Rafting, Honey, and Butterflies in the Rain Forest of Sulawesi, Indonesia

by The Nature Conservancy

Partners:

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) CARE - Indonesia University of Guelph

Success Stories

Butterfly Enterprise

After a slow start, butterfly farmers improved their skills, and even the poorer producers were earning the equivalent of two days labor each week. The most outstanding farmer, Pak Putujiwa, saw his market share decreasing as the season progressed, and he often had left-over pupae. One positive effect of this was that he realized the importance of group development so that other farmers concentrated on the less valuable polytes, allowing him to focus his efforts on more valuable species like ascalaphus, sataspes, and the new fuscus. With money earned from butterfly farming, Putujiwa refurbished his house, built a terrace incorporating a rearing enclosure, and concerted the floor throughout. He now gets two or three visits a month from tourists and local government parties, so felt that home improvements were in order.

Honey Enterprise

In the Napu Valley the wild honey bee Apis dorsata is not producing like it used to. Perhaps the El Niño effect is reaching the bees of Lore Lindu. Nevertheless, honey hunters are still fairly active and are happy to see the value of honey increase. When the next good season arrives they will be even happier. Watutau is a village of born entrepreneurs -- the dormant fund of cash has been used several times for short-term loans, and returned at 5% interest per month! Although not yet a problem, we hope to overcome this by introducing a separate credit union scheme, run by CARE Indonesia.

New Initiative

A lot of interest has been shown in the traditional Bada barkcloth, and TNC has attempted to support an enterprise based on this. A company in Bali ordered 50 sheets of plain cloth per month in March, but after the first shipment this arrangement failed, leaving us with a box full of cloth. More promising is sale of painted barkcloth squares, or siga, painted and autographed by a Bada artist, Antonius Taula. We are trying to get siga into a major mail order catalog by next spring. Discussions have started with local community leaders about planting the bea bushes which provide the raw material for the best quality of cloth -- this will probably become part of the TNC village development/agroforestry program.

Challenges

One of the major challenges faced by the Butterfly Enterprise is to ensure that a local marketing capacity is in place during the next butterfly export season. It's difficult to see this capacity arising in the village itself, particularly if we are looking to export directly from Central Sulawesi; the level of education just isn't high enough. There are several options: to involve a local business and train them as butterfly exporters, to persuade an existing butterfly business to open a branch in Palu, or to organize shipping to an existing business for them to export. This latter seems the best course, especially as the company we are currently working with has its own butterfly farm which can receive excess stock. Shipping within the country is easy, cheap, and involves a minimum of bureaucracy -- the latter would be a major problem for villagers to overcome. There must be a hard-core of innovative farmers who actively look for new species to farm. This was lacking in Kamarora, but the involvement of a new farmer from Rahmat looks to be a step in the right direction.

The main problem facing the Rafting Enterprise is still the physical isolation of the Bada Valley -- a rafting trip involves a major expedition from the current base in Rantepao, Toraja, which is not attractive to passing tourists. However, good promotional material now exists, and is being put into several magazines and travel exhibitions. One attractive market is in Singapore, where many people already travel to Bali and Toraja as adventure tourists.

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