The sweetest way to save forests
Theresia Sufa, The Jakarta Post, Bogor
A new honey harvesting operation is proving to be a good business model with an added sweetener: it could help preserve the country’s forests.
“We aim to promote sustainable honey harvesting, preserve the forest as the bee’s habitat, maintaining indigenous cultures and improve the quality of the honey,” said Indonesian Forest Honey Network (JMHI) executive Valentinus Hari.
He was speaking during the Honey Festival in Bogor Botanical Garden on Saturday, on the sidelines of a product launch in collaboration with the Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP) Exchange Program and another Bogor-based environmental watchdog, Telapak.
The Dorsata brand honey is produced by the indigenous people of the preserved forest Sentarum Lake National Park in West Kalimantan.
Surianto, a member of Apis Dorsata honey farmers group in Sentarum, said they harvested honey in the forest from October and March, while relying on freshwater fishing to make a living for the rest of the year.
Previously the tribe had cut trees down to harvest the honey.
“Local environmental group Riak Bumi taught us how to take honey without destroying the ecosystem … We rely too much on the forest for our livelihood, so we are keeping it safe,” Surianto said.
National Park management head Suwignyo said the 132,000-hectare forest is the biggest wetland ecosystem in Kalimantan, and home to the indigenous Iban and Malay tribes.
“We support the environmentalists in training residents on the best way to harvest honey and how to make and install beehives in tree tops … they have an approach of ’saving the forest through honey production’,” Suwignyo said.
“Each family usually has 60 tikung (beehives) that can produce five kilograms of honey each,” he said.
Riak Bumi and NTFP Exchange Program formed the network, which has currently expanded to work with honey farmers, cooperatives, local non-governmental organizations and the regional administrations in Kalimantan, Sulawesi, Sumatra islands and Sumbawa in West Nusa Tenggara, Valentinus said.
He said the Dorsata honey, which could reach up to four tons in harvest time, has been certified as national organic product by BioCert.
Sole distributor PT Dian Niaga sells a 300 gram bottle of honey for Rp 75,000 (US$7.89).
“We focus on selling to the national market, but we have started to receive orders from Korea and Japan,” said the company’s president director Johnny W. Utama.
Source: http://old.thejakartapost.com/detailcity.asp?fileid=20080415.C03&irec=2
