The Bontula Lestari Gorontalo Women's Farmers Collective Rehabilitates Critical Land and Revives Community Learning Spaces

Bontula Village, a newly established village in 2010, borders the Nantu Wildlife Reserve in Gorontalo Province. The protection of the area has not involved Bontula residents from the beginning and has been highly repressive, involving security forces, particularly regarding illegal logging, to this day. However, the Bontula Hamlet community has a history of successfully stopping illegal logging in the Nantu Wildlife Reserve and safeguarding the area since the 2000s, although some residents also sold the results of illegal logging. The residents of Bontula Hamlet make a living as farmers, who, like most in Gorontalo, still rely on hybrid corn monocultures, slash-and-burn planting patterns, and planting on land with slopes above 15 percent. This exacerbates environmental degradation, which is potentially landslides and the critical level of land reaching 289 hectares that are no longer planted with corn. This condition also exacerbates the poverty faced by farmers because the corn they grow is hybrid corn for the animal feed industry, making it cheap to sell, coupled with market monopolization by middlemen.

The Bontula Hamlet's social capital to stop environmental damage is a solution considered by the Bontula Lestari Women Farmers Collective, a people's organization that grew up in Bontula Hamlet. They believe that a gathering and learning space is needed in this hamlet so that the root problems faced by women farmers and residents of Bontula Hamlet, located in the upper reaches of the Paguyaman River, a river that crosses four districts in Gorontalo, can be gradually resolved. Education for Bontula children is certainly part of the benefits of this learning space, so road access to the village is no longer an obstacle for them to attend school. They implemented a program to plant productive annual crops and built a simple building as a community activity center with direct funding. Dana Nusantara. They were accompanied by Inhides and also WALHI Gorontalo to ensure that the planned activities are carried out.

The initial initiative involved collectively mapping 10,79 hectares of critical land for rehabilitation, followed by the planting of nutmeg, cocoa, and montong durian. The remaining 800 seedlings were planted independently, covering an area of ​​150 hectares. This program has resulted in approximately 50% of the critical land in the hamlet being rehabilitated through the planting of these productive perennial crops, which is expected to contribute to the recovery of the Asparaga District. The sustainability of this rehabilitation process is also ensured by the establishment of a nursery for perennial seedlings established by the collective within the program. The perennial crops were selected not only for their ecological function but also for the agricultural needs of the hamlet community. "Nutmeg has high economic value and can protect the soil—especially on slopes—rather than simply planting corn, which can cause landslides and barrenness. Planting perennial crops while waiting for the corn or chili plants can be a good idea, as their leaves are not too wide," said Samiya Suraji, Coordinator of the Bontula Lestari Women Farmers Collective. From this planting, there is an economic value of 435 million from nutmeg and cocoa when harvested annually after 3-5 years.

In addition, this program also succeeded in establishing an education center named "Banthayo Pendidikan Rakyat." The word "banthayo" is taken from the Gorontalo language, meaning 'hall/hut'. This hut is integrated with a fish pond, vegetable fields, a nursery center, a drying floor for harvests that were already there, as well as a storage warehouse for agricultural equipment. This area can finally become a center for collective activities and village communities. The term 'pendidikan rakyat' has a broad meaning, because education is not only a learning process like in school classes, but also all daily activities contain things that can be used as learning. Bantayo in this case can be a forum for that, because in that place we can gather, harvest vegetables and fish for food, cultivate annual plants and dry the harvest," said Samiya Suraji. This program also has an impact on storing economic value from 3000 tilapia, goldfish, and catfish seeds per harvest can generate 32 million rupiah from the sale of the fish.