Eco Solutions certifies 1st community biodiversity project
January 10, 2024
Bukit Bulan was recently certified under the Community Biodiversity Standard. It is one of eight landscape sites under the Bukit Barisan Community Biodiversity Project. It is managed by one of Indonesia’s leading NGOs, WARSI KKI. The project is creating a community-managed buffer zone around some of Indonesia’s largest and most biologically diverse national parks in the heart of Sumatra’s volcanic mountain range.
The Bukit Bulan landscape is the largest of the eight sites with a total area of 11,497 hectares of which 10,027 hectares are designated as Forest Conservation Areas (FCA). In addition, the carbon sink is estimated at 681,928 tCO2.
Located in central Sumatra in the upper Batang Hari River watershed, this hilly landscape is dominated by primary rainforests and is the home of indigenous communities comprised of Jambi-Malaya people. Their tropical forests possess some of earth’s richest biodiversity, yet the region continues to experience rapid deforestation.
The primary goal of the project is to conserve these magnificent forests situated on the border of Kerinci Seblat National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Through its certification, the project seeks to raise funding to build their capacity and implement forest patrols, livelihood activities, and biodiversity monitoring.
The six villages residing in the Bukit Bulan landscape have experienced a very rapid loss of their natural forests over the past thirty years. Uncontrolled deforestation has prompted communities to work with WARSI, to obtain community-based forest management rights and assistance building their capacity to conserve the local forests. Since 2005, WARSI and the six villages began seeking state recognition of their ancestral forests. In 2010, the district government officially recognized 11 blocks of customary forest covering an area of 1,369 hectares in the Bukit Bulan Landscape, divided among six villages. These customary forests had been conserved by the communities for generations due to their importance protecting the village water sources essential for irrigating their rice fields and domestic needs.
With WARSI support the communities gained legal management rights to larger tracks of nearby forests that they relied on for gathering non-timber forest products and timber for their houses. In 2017, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry approved three additional village forests covering 9,523 hectares in the Bukit Bulan landscape. Currently, customary forests and village forests are under the legal umbrella of the national Social Forestry scheme, a government strategy to conserve Indonesia’s forests.
The Customary Forest Scheme extends permanent management rights to traditional forests (hutan adat), while the village forest (hutan desa) program provides a 35-year management agreement that can be extended. Under these two legal agreements the communities have secure authority to manage forests in a sustainable manner. The challenge is to build community capacity to administer their vast natural forest resources, with little or no support from the government. WARSI is trying to fill this gap by providing technical and financial support to establish self-sufficient, long-term management systems at the community level.
With adequate financial and technical support communities have demonstrated the capacity to slow the historic rate of deforestation by 80 percent or more within the first five years of project. Bukit Bulan underwent a rigorous certification process to be recognized under the Community Biodiversity Standard and is third-party validated and verified and required to submit a detailed annual report on project progress and impacts. Eco Solutions congratulates WARSI and the Bukit Bulan community for all of its hard work to contribute to the world-wide effort to conserve biodiversity.
