Category: News From The Field

Lebaran Bonus

The name of guardians who work for Goldteak plantation :

Zaini Lutvi is a site manager.
Parid & Budi are the supervisors.
Guardians: Ganda works at Bumisari plantation and other 20 guardians work at Cibening plantation: Maman, Kudil, Caci, Bana (single), Oleh, Oni, Ater, Aji, Kusnadi, Ajat, Dede P (son of Parid & still single)), Dede M (son of Majun & still single), Adun, Kading, Heni, Deni, Jaji, Sidem, Majun, Andri (single).

Fruit harvest :

Some of the fruit trees are fruiting now but not very productive: 2 Mango trees are fruiting, Sapodilla tree just got the first time fruiting, 2 Lychees trees are fruiting and some of Oranges trees are fruiting. Hope next rainy season all the fruit trees will have fruit. Although the fruit is not much and the quality is not too good (probably still start fruiting) but can be sold.

Lebaran Bonus :

This year all Goldteak’s staffs and guardians received a Lebaran Bonus (THR means Tunjangan Hari Raya = financial support as much as 1 month salary for a religion holiday given to Muslim, Cristian, Budhis, and Hindu once a year).
All guardians received the lebaran bonus and the salary on the same week, so they were very happy when they received it. As tradition, they celebrate the lebaran with the family and relative, sometime they visit their relative at different village or their relative visit them. Mostly they use their money to buy new clothes and make a nice meal and cookies, but the most important thing is when lebaran Eid Fitr they have to pay the “zakat” (alms) 2,5 liter of rice (old, young, rich, poor, male or female muslim) or exchange with the money (1 liter rice is about Rp 6,000 and every one prepare 2,5 liter rice or Rp 15,000. So if the guardian has 2 children, he should pay Rp 60,000), they give the rice or the money to the mosque and the mosque will collect and distribute it to the poor people 1 day before lebaran Eid Fitr).

New well at Goldteak plantation :

The position of Cibening village is down the hill and Goldteak plantation is on the hill, this area does not have much water during hot season and since Goldteak opened the area, water is one of the problem, the trees got water from rain and 2 water spring which has very less water. Naturally, when the dry land is planted with trees, slowly the trees will keep the water from rain. It is not easy to inform or educate the villagers how to get water beside rain and water spring, but finally some of guardians tried to make a weel in the midle of the plantation. After digging 6 meter deep, Parid, Budi and Kusnadi found water and they stop digging after 8 meter deep because they found much water. This work will make an encouragement for other guardians to believe that there is water in the plantation and hope can teach other villager about the importance of planting trees.

Cibening News From The Field

Trees Grow Well

Every day, one or two guardians check the trees condition, they have to cut the wild grass around the trees and make sure that all tree get enough sun light and get enough nutrition (the wild grass takes the soil nutrition).

All trees have enough sun light and water, they have big trunk and wide leafs.

Every month it will grow new bud and the trunk will grow high and big.

Cibening village now is growing, not only the economic, social, religion but also education.

Bumisari News From The Field

Maintaining the Trees

The teak trees looks healthy and up to now, the trees are well maintained. The simple and basic maintaining is to cut the wild grass, giving enough nutrition like fertilizer and giving pesticide as well.

Cibening News From The Field

Teak Plantation in Cibening

Post author By GoldTeak Admin
Post date August 12, 2010
No Comments on Teak Plantation in Cibening

To manage the teak plantation is challenging, the maintenance should be done day by day. The guardians have to cut the grass, give fertilizer, check the trees, prune the branches, making the terraces, to measure the diameter and manage the dry leaves. The site manager has to be sure everything is done properly. After one or two years we can see the result of the work, the trees have grown very well and healthy, the hill looks greener.

The life in Cibening has a balance, the trees grow in the same time with the village has developed. Since Goldteak has developed the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) programs. Not only people in plantation (guardians and their families) received the benefits but also the school community. Some of the guardians have grown vegetable and raise chicken, ducks and goats. School’s teachers taught the students how to plant the vegetables on their school yard (first project on the yard behind the school) after Goldteak gave them seeds (egg plant, spinach and tomatoes), in the last two months they have had their first harvest. The school has sold the vegetables to the parents, they collected some income. Now they are trying by themselves by open the land in the front yard.

If we pay attention the faces of the students several years ago, their present faces looks so much happier. Today they have many activities, beside their regular activities at school they also have another extra activities outside the school time. They can read many books, make some paintings/drawings, plant the green or help their parents to raise chicken, ducks or goats.

When we are talking about students, it means we are talking about all the children in Cibening. Today all the children who are about six or seven years old go to SD Cibening to get their elementary education. The babies and the children who are one to five years old still stay at home with their mother or their family at home. The children who had graduated from elementary school have continued their education to their secondary school outside of Cibening Village.

This year pak Parid’s son Amar Ani, 17 years old, just graduated from his elementary school. Amar Ani is a handicapped person, he has no legs and hands (Indonesia: tuna daksa) since he was born. Big question for his future, why it happened with him when other student graduates their elementary school when they are 11 or 12 years old. His parents (Paris & his wife) tried to treat him as a normal child, but it was not easy. Not many school would like to accept him as a normal person, and to sent him to a special school off course will not be easy, first they do not have much money (Parid has 8 children) and village or bigger village nearby also does not have one.

Nevertheless, they never gave up to gave him a formal education. Now when they want to send him to the secondary school they have a problem. Amar Ani was advised to procure a false (prostetics) arms and legs so he can follow the school activities. Parid’s family needs donators who can help him to support their son, Amar Ani. So he sent a letter to people inPetrolink or anybody who reads his letter who would like to help him.

Bumisari News From The Field

Teaks Grow in Bumisari

The trees at Bumisari plantation look good, they have a good maintenance. The guardian, Rian, works very well. He always cuts the grass and keeps the plantation clean from the garbage. He also made terraces (the area in Bumisari a little bit slippery), so he can check all trees regularly.

He stays in the house with his wife and his two children, sometimes his father or his father in law visited and accompanied his family. The position of the plantation is quite far from the nearest village.

Bumisari News From The Field

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
No Comments on Kusnadi is an Entrepreneur

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.

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.