Krueng Sabee is a settlement in Aceh Jaya, one of the regencies hit hardest by the 2004 tsunami. The tsunami wiped out everything except for the forested hills further inland. This 500 hectare forest is home to a variety of wildlife. But more importantly, the river that runs through it is the main source of drinking water for the residents of Krueng Sabee and Aceh Jaya’s capital, Calang.
A drainage basin or catchment basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain, melting snow, or ice converges to a single point at a lower elevation, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean.
After the 2004 tsunami, many regions in Aceh received much needed international aid and, as you have read, were subject to conservation efforts. Unfortunate Krueng Sabee’s forest was not given much attention. In fact, the forest was exploited at an even faster rate due to the demand for wood for repairs. Due to the lack of regulation, illegal logging was rampant.
Things got worse when gold was discovered in the river’s catchment basin in 2006. The end of hostilities meant that many miners were attracted to the potential gold rush. Deforestation disrupts the water cycle and together with mercury pollution from the mines, the Krueng Sabee river became heavily contaminated.
As part of its post-tsunami reconstruction work, the Red Cross and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) built houses and clean water facilities for the people of Calang. Before the arrival of NGO’s, the people of Krueng Sabee did not know the importance of their catchment basin. But after seeing how the NGO’s source their water from the headwaters (the source of a stream) of the river, village elders started to link the environmental degradation to their bad water.
These village elders got together and formed the Krueng Sabee River Forum and their goal was to conserve the Krueng Sabee’s catchment basin as a water source. They talked to as many locals about the importance of preserving the catchment basin. But in reality, there were many more people who were ignorant of the situation and continued to destroy the catchment basin. The forum also thousands of mahogany saplings along the river’s banks.
Their persistent efforts paid off. In 2011, the forum successfully petitioned the governor of Aceh Jaya to manage the land around the river’s headwaters. They became the first group in Aceh Jaya to get the right to manage their village forest for a period of 30 years. Since then, the forum has planted thousands of fruit trees, instead of logging, as an alternative source of income from the forest.