Transforming Critical Land into Green Area in Hulu Citarum

The Water Resources Care Community (MPSA) is a community located in Tarumajaya Village, Kertasari District, Bandung Regency. The MPSA community is located in the upstream zone of the Citarum River at an altitude of around 1.200 meters above sea level and faces the challenge of land degradation. MPSA was founded by local residents with the aim of overcoming critical land that affects the sustainability of their lives, both in terms of water resources and economy. Since its establishment, they have been active in tree planting activities and converting critical land into productive agricultural areas with commodity crops such as coffee.

To further maximize the impact of environmental and community economic recovery, MPSA with the support of Nusantara Fund Direct Funding, created a program to develop a sustainable coffee production model in the Gunung Wayang area, upstream of the Citarum River to transform critical land in the upstream of the Citarum River into healthy productive land.

The activity begins with the preparation of the construction of a coffee production house as the main activity center. In the production house, community members will carry out various processing processes, from drying to storing coffee beans, to improve the quality and selling value of the product. The production house is designed to accommodate the coffee harvest from local farmers and become a post-harvest processing center. The harvested coffee is processed from cherries into dry coffee beans ready to be roasted which have a higher selling value.

In addition to the construction of facilities, it also includes intensive training for community members and surrounding farmers, focused on cultivation techniques to increase coffee plant productivity and post-harvest coffee processing. From the resource person WALHI West Java, community members also learned about the importance of good coffee farming business management, from green bean handling to packaging techniques that can increase the product's appeal in the market.

In the next stage, MPSA gives farmers access to coffee processing equipment such as huller and pulper machines to process coffee from cherries to beans. The processing process increases the economic value of coffee – from selling raw coffee cherries to coffee beans, and empowers farmers to process their own coffee.

In the production house too, community members can share experiences and knowledge about more effective ways of caring for coffee plants, creating a shared learning space for farmers in maintaining the quality of their harvest and maintaining environmental sustainability. Not only learning to plant coffee and process the harvest, farmers are also equipped with basic business management knowledge so that they can be economically independent from their own coffee.

In addition to coffee, farmers also plant avocados and other perennials on critical lands, which help strengthen soil structure and prevent erosion. In addition to absorbing carbon, perennials planted on critical lands also help maintain soil stability in the upstream Citarum area. The strong roots of perennials hold the soil well, reducing the risk of erosion that can damage fertile soil layers and cause sedimentation in the waters. This is especially crucial in the upstream Citarum area, where land stability has a direct impact on water flow along the river and on the safety of areas downstream. By returning critical lands to green areas that function to provide ecological benefits to the surrounding environment, especially in maintaining water availability in the upstream and preventing floods and landslides.

The land managed by the MPSA Community also indirectly helps maintain the sustainability of water resources. Planting perennial plants on 10 hectares of critical land can increase the soil's absorption of water, allowing rainwater to be stored longer in the soil and gradually seep into water sources in the area. Thus, this program not only makes the surrounding ecosystem healthy but also supports the sustainability of water supply in the upstream area, which is the main source of the Citarum River flow.