LL.2.8.1 Aplica el proceso de escritura en la producción de

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Table 7.5 Annual amount of wood used per hamlet, according to farmers' statements (the figures in brackets show the number of households involved; ten households in each hamlet)

Hamlet Firewood Charcoal Construction wood Total

consumed^ sold sold consumed sold

Quantities involved (in m^)

Kepek 46 6 _ 5 _ 57 Legundi 40 12 18 5 4 79 Mendak 48 - 11 11 - 70 Households involved Kepek 10 2 7 - Legundi 10 6 10 4 4 Mendak 10 - 7 7 1

Note: See appendix 7 for conversions used.

^ crop residues, wood from fallow shrub vegetation, purchased wood, excluded. Source: in-depth farm survey.

Trade in firewood only takes place in the two hamlets on the main road, and most of all in Legundi. Charcoal is made in Mendak and Legundi. Farmers can make their own charcoal. Large farmers may invite others do it for them on a profit-sharing basis. Kepek farmers no longer produce charcoal. They have been involved in making charcoal in times of great distress, which, according to them, have not occurred over the last 20 years. They consider the returns of burning charcoal to be too low to make it attractive as a regular occupation (see Chapter 8). In Legundi there seems to be a tendency to shift from selling charcoal to selling firewood, because the returns to labour are higher22.

Firewood which is offered for sale is tied together in small bundles (bongkok) of various sizes and are sold to local assembly traders {bakut) or traders from outside. The farmers carry the bundles to the roadside which are then collected by the trader with a truck or pick-up truck and transported to a lowland market, usually Imogiri, Bantul or Yogyakarta. The firewood trade is highly lucrative because of substantial regional price differences which greatly exceed transport costs23. Local people only buy firewood, when, for instance, they require large amounts of wood for special occasions. It also occurs that farmers leave the felling of the trees to the trader (tebasan). Low value per weight unit and, concomitantly, proportionally high transportation costs is probably the 22. However, in doing so, they get less money for the same amount of wood (see chapter 8).

main reason why no firewood trade occurs in Mendak. Charcoal is usually packed in fertilizer bags (karung), or in bamboo baskets (kranjang) weighing about 40 kg and transported in a fashion similar to firewood. Many locals are part-time engaged in the charcoal trade. A number of traders operate from Imogiri.

The production of wood for the construction of houses and stables is important in all hamlets. In Legundi, most of the wood used in houses built during the last 15 years by participants in the in-depth farm survey, was made up of wood from their own land, whereas in Mendak most of the wood had been purchased (Table 7.6). Generally, people have increasingly derived their construction wood from their own land, at the expense of purchased wood. Most houses older than 30 years, however, have been built with teak from the forest a r e a 2 4 (Table 7.7). In the older houses, more wood from native trees has also been noted. Construction wood is sometimes sold, but selling is limited largely to transactions between villagers. The felling of the trees is usually left to the buyer. Furniture is made predominantly of local wood.

Table 7.6 Origin of wood for houses constructed during the past 15 years (percent) Hamlet Own land Purchased Kepek Legundi Mendak 61 89 12 39 11 88 Source: in-depth farm survey.

Table 7.7 Origin of wood for houses presently occupied

Age of

structure Own land

Origin Purchased Forest 0-15 yrs 16-30 yrs > 30 yrs 56 47 12 44 53

Source: in-deplh farm survey.

24. However, houses made of non-teak, lower quality species may not have lasted as long as houses made of mature teak. The actual proportion of leak houses may therefore have been lower at the time. On the other hand, many teak houses were sold in the bagaber years.

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Another important use of trees is fodder supply. Tree leaves have since early times been used as fodder, when odier fodder sources become scarce. Banana, mahogany, jackfruit, kapok, and wesdn leaves are used in this way, especially during the dry season. Excessive leaf picking considerably hampers the trees in their growth. Nowadays a number of trees are grown primarily for fodder production, such as turi, manding jdwd, which is less affected by the psyllid than lamtdrd, and gliricidia. The planting and use of fodder trees is most developed in Legundi and Kepek (Table 7.3).

7.5 Security of tree produce

The growing of trees, certainly of long rotation trees, is an investment, the benefits of which may only be reaped after a number of years, while in the meantime it may reduce the yields of annual crops. Therefore, this investment and the subsequent care of trees requires a certain degree of security of control over the trees.

On the forest land, this security is largely absent, although forest officials claim that the situation has been improving. The lack of security that has prevailed over decades is best shown in Legundi. Here, designated forest land starts where forest ends: while the hillsides cultivated by the population are densely planted with trees, the forest land is virtually devoid of trees and is covered in shrub, the final result of a history of natural forest and forest plantations gradually thinned out by the surrounding population. People still regard forest land as common land and use it as such, although not openly, while the forest police are not capable of keeping the people out once a plantation has been established. To the population a failed plantation is just another opportunity to be involved in tumpangsari.

In the past, security of tree stands on privately owned land was also not good^S, but it has considerably improved over the last ten years, notably in Kepek and Legundi. Here, by and large, people now refrain from stealing others' trees. There also seems to be less need to do so, as everybody is growing trees in considerable number. In Mendak, however, extension officers, village administrators and local farmers alike still consider theft of wood to be a problem. Here, five farmers in the in-depth survey 25. An ex-farmer from Panggang, now working as a car mechanic in the city of Yogyakarta, told me that, in the 1960s, he spent several nights in the field, fed up with the gradual disappearance of the leak stand on his land, waiting for the thieves to come. One night, a gang of five men appeared, equipped with axes. He identified them and took the matter into court in Wonosari. The illicit cuttings, however, did not slop. Similar gangs also operated on the forest land at that time.

mentioned it as such; in Kepek, only one farmer did so (K4), referring to a plot in the south. He was therefore not very eager to plant any trees there. In Legundi no farmer mentioned it. In Mendak, wood thieves, usually striking at night, are believed to be people who are financially hard-pressed {kepdpit), with little stock of their own. Not surprisingly, most of the densely wooded plots here are found in and around the hamlet, unlike at Kepek and even more so Legundi where dense tree stands could be found at any distance from the hamlets. This is partly because in Mendak some out-lying plots have never been targeted in regreening programmes, but considerations of security also play a role. In one instance, a Mendak farmer accused Kepek people from stealing the wood of his land. The larger holdings, the scattered nature of the settlement, and a regular influx of people from the north to cultivate rented land, to gather fodder, and perhaps in search of wood, make it harder for Mendak farmers to control their standing stocks.

The growing of trees also requires security over the land on which trees are grown. The use of privately owned land is fairly secure, although virtually no household has land title certificates. The transfer of ownership involved in the inheritance of land, however, is often gradual (see section 5.2), as parents may first 'lend' their land to their children. Although a young couple may be cultivating their inherited piece of land, their parents can often still claim the produce of the trees. Trees, therefore, do not necessarily come with the land. A complete tree stand is sometimes cut before the land is surrendered to its heir. This not only means that the available stock is reduced to zero, but also that the chances of natural rejuvenation are reduced. Inheritance may therefore create discontinuity in tree growing.

The effect of renting and share-cropping on tree growing, however, is probably greater. In the in-depth farm survey there are two households cultivating rented land who expressed reluctance to grow trees on this land (K3, M9), because it was not clear to them whether they would still cultivate the land by the time the trees would become mature. Indeed, anywhere in the Gunung Sewu, large patches of lungguh are easily distinguished from the surrounding fields by their treeless appearance, as this type of land is usually leased. However, not all rented, sharecropped or borrowed land is necessarily treeless. There may be trees planted by the land owner. In that case, the cultivator is often not allowed to harvest the fruit or to cut the trees (K5, Ml0)26.