Development Intervention

DPF has been since the late 80s working in Nusa Penida but just doing the activities more intensive since cooperate (funded) with EZE (now EED, Germany) in late 90s until 2008. DPF collaborate with Faculty of Animal Husbandry, University of Udayana in implementing forage. The expansion project has been implementing in the period 2012-2013 a year period in field of community forests and water supplies in cooperation with ICCO, The Netherlands.

The brief situation in the Nusa Penida

Nusa Penida belongs administratively to Bali province, but lags considerably behind as far as its development is concerned. It has not the same cultural and ecological richness as Bali and, hence, has not benefited from the tourist development on the main island. Contrary to Bali, it is a dry and unfertile area. It is a hilly island where irrigation is not possible and land degradation has become widespread because of intensive cultivation and poorly adapted agricultural practices. No irrigation exists and water is very scarce in the dry season. The lack of economic perspectives has led to considerable migration to Bali and other parts of Indonesia.

Economic activities are most developed in the coastal areas that have expanded over the last years. Agricultural is the major economic activity on Nusa Penida. Fishery and, more recently, seaweed cultivation are the major activities for the coastal population. Before DPF set up an integrated rural development project, very few secondary economic activities existed. This has now changed and alternative economic ventures have been developed (livestock, cottage industries, social forestry, handicrafts, processing of agricultural produce). An important part of the population (mainly those not disposing of enough land) does nevertheless not dispose of enough resources to ensure their livelihood.

The position of women in less advantageous than in Bali. Women are still subordinated to their husbands. The situation is however rapidly changing and there are already notable differences between families living in the coastal areas (and more subject to external influences) and families living on the hills. Women engage increasingly in economic activities (cottage industries and petty trading, for instance), which they control entirely (see attachment description of the Nusa Penida for more details).

The project for socio-economic and environmental development (implemented by DPF in the period 2006-2008) has allowed DPF to test and fine-tune its initial analysis (see: evaluation report 2008 presented in this web). As a result, the basic problems can be summarised as follows:

• limited natural resources on which the population is too heavily depending;
• high level of dependency on short-term and often unreliable economic activities;
• ecological imbalance because of unsustainable agricultural practices and a generalised lack of trees on the hills;
• overall lack of water in the hilly areas leading to temporary migration in the dry season;
• low level of education and lack of structures for the development of local human resources.

In view of these constraints, strategies have to be developed that have the following characteristics:

• diversification of economic activities that can decrease the dependency on a single economic and unreliable activity and provide possibilities, notably to women, to further improve their position;
• optimisation of the potential of livestock development in view of the set-up of an integrated farming system (crop by-products as animal feed, rotation of food crops and leguminous forage crops to increase soil fertility, cultivation of forage crops to give way for agricultural intensification and the development of off-farm productive activities);
• natural resource development via social forestry and anti-erosion measures;
• adoption of a self-help group approach based on existing traditional organisations, to cope effectively with the limitations of the human resources available.

In terms of their common characteristics, the subdistrict is divided into two ecological types, the coastal and hilly. Economically, this difference exerts two social types, the coastal and the agricultural. Husbandry patterns of Bali cows, pigs and chicken feedings are their crucial similar characteristics. In general, dry-farming agriculture are more subsistent to the coastal. The agricultural yields are used mostly to fulfil the people daily needs, including food reservation for dry season.

The positive impacts of the reforesting program initiated by the DPF through past project with its fruit, forages, soil management, hard plants and including ecosystem and agro-climate improvement are marked with the increase of the number of the rainy months, i.e. from 3 months in a year before the program implementation to 5 months after the program implementation; the availability of the forages; wood for the poles of the seaweed cultivation; and in the future the fruit crops. One thing that needs to be paid attention to is that the sustainable re-plantation when the plants that have reached maturity for logging are harvested or logged and to extend development distribution of social forestry. Besides, the plants that best suit the condition of Nusa Penida and have high economical value deserve attention in the planning of seedling provision.

The great sale of land to the investors coming from outside Nusa Penida increasingly reduces the farmers’ land ownership.

Objectives (project goals and project purpose)

The project wants to contribute to the following goals (overall objectives):

• an improvement of the socio-economic position of its target groups;
• an increase in soil fertility, reduction of forest degradation and reduction critical soils;
• the creation and strengthening of autonomous target group organisations that are able to effectively promote and defend the rights of their members and to perpetuate the development momentum created by the project.

More specifically, the project aims at:

1. The improvement of the condition of the physical environment
2. The improvement and better distribution of water supply
3. The strengthening of the targeted organizations/groups so that they become independent and able to take roles in the economical development of Nusa Penida when the project comes to an end.

The project purpose is to achieve a sustainable increase of the performance (higher level and better quality of outputs, increase of soil fertility and environment preservation, decrease of vulnerability, diversified production/services) of the economic activities (farming, off farm production) of the target groups.

Project Activities

• The project activities include: (1) provide various kinds of hard plants and fruit plants (40,000 teak and orange yearly) for social forestry program; (3) addition construction of the number of 10 units cubangs yearly (underground rainwater catchment reservoir); (4) trainings; (8) agricultural and forage production facilities; (9) marketing information and facilitation.
• The steps of the activities of the project include: (1) selecting the candidates’ participants of the program; (2) conducting the trainings for the members of community/public and consultants; (3) implementing post training facilitation; (4) constructing cubangs (underground water catchment); and (5) distributing the plant seedlings.