IMPRESSIONS OF A VISIT TO THE SUSILA DHARMA BRITAIN PROJECT ’TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE LIVELIHOODS IN CENTRAL KALIMANTAN’ (TSLICK) BY SACHLAN AND LORNA, MARCH 2003

Highlights:

• Dayaks in project villages revive traditional practices

• Village cadres – a step towards self-reliance

• Moves towards co-ordination of Kalimantan activities

• Closer relationships with Government and other institutions

• Eco-Village as Training Centre

• Experimental area allocated for soil improvement trials

Facilitated by our field-staff, the Dayak project villages have been revitalising their traditional skills and laws, almost lost during the Suharto years. We saw dryland rice cultivation being carried out for the first time in 30 years. Traditional equipment for threshing and grinding has been located, dusted down and put to use – we tried our hand on it, to general amusement, and were given with some pride a bag of rice to take away. The Dayaks had also rediscovered a source of natural pesticide from a local tree, which routed the voracious insects that were damaging the crop.

Traditional laws (adat) are being revived; this is giving a feeling of strength and self-confidence to the Dayak communities. Interestingly, this adat varies slightly from village to village, due to a long lack of contact between them. Subud Youth members are planning to improve communications and enhance commonality by setting up local radio, with the help of SDB’s TSLICK field staff.

Ø   Village volunteers have been formed into cadres to support the work of our field staff after initial training. Their enthusiasm is allowing the field-staff to undertake new tasks without the need for recruiting new (paid) staff.

Ø    Presentations by Lorna and our field manager Didiek to the Mohammed Subuh Foundation (MSF) together with discussions with the GHFP (Guerrand-Hermes Foundation for Peace) have led to better mutual understanding and plans to work together towards the co-ordination of Subud initiatives in Kalimantan.

Ø    A visit to CIMTROP (International Centre for Tropical Forest Management) bore fruit in the form of help in propagating the economically valuable trees identified by the Marang Dayaks in their sustainable forestry area. CIMTROP also offered its propagation facilities for growing Artemisia, the anti-malarial medicinal herb we are using to cure cases in Kalimantan.

We went to CESS (Centre for Economic and Social Studies) with Prof. Sayogyo, and found the staff there eager to co-operate with us. They have very wide and extensive practical and academic experience that could help us in many ways.

Didiek made a presentation of the project’s work to the Mayor of Palangkaraya; this will open up opportunities of sharing our experience with all the other NGOs in the rural part of the Municipality.

TSLICK has itself legally become an Foundation in its own right. It has formed closer links with other influential NGOs in a legal institution known as a Lembaga. This follows the withdrawal of the Bogor University organisation YAE as our project partner, and is seen as a further step in the direction of sustainability, in the sense of decreasing dependence on outside bodies. We are extremely fortunate in that Prof. Sayogyo, the ex-Director of YAE, will continue to advise us through the new Lembaga.

WWF, one of our new partners, has endorsed our project and will support the new proposals being generated by Lorna as SDB’s paid fund-raiser.

Ø   The Eco-Village built by Subud Youth and local Dayaks has since been lacking in occupancy, and on a previous visit we had offered to make it into a Training Centre for the communities around. This time we found that it was being rented out for meetings and weekend stays, producing valuable revenue for the Subud housing development at Rungan Sari. SDB’s intention is to create activities revolving around raising living standards, improving the understanding and use of the environment, and developing appropriate land-use methods, without conflicting with the rental income activities.

Ø   Agriculture and forestry are greatly handicapped by the lack of fertility in the acid sandy soil prevalent in the whole area. SDB plans to incorporate appropriate methods such as terra-preta, mucuna (‘miracle bean’), bio-activated compost and rock-dust in various combinations to improve the condition of this barren area. Following our presentation MSF has allocated to us half a hectare of poor soil for these trials, together with 4 hectares of more useable land for training purposes.

Ø   Our intention is to transfer the results of the trials first to the home-gardens traditionally run by the village women. We will then scale up to field level those found appropriate for this purpose. Terra-preta for instance might not be suitable on the bigger scale because it would be difficult to produce the high density of charcoal needed over a large area in the absence of local suppliers.

Ø   Overall, through our M&E (Monitoring and Evaluation), we are seeing a marked increase in motivation, especially in the Dayak villages. The Javanese transmigrant sites are showing continued steady progress, but we have been preferentially responding to the greater needs of the long-marginalised Dayak communities in this phase of the project.

Ø   Progress towards sustainability is shown in the following three outcomes:

-        revitalisation of Dayak traditional practices

-        formation of village cadres

-        closer links with similar NGOs and public institutions