Hasanuddin Hamid, Contributor, Makassar, South Sulawesi

Dozens of five-meter-long fishing boats are anchored around the mangrove forest in the hamlet of Tongke-tongke, some 220 km to the south of Makassar, South Sulawesi.

It is late in the afternoon during the second week of July and the sun has almost disappeared in the west when a number of fishermen prepare their gear to catch fish and crabs in the areas among the trees in the mangrove forest.

This is a brief picture of the fishermen's activities in the 2.7 square km hamlet in Samataring village, Sinjai regency, after a successful rehabilitation of damaged coastal area was achieved by planting 511 hectares of mangrove trees.

The mangrove forest in Tongke-tongke symbolizes success in coastal area rehabilitation and serves as the center for mangrove forest research in South Sulawesi. Sixteen years ago, this hamlet almost disappeared because of erosion and strong waves.

In those days, each time the western monsoon arrived, Tongke-tongke was simultaneously hit with huge waves and storms. Wooden posts used to raise the houses above sea level could not withstand the natural assault, said Thayeb, 62, who initiated the rescue of Tongke-tongke's mangrove forest.

Apart from having to face huge waves and high tides, the fishermen residing in this hamlet found it difficult to increase their haul owing to strong winds and high waves.

"Life in Tongke-tongke was not promising at all," said Thayeb.

He said that efforts to save the hamlet from erosion and the impact of strong winds and waves were first started in 1984 and 1985, when the hamlet almost disappeared.

"With each monsoon, Tongke-tongke, located in the coastal area of Bone Bay, could not withstand the winds and tide," Thayeb said.

Every time it was high tide, Thayeb said, the whole village was flooded with water because of strong waves and currents. As a result, he added, the earth was washed away leaving some of the posts of the houses without anything underneath to support them.

As the hamlet continued to suffer from erosion, Thayeb and the chief, Badaruddin, set up a working group called I Love Indonesia to promote the locals' love for their country.

The group initially started out with 10 members. They bought 7,000 mangrove trees (rhizopora) from places in South Sulawesi to be used as seedlings and planted the trees in a one-hectare area leaving a space of 50 square centimeters between trees. In the end, Thayeb added, they left a gap of 10 square meters to allow space for fishing boats to enter and leave the mangrove.

Seedlings grew and spread out over an area of 10 hectares by the second year and then 200 hectares by the third year.

When the locals saw Thayeb's successful planting of mangrove trees, they also decided to plant them along the coastal area of Tongke-tongke.

The trees were planted in a pattern set out by the village. All community members planted mangrove trees on their parcel of land. There is a two meter gap between each property.

Successful mangrove planting has made Tongke-tongke a mangrove forest conservation area in South Sulawesi. In 1995, Thayeb received the Kalpataru Prize for his role in saving the environment.

In 2000, he was nominated to receive an environmental award from the United Nations. Unfortunately, just before his departure to New York, a number of residents raised an objection.

They threatened to cut down all the mangrove trees in Tongke-tongke as they believed that Thayeb's success was due in part to their participation.

One local, Syarifuddin, said that members of the community had also taken part in the conservation of the mangrove forest in Tongke-tongke.

Meanwhile, the deputy regent of Sinjai, Payung Akil, said that the regional administration appreciated Thayeb's hard efforts to motivate the public so that Tongke-tongke was transformed into a mangrove forest conservation area, and no longer a hamlet on the brink of disappearing because of erosion.

Apart from owning a two-hectare lake, Thayeb also grows mangrove seedlings in three locations that total two hectares in area. Some 100,000 trees are to be used as seedlings and have been supplied to several regencies in South Sulawesi.

A forestry expert at Hasanuddin University, Baharuddin Nurkin, said that over the past 25 years, an estimated 65 percent or 70,000 hectares of the 109,594 hectares of mangrove forest in South Sulawesi were damaged due to farming and degradation.

It is estimated that only some 30,000 hectares of mangrove forest are in good condition in Mamuju and Luwu regencies and along the eastern coastal area of South Sulawesi. The species, however, has been much reduced in number.

The damage done to the mangrove forest in South Sulawesi has reached an alarming level because of the expansion of fish farming and residential areas, a higher need for mangrove trees as firewood and their use as raw material at a paper mill in Gowa, which ceased production some 15 years ago, he said.

Fish farming in South Sulawesi covers an area of 150,000 hectares, of which only 85,000 hectares are productive. The provinces exported 9,035 tons of fresh shrimp worth some US$160 million in 1999.

Nurkin also said that the establishment of a lake for raising fish or shrimp usually does not take into account the environmental impact it will have, therefore the food chain related to the environmental ecosystem will be affected while other marine biota will no longer have a source of food.

To maintain the conservation of mangrove forests, there must be a fully protected forest for mangrove trees, inside which would be all the species usually found in a mangrove forest. A green belt is not sufficient for this purpose. What is needed is a natural growth mangrove forest that stretches from the coast to the upstream areas that border a forest on land, which would allow all types of mangroves to grow.

He suggested that the mangrove forest to be protected must start from the furthest end of the coast to the borders of land. Only in this way can a complete composition of species be found, a feature that is useful for research.

In conjunction with conservation efforts, he also asked that green belts be established along coastal areas, particularly in estuaries and river areas. These green belts are important to conserve marine life because the mangrove forest plays an important role in protecting fish and marine biota in estuaries as well as providing a source of food and a safe area for breeding.