A constant during the rainy season is that the road to Cibening turns to mud. It is difficult to walk and drive. The few cars that travel to Cibening often get stuck and the villagers are the local means of pulling them out. People often ride on the back of motorcycles to arrive, but this too can be difficult at times.

This is a common problem for all rural Indonesian villages. The Indonesian government has a program to help villagers rebuild their roads, but unfortunately the program cannot reach every village, every year throughout Indonesia.

Locals resolve their problems using the PEOPLE’S SWADANA & SWADAYA SYSTEM. Swadana means people collect the money by themselves and Swadana means they work with no pay as volunteers. They collect river stones/rock and buy asphalt to cover it. Cibening village has a plan to do this to rebuild their road; however their current efforts are to finish building the Islamic school first.

It rains almost every day on the plantation. To protect the young trees from caterpillars, the guardians spray insecticide and fungicide. GoldTeak prefers to limit the amount of insecticides and fungicides; however, manually removal of the caterpillars is time consuming so we try to balance between natural and chemical ways to remove these problems so that the trees do not suffer.

GoldTeak is also diligent in measuring the rate of growth of the trees to help us manage future plantations more effectively. Guardians measure a control group and random trees each month.