Hello Everyone,

We've just returned to Portland from a two-week visit to our project site in Jepara and Kunir. I was very gratifyint to see the progress the residents of Kunir have made over the past 4 years!  Along on the visit were Tim O'Brien, project co-lead with me, Agni Pratama, an economic development expert from Mercy Corps (a global relief and development NGO) and Gabe Wynn from Green Empowerment ( a Portland-based NGO that develops renewable energy systems for villages), along with two members of the Jepara Forest Conservancy board of directors,  Adi Sunaryo and Agus Rofiqkoh. We were welcomed, as always, by Pak Sumani the now retired village head.  It was great to see him doing well after a period of illness.  Here are some highlights of our trip (see the corresponding photos below):

• We visited the local Djarum Foundation botanical park and met with the director and several of the staff.  They have been planting trees along local roadways and are interested in working farther up on Mt. Muria as well.  They made a generous offer of seedlings from their nursury and of high-quality compost.
• Along with a number of Kunir village residents, we all visited the reforestation area on Mt. Muria.  It was great to see the progress made on the native species ecological restoration.  Several residents have identified water supply as an increasingly critical issue.  Most likely due to the deforestation of a decade ago, the stream flows coming from Mt. Muria are much diminished.  We identified a spring that could be enhanced to bring additional water to the village and surrounding rice fields, but getting the water to Kunir will be a challenge.  Gabe Wynn described to us a range of options including the use of "ram pumps", as well as the exciting possibility of integrating micro-hydro electric production.  These goals are high on our list for the next year.
• Using a grant from UN-GEF (facilitated by our collaborator Iwan Tjitradjaja) a pilot bio-gas project has been completed and is supplying cooking gas to one household in Kunir.  The bio-gas digester takes manure from household goats and produces about 3 to 4 hours / day supply of gas.  The community is very excited about this development and we are looking into ways to expand it to many more households.
• You may recall that we purchased a small number of highly valued Etawa Goats two years ago.  Well, that small number grew to approximately 100 goats of which 30 were sold, bringing an additional 10,000 USD into the community!  The milk from the goats is also an important benefit - the milk of the Etawa is regarded locally as particularly health promoting.
• The native species nursery is really thriving!  There are now over 70 different native species seedlings being grown and planting on the degraded slopes above the village.  We are seeing some dramatic changes as a result of these plantings and everyone is very motivated to expand both the growing and planting.  Our new connection to the Djarum Foundation will be helpful in this regard. 
• Agni Pratama of Mercy Corps was very excited to see a small nilam oil distiller, developed by a local entreprenuer, in operation at the village site.  Nilam oil has a number of applications in the cosmetics industry and fetches a good price in the market.  The oil is distilled from a local non-timber forest product gathered in the remaining forests near Kunir.  Agni informed us of a novel program that trains local entreprenuers to develop business plans and enter a business plan competition.  We plan to spend part of the money donated to our project to fund Kunir residents to develop such a plan for developing a nilam oil village business and submit it to the competition.  Stay posted for the results. 

All of these remarkable innovations and development have been crucially supported and encouraged by your donations to our project through Global Giving.  Thank you so much!

Cheers,

Greg

Adi and Agni discuss future plans with community

Tim and Gabe at Djarum nursery

Tim and Adi investigate compost at Djarum

Gabe and Adi at the JFC reforestation area

Not everyone found the site visit thrilling....

Progress on native species forest restoration

Tim and Saptono at the native species nursery

Agni and Paisan discuss the biogas project

At the nilam oil distillery

The next generation!