our Coffee and Primate Conservation Project. However, shortly before the event was due to start, an official notice came in from the Regent of Pekalongan that gatherings were to be banned to halt the transmission of coronavirus. We were of course very disappointed, but are glad that we did the right thing by calling the activities off. In the end, we only managed a brief meeting with representatives of the Ostrava Zoo in Pekalongan, who immediately thereafter returned to Jakarta.

Of all our shade coffee and primate conservation projects in 2020, the most badly hit by the pandemic was our collaboration with the Singapore Zoo. Sales of our forest-friendly coffee had ground to a halt there because the zoo café, which carried the product, was forced to close by COVID-19. Our stock of coffee beans piled up in warehouses in Yogyakarta and in the Petungkriyono homes of the growers near the gibbon forests.

the swinging javan gibbon

 Research & networking

May 2020 marked a milestone in the conservation of the Kloss’s gibbon  (Hylobates klossii), with a survey of this Mentawai endemic having been published in the journal Biodiversitas – Journal of Biological Diversity. Findings were first presented at the Indonesian Primate Congress in September 2019, organized by Indonesian Primatological Society.

June 2020 saw the commencement of two important research projects in Sokokembang. Both were spearheaded by tough and dedicated women who feel more at home in the forest and among the communities who live off it than as homemakers without a voice of their own. Pressing on despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, the first is Nur Aoliya from Bogor Agricultural University who studies the Silvery gibbon’s  vocalisation behaviours in the mountainous landscape of the Dieng region. You can find Aoliya’s story here, recounting her search for the diva of the rainforest in the districts of Batang and Pekalongan. The second, Yenni Rachmawati from Airlangga University, researches the Blue-banded kingfisher, one of the world’s most endangered birds  which the SwaraOwa team had found as new record in 2018. Both these research projects are funded by the annual Kopi Owa scholarship program as part of the Coffee and Primate Conservation Project in Central Java. As of early 2021, these projects are still ongoing.

 

Starting where we left off

As we lament no longer being able to travel as we please or meet whoever we want to, perhaps the most important lesson to learn from this global pandemic is that not coexisting with the natural world will only lead to severe socio-economic problems in the long run. Promoting cultural practices that emphasise sustainable consumption and production must be made a topmost priority, even if only on a small scale at first. After all, big things usually have humble beginnings.

Initially beset by numerous delays due to the pandemic, November 2020 saw our work in Mentawai slowly being resumed, targeted at conserving the endemic Kloss’s gibbon. As the erosion of local culture has led to unsustainable hunting practices and the loss of much forest, this work crucially includes providing local teachers training and content on nature conservation and Mentawai traditions.

Not all our activities were publicized on the SwaraOwa website or blog due to limited time for writing. One of the most important achievements for gibbon conservation in Pekalongan Regency was marked by the provincial government initiating a multi-stakeholder forum centered on the management of the Petungkriyono forest area [the initiation was started by this writing]. Although relevant work had already started in 2019, it was only with this forum that a concrete plan emerged, proposing around 5,173.80 ha to be managed collaboratively as an Essential Ecosystem Area.

Looking towards the future: strengthen economy, culture and nature conservation 

stingless bee honey harvesting

The pandemic, giving experience of livelihood program activities with one priority commodity to influence sustainable production and consumption in gibbon habitat’s  is very risky. and now there is also other potential commodity that SwaraOwa is developing in the habitat of gibbons, i.e stingless bee and it’s product development, we started in 2017 and now honey production has begun to stabilize even though it is limited, and motivate the community to involved in wildlife friendly farming practice, colony replication not only multiplied bee hive boxes but also became the start of a social, economic and ecological movement  around the forest.

We closed 2020 with the launch of Owa Bilou Coffee, a commercial project named after the Kloss’s gibbon endemic to Mentawai. It aims to further conservation work on primates, to involve local community on sustainable economic activities, especially the gibbon which is its namesake, its to trigger promoting local commodities and team in Mentawai that can be benefit for community and nature it’s self.

Thanks to all people, agency, local government in Central java and Mentawai,  who involved during 2020 activities, special thank you to our donors Fortwayne Children Zoo, Wildlife Reserve Singapore, Ostrava Zoo, and Arcus Foundation.

Having bade 2020 a bittersweet goodbye, we welcome 2021 with renewed optimism and resolve.

02Nov/20

Beasiswa KOPI OWA

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Program “Kopi dan Konservasi Primata 2020 -SWARAOWA, mengajak anda berkontribusi melalui pembelian Kopi “jungle bean” dari habitat Owa Jawa, seharga Rp 120.000,00 anda akan mendapatkan 2 bungkus kopi Arabica dan Robusta. Keuntungan penjualan kopi ini akan di gunakan untuk biasiswa penelitian Owa jawa dan burung Raja Udang Kalung Biru, di Hutan Petungkriyono,Kab.Pekalongan, Jawa Tengah.

Owa jawa (Hylobates moloch)

Saat ini ada 2 mahasiswa yang akan melakukan penelitian tentang perilaku bersuara Owa Jawa (Hylobates moloch), dan Distribusi dan habitat burung Raja Udang Kalung biru (Alcedo euryzona). Tentang burung Raja Udang Kalung Biru ini merupakan burung langka terancam punah (Critically Endangered) yang di temukan tahun 2018 oleh tim SWARAOWA.

Javan Blue Banded Kingfisher

Pembelian kopi ini juga menjaga produksi kopi Owa di masa pandemic, dimana sangat terdampak karena tutupnya outlet-outlet/coffee shop jaringan kopi Owa saat ini. Dukungan anda sangat penting tidak hanya untuk mendukung penelitian satwa terancam punah tetapi juga mondorong warga sekitar hutan untuk tetap produktif dan menjaga kelestarian hutan.

kopi owa “Jungle Beans”

Sampai bulan Desember 2020, penelitian ini membutuhkan dana kurang lebih Rp 30.000.000,00 (tiga puluh juta rupiah) dan saat ini sudah ada dana Rp 10.000.000,00 (sepuluh juta rupiah) untuk kegiatan kelapangan bulan September-November 2020. Penggalangan dana ini akan kami buka sampai akhir bulan November 2020, dan juga akan menjadi sekema berkelanjutan untuk upaya pelestarian primata dan burung langka di wilayah Jawa Tengah. Ikuti terus perkembangan kegiatan kami di sosial media SWARAOWA.
Pembelian bisa kopi kami layani melalui OWA COFFEE, no WA : 0823 1377 2667, Instagram dan twitter Owa Coffee, juga tokopedia : https://www.tokopedia.com/owacoffee