Successful Partnership Between Bogor Agricultural University and Kagosima University to Rehabilitate Critical Forests in Indonesia

"Half of mangrove forests  in Indonesia are degraded and critically damaged, therefore, they need serius management for their rehabilitation," says Prof. Cecep Kusmana in the JSPS (Japan Society for Promotion of Science) workshop with the topic "Protecting the Diversity of Bioresources in the Tropical Forest" in Gedung Sylva Pertamina – Faculty of Forestry, Darmaga Campus, on 15 November 2010.

For the  participants of the workshop, Prof. Cecep introduced Guludan technology, as one of the appropriate technology to conserve  mangrove in Indonesia.

This is a very simple method, bamboo stem or "guludan" (dikes) was utilized to form the required plot, and in this study the size of plot was  4 meters  (width) x 6 meters (length) x 2 meters (depth).

He explained that Guludan is a body of water embanked with bamboo stems and filled with earth sacks, on which soil is poured in bulk as a medium to grow mangrove seedlings.Further, mangrove seedlings were planted on the ponds  with a ideal planting pattern and spacing, for better result.

In addition to the  Guludan technology designed by Prof. Cecep,  a number of research reports from 18 scientists of Japan, Malaysia, Korea, Madagascar and Africa were presented in the Workshop. 

JSPS workshop was funded jointly by Bogor Agricultural University and Kagosima University, Japan. The objectives of the workshop were to discuss how to protect forest biodiversity in Indonesia and to encourage young researchers to conduct integrated researches. On the second day the participants were  given opportunity to visit the Gunung Walat Education Center, Sukabumi to observe the critical success of forest rehabilitation.

According to the MoU, in addition to be  active in research collaboration on to conservation and forest rehabilitation, in the future, both the BAU and  Kagosima University will implement student exchange programs.  (Wied).