Category: News From The Field

On August 14th, there was a fire on acacia and mahogany area. There were 46 acacia trees and 113 mahogany trees burnt, the fire came from the neighbor’s land which was burnt for rice farming.

On the other side of the burnt land, acacia and mahogany trees are healthy and grow well. 
The border between Goldteak plantation and neighbor’s land is 6 meters wide, actually the fire can not reach Goldteak plantation, because the wind was strong and flew the cinder and created fire.

At this time, guardians do regular activities in maintaining the young trees like cutting the grass, cleaning the ground, watering the trees, cutting small branches and cutting the dry trees or bamboo which will disturb the young trees.

Some guardians have a duty to take care the fruit trees, durian, mango and oranges also need attention. Dry season is not goof for the trees, so guardians should give water every day at least every two days. So far the fruit trees survive during this hot season.

To take care the land and the trees, guardians should climb the hill or walk on the rocky, pebbly and dusty land. The guardian should walk carefully because they also bring water or any equipments. Supervisor, Budi, should check the guardians work on the land about 20 ha is not easy, so now the guardians make a road for the motorbike.

To prepare rainy season, guardians start to make or compartment or clean the soil around the tree. They will put fertilizer manure at the end of the hot season, so when the it rains, the water will bring it in the soil.

Some trees were attacked by the leaf decease, guardians should cut the top trees so young leaves will grow again, but when the trees does not get enough water, the trees will dry and die. Others trees grow very well and look healthy, even for the latest planting in March 2009

At the other area, the old trees start pruning, because supervisor, Parid, does not have many guardians to help him cleaning the ground so he also makes sure that nobody smoke or make fire around the plantation.

The other trees look healthy and grow well, they are getting tall and bigger and stronger.

Guardians always take a break at gazebos or house, during Ramadan they do not have lunch, so sometime after they have mid day pray they take a nap or just have a chat with other friend or family.

The hot season has been 3 months already, end August and early September the weather is still hot. The temperature is between 37 to 39 º C in the new plantation, but in the 2 year trees area, the temperature is about 35 to 36 º C. The wind blows harder in the morning and afternoon. To help the trees from the heat, guardians give water every morning.

The Acacia and Mahogany will be planted in December, when the land is wet and has enough water. The guardians will open the land in October and start to maintain the land in November.

The guardians do regular activities every day, spaying the trees with insecticide and fungicide. It is to protect the trees from trunk and root decease. In hot season, coconut beetles, grasshoppers and hairy caterpillars still attack the trees.

Most of the area has been clean from wild grass, but there is still small part that still has grass, guardians cut the grass manually by cutting knives or by spraying.

Other activity that guardians still do is making compartment around the trees, it is to give the land receives more UV to grow the root well. The land also will get more oxygen.

He two year and eight month trees grow well, now they prune by themselves, the leafs fall and naturally it helps the UV reaches the ground. All trees are healthy and strong.

Last year Goldteak gave scholarship program to 10 students who graduated from SD Cibeureum and continue study to SMP PGRI (secondary school). This year Goldteak continued the program to these 10 students and add 17 new students who just graduated from SD Cibeureum this year, so total students received the scholarship are 27 students.

Each student received one pair of school shoes/socks, one hat, one school bag, one pair skirt/shirt and pants/shirt, ruler, sharpener, eraser and pencil case. All Goldteak guardians’ children also receive the scholarship and donation.

This year, PT Petrolink’s employees also participated and supported this program, they donated 15 packages of writing books, 22 dozens of pencils, 4 packages erasers, 2 table sharpeners and 2 pictures of Indonesian Hero for the school. The donation was given to the SD and SMP students.

This hot season, guardians are still clearing the wild grass with round up or cutting by knives. They also give water to the trees, they take the water from the 2 year teak plantation. Some of them collect dried leafs or give fungiside/insecticide or pruning the the 2 years old teak trees.

There are three guardians will be at the plantation every Friday to keep watching the situation during hot season. Up to now, there are still several fire spots at rice field area in Cibening but far away from the plantation.

August 17th is Indonesian Independence Day, SD Cibeureum students and Cibening people celebrated on August 15. All people came together to SD Cibeureum school to see the games, there were several traditional games like climbing betel nut tree to get presents, running by using rice sack, taking coin on the fruit, putting the chalk into bottles, and all students got presents. Goldteak supported all the presents for the games and the school arranged the games. The site manager, Zaini, and her wife also donate the snacks and drink separately.

So this year, people in Cibening celebrated the Independence Day together with SD Cibeureum and Goldteak, now they life is better than before and even better in the future. The parents have Goldteak plantation to work with, the children have government and Madrasah schools to study and develop their knowledge, balanced spiritual and intellectual.

There was a fire on August 14th, 2009 at Goldteak Plantation on Acacia and Mahogany area, there were 46 acacia and 113 mahogany burnt. The source of the fire was from the rice field next to it. Fortunately no teak trees are burnt.

Every year, when farmer start to open the area for farming, they usually burn the land. The farmers don’t have money to pay the workers to open their land so they burn it, after that they use the hoes to open the land, and early rainy season they can start to plant the rice. This is one of problems in plantation or farming area. Sometimes, the fire can not be controlled because there is hard wind or no water supply available. The other problem is because the area of farming and plantation huge and there is not enough people to handle. All trees are burnt will be replanted in December in rainy season.

Regular activities are still been doing, like measuring, watering and maintaining the trees. Fasting month “Ramadhan” starts on August 22nd, all workers work like usual, but they will go to land and go home earlier and they have a mid day break.

The young teak trees are already about 3,10 meter high, they look healthy and strong.

The growing trees need more sun rise and good soil, the land should clean from the wild grass to keep important nutrition. For better maintaining, after the land is clean from the wild grass, we can put fertilizer around the tree. But let the sun rise touches the ground is already makes the soil good and healthy.

Too much sun rise makes the young trees look yellow, but it is temporary. The young trees have strong roots, so we do not worry the trees will die. It will survive with good maintaining and water. Measuring trees will be started soon and the measurements are already bought.

To create the good environment, Goldteak builds houses with bathrooms and toilets. In the field, gazebos were build without toilets but now Goldteak is making one toilet at the two year trees area near the water pond/resource to help workers and family to take a bath and wash. Although the septic tank is not deep enough but it is appropriate to use.

Most of the workers live in the plantation, their house has electricity, but the roads in the plantation does not have lights, the workers should bring/use flash lights to walk at night.

The small mosque has been completed and ready to be used by Cibening people. The capacity is for about 30 people. People will start to use it on 19th August to 19th September for praying during fasting month, every day and night. After Lebaran (Idil Fitri) people still use it for daily pray. This small mosque is a personal donation from Mr. Zaini and his family.

Cibening is a small village with population about 500 people, all people are muslim. Beside having a government elementary school, they also have an Islam elementary school called Madrasah. The students study at government school in the morning and at Madrasah in the afternoon. They study Islam and read holly Koran. The Madrasah is supported by private sometimes by personal donators.

All workers received their salary and they also received medicine, tooth paste and tooth brushes. Some of the workers got high fever because the weather is changing, it more hot than last month, they covered their heads with caps, hats or just T shirt but they did not bring drinking water while they work.

The workers do a regular treatment for the trees including the fruit trees, although the pest has been gone the treatment should be given continuously to protect the trees from fungi and insect. The wild grass still grow every where and cover the soil around the trees, the workers now can cut it easily because they already got knives and hoes to cut the grass and open the soil around the trees.

Water problem has been solved by cleaning the two water resources at the 4 years trees area. The water resources are used 1 for taking a drinking water and the other one is for bathing and washing. The workers also made a new water resource, although it is not big but the water debit can be used to water the trees

There is one gazebo that is located at the 2 years trees area and now is not used anymore, this week, the supervisor Parid and some workers will clean and fix it so the workers can use it for resting during the break

To know the diameter of the tree accurately, we need to measure by special equipment (sikmat), the measurement will be done this month.

The madrasah and small mosque are almost ready to be used, according to the plan the people will use it for Ramadhan (fasting month) praying. Some donators gave donation like cement, tiles, roof or paint. The madrasah school also requested Goldteak to donate.

When the third project was opened, workers facilities were also build, like houses with toilet and water container, gazebos and road. Step by step, all the facilities are being completed. The houses and gazebos are provided with mattresses, pillows, pandan carpets.

The Madrasah school now is almost finished, village people and Goldteak workers are together hand in hand to build it. The contraction materials are from donators, they donate cements, tiles, tile roofs, bamboo, wood, paint. The next donation that they need are black boards, chairs, books.

Today, all workers felt happy because they got what they needed to work. Each of them got a hoe, a cutting knife, a branch cutting knife and a sickle. The tools usually will last about six to eight months, especially for the sickles and the hoes. The land is hard, because some area covers with stones or rocks.

Hot season has started in the beginning of July, although sometimes there is a rain falling one or two days, but it does not help the ground. In some area, we can see that the land is broken.