Author: GoldTeak Admin

Local Teaks in Bumisari

Bumisari Village is located about 50 km from Pelabuhan Ratu beach, to reach this village we have to drive through Cikidang area (there are tea, rubber and palm oil plantation in Cikidang). Most of the people in Bumisari plant rice or cassava, they sell their harvest to local collectors. Because the collectors bring the harvest by using trucks, most of the road is in bad condition. Recently, local government fixed the road. Although they did not fix the whole road, but at least to reach teak plantation does not take long time.

It is very interesting when we compare the local teak and Solomon teak. Local teak has more branches and the trunk size is quite different, Solomon has less branches and straight trunk. Local teak has darker color and more leaves. The trees does not grow at the same time, we can find one tree grows well doe not although they were planted at the same time. For local teak, Indonesian people like to call “Hutan Jati” or teak forest than “Perkebunan Jati” or teak plantation.

It makes sense, because when we enter the local teak plantation, we found the irregularity of the trees. There is a question, does it mean that Solomon is better than local teak? The answer is local teak & Solomon teak has different characteristic and for the quality and price, the market has answered that Solomon is more expensive because it has a better quality.

Cibening News From The Field

Kusnadi is an Entrepreneur

Post author By GoldTeak Admin
Post date July 31, 2010
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West Java Province with 10 regents has a very large forest (764.387,59 ha), it is 20,62 % from the whole province area. Based on 2006 data, this province still has Productive forest 362.980,40 ha, Protected forest (including National Park) 228.727,11 ha, Conserved forest 172.680 ha and Mangrove forest 40.129,89 ha.

From the Productive forest, West Java got 200,675 m3 wood. Actually West Java needs about 4.000.000 m3 per year. Hutan Rakyat or forest managed by local people is about 214.892 ha and produced 893.980,75 m3 of wood.

From 580.000 ha critical forest, local government has planted trees on 357.000 ha, the rest 223.000 ha is still waiting to be recovered. Perhutani (Indonesian Forestry Company) with local people work together to complete the Rehabilitation Program in next few years.

Today, Indonesian Government supports any business institution or private company even individual to plant trees to make West Java green. Almost ten years, Goldteak has been taking part of this program in Cibening and Bumisari areas. Opening the land for planting trees has several benefits, to help the area more green, more water and to help the people get jobs and develop the economy and education.

To develop the local economy, Goldteak teaches the guardians and their families to be entrepreneurs. They learn how to raise the chicken, ducks, goats and make salted duck eggs. Kusnadi, one of the guardians has several chicken and goats, now he starts to raise a special goat “Domba Garut” (goat from Garut & well known has a high price), he also tried to raise broiler chicken.

Cibening News From The Field

Local Ambulance

Local ambulance service. Kasa was dehydrated and had to be taken to the hospital. The doctor prescribed bed rest and absolutely no walking, so the local villagers transported him by foot on the two kilometer walk to the plantation.

Pengembangan GoldTeak Peristiwa

Talented Students Awarded Scholarship by GoldTeak

Post author By GoldTeak Admin
Post date April 1, 2010
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Last April, several of students from Cibeureum Elementery School, followed the students competition in Kecamatan Bantar Gebang (kecamatan means sub-district). They competed on mathematics, reading, writing, poetry reading & drawing/painting.

There are five students won the competition: Andri is first winner for a painting category and the second winner is Dede. Abdul Hikmat is first winner for poetry reading category and he is also third winner for science category. Patonah is the first winner for beautiful writing and she is also second winner for reading, writing and mathematic category. And Yusuf is first winner for reading, writing and mathematic.

Andri Won The Drawing Competition

Picture Drawing by Andri

It was the first time that the school sent many students for the competition, before they only sent for poetry reading competition. Cibeureum Elementary school has 71 students (from grade 1 to grade 6), and the school is in the Cibening village, 2 kilometer from Kecamatan road, but it is quite isolated because the road to the village is damage (because of heavy rain) and the bridge is broken. The students and the teacher should walk and sometimes it takes about 1 hour to reach the school, and for the children from Goldteak plantation, they need about 15 to 20 minutes to walk.

They spend their free time to play football (plastic ball), play kites, now they can go to school and read story books or magazine for children at school, mostly they read together at the school porch.

Two times a month or at least once a month, GoldTeak send someone to the school to discuss with the teachers and the school principal, they discuss about the students development. The story telling is one of student’s favorite activity, they sit together, listen and read together with the story teller. The topic are varieties, from fable to science. They using the map they know the story is originated from where. They also know the difference between butter and margarine. Andri made a scenery painting; it is about The Green Village, he drew trees, fish pond with ducks and a mountain as a background.

Andri and Friends

Dewi and Cibening Students

Head Cibening School Looking A Book_Craft

Dewi Reading A Story

Events Expanding Gold Teak

Talented Students Awarded Scholarship by GoldTeak

Post author By GoldTeak Admin
Post date April 1, 2010
No Comments on Talented Students Awarded Scholarship by GoldTeak

Andri Won The Drawing Competition

Picture Drawing by Andri

Andri and Friends

Dewi and Cibening Students

Head Cibening School Looking A Book_Craft

Dewi Reading A Story

Bumisari News From The Field

The 3P Concept

It is amazing to see that our model is working!

The 3P: People, Planet and Profit concepts encourages us to make business decisions with a balance of the people related to our projects and the environment while enhancing our profit.

A core concept of GoldTeak is to hire guardians to care for our trees from the beginning. Most plantations put the trees in the ground and then leave them to grow knowing that even if a small portion of the trees grow properly they will profit. However, if you look at the top photo you will note that these trees are significantly smaller than the trees in the second photo. It is hard to believe that these trees were planted at the same time and are on land adjecent to the obviously healthy and large trees at the GoldTeak Bumisari Plantation.

Our 3P motivation can be described as the following:

Jobs!: Need we say more? Giving local families housing and jobs actually helps the entire village… the workers spend their money in the village creating more income and growing their local economy in a healthy fashion (which will hopefully also reduce the possibility of theft when our trees become large enough to sell!).
Spend more on People : Having guardians requires investment long before a profit is seen, however, in envisioning the long term results we can see that after 20 years the land in the second and last photos will produce a much healthier profit!.
Larger trees mean more water and less CO2: Having larger and healthier trees allow the land to hold more water and also sequester more CO2, helping our environment combat Global warming!

Cibening News From The Field

Fruit Trees

The children of Cibening village are happy to catch a ride with Zaini (GoldTeak’s local manager). The walk from the main road is a long one and the children have to walk this daily to go to middle school. Fortunatly the sun is shining and the road appears drys, as during the rainy season the road is often six-inches deep with mud.

GoldTeak is primarly a teak plantation, however, we multi-crop and have planted a percentage of our land with fruit trees like the orange, durian and guava trees that you see in the photos. Fruit trees mature more quickly than teak trees and allows us to start creating an income from the land to offset the long term costs of maintaining the teak wood.

Cibening News From The Field

Guardians

Our GoldTeak Guardian Team takes a break from clearing the sea grass that grows between the trees. We try our best to remove as much as possible by hand, but in the rainy season the grasses seem to grow more quickly than we can clear them away !

Budi’s new baby girl. The family is growing on the plantation… a sure sign of wellbeing !

Cibening News From The Field

Parid’s Goats

A happy occasion ! The arrival of the baby Goats. For those of us who live a more urban existance this is a ”çute” and fun occassion, however, for the guardians on our land this is an added revenue source for their survival… for Parid our supervisor he gets half of my baby goat just for caring for the goat.

All our guardians make minimum wage, are provided with a house on the land and medical care. This money is significant because 6 years ago these 23 families had no prospects for work that would provide for their families. The majority of our staff

We encourage the growth of Micro-businesses that help the villagers and our guardians help themselves. During festivals, or as bonuses we give them animals or seeds to inter-crop vegetables between our trees and around their homes. But the most impressive thing is that our supervisors have taught the others, through example, to save some of their money to buy more chickens, goats and rabbits to raise and sell for extra cash. This may seem like minor income by our standards, but in their little village this makes them ”well off”. Their increased wealth also trickles down to the villagers who create services and businesses for our guardians — like transport services to move supplies in and out of the plantation, and small stores that sell needed items to neighbors.

The changes do not happen overnight but on every visit I notice some kind of improvement in the lives of everyone around the plantation.

Until next time, Stacy.

Cibening News From The Field

Eid al-Adha

The GoldTeak families celebrate Eid al-Adha: The “Festival of Sacrifice” or “Greater Bairam”. It is a religious festival celebrated by Muslims all over the world. This year, GoldTeak’ guardians received donation from Zaini of two goats, they did the sacrifice in the field and they shared equally, so they got about two kg each.

The replanting of Acacia and Mahogany trees ruined by the fire has begun, and it will take one or two weeks. The replanting should be done during rainy season so they can grow strong to survive their first dry season.

Some of guardians continue to cut the grass, especially around the tree. The fruit trees have started to produce fruit.

The rainy season is synonymous with flu and cold season and the Cibening villagers are not exempt. Many use traditional methods to prevent illness like drinking tea or coffee with ginger; they also add more garlic to their meals. GoldTeak provide medicine for the guardians and their families. This year we are introducing a new program bringing medical assistance directly to the village.

All the guardians are happy when they receive their GoldTeak salary. For them a salary means a lot, they can buy rice, buy their children’s school need and buy a little seed to be planted around their house, and for the young guardians they learn how to save their money. Some of them buy chickens or goats to help them earn more money to buy a motorbike.