Nursing Asia’s Forests Is a Community Effort

West Java, 2003: In the rural village of Nagrog, Pak Tatang Sutardi walked through the barren lands south of the nearly 12,500-hectare Masigit Kareumbi Hunting Park. With the dream of repopulating the empty landscape with native trees, he gathered 24 comrades and formed the Giri Jaya Forest Farmer Group.

Fastforward to 2024, and Giri Jaya now owns a self-sustaining nursery for Gmelina (Gmelina arborea), Sengon (Falcataria falcata), and Suren (Toona sureni) among other native tree species, independently providing hundreds of thousands of seedlings for key partners since 2010 to accelerate forest restoration initiatives in the province. By the end of this year, the farmer group targets to produce 400,000 seedlings more.