Written by: Benehad
Gabriel Yosep Ruritan | Email : ben.ruritan@gmail.com
Who is SwaraOwa?
Back in August 2020, I
enrolled myself in an internship program with SwaraOwa. A non-governmental
organization (NGO) focused on the conservation work for Indonesian primates,
especially Gibbon, the small apes. Swaraowa means a gibbon voice in Javanese.
The history of SwaraOwa led by Arif Setiawan originally started in 2008, when he runs the project in Mt. Slamet
Central Java, for Endangered Primate Conservation Project, this project
supported by Rufford Foundation. Then -a supported project named "Coffee and
Primate Conservation" in 2012 with the objective of Javanese gibbon's
habitat preservation in Petungkriyono District located in the western part of
Dieng Mountain.
The coffee part of the
name came from the approach that was taken by the team in creating a compromise
between the residents' needs and the conservation objective of the
project. Coffee naturally grows beneath the cover of the rainforest in
which the Javanese gibbon resides. And thus. Coffee cultivation and production
work to redirect the local's of Sokokembang from forest damaging economic
activities and into the preservation of the forest via sustainable economic
development. And as of now, some amount of coffee from Petungkriyono is managed
and distributed by OwaCoffee, a subsidiary of SwaraOwa.
OwaCoffee For SwaraOwa
I was assigned to the
OwaCoffee activity during the internship program. This coffee program of
SwaraOwa has become quite a success story. Over the years, it has fostered
relationships with several zoos worldwide, such as the Singapore Zoo, Fort Wayne Children's Zoo and Zoo Ostrava. Through this coffee
program, SwaraOwa enables itself to be self-sustainable and empowers the
residents of the Sokokembang Village, seen from the growth of farming groups
and infrastructure improvement the area has received over the years.
I met Dr. Muhammad Ali
Imron from the Gadjah Mada University Forestry Faculty, which explained that
most Indonesian NGOs inherits the problem of self-sustainability due to how
they were founded. Specifically, most NGOs grew from a time and funding
limited project into an ongoing program. This condition hampers the transition
process and induces financial problems in the future. SwaraOwa’s ability to be
self-sustainable through its OwaCoffee program has been quite the inspiration
to many other NGOs in Indonesia.
Predicaments Faced By
OwaCoffee
However, the operation
of OwaCoffee is not as smooth as it may seem. As lined out by Saladin Akbar
from the BlackJava roastery located in Yogyakarta, the problem faced by this organization can be divided into three major categories, which are: farming,
production, and distribution.
In farming, they face
the need to educate local farmers of Petungkriyono in increasing their quality
of coffee cherries, which in itself is no easy task knowing the deep level of
intricacies revolving around coffee plantation such as managing the ground
condition, understanding the need of the plants, knowing what and when to
harvest.
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| "the jungle beans" gibbon friendly coffee - OwaCoffee |
While production
includes everything post-harvest, this includes grading, hulling, storage,
roasting, and many others, which greatly plays into the quality of the finished
product. Lastly is the distribution, which talks about public intake of the
product. Currently, single-origin coffee only makes a small percentage of
Indonesian coffee consumption.
Akrom, the owner of Mari-ngopi a coffee shop in Yogyakarta,
informed me that the lack of specialty coffee absorption is due to the
condition that Indonesians do not need specialty coffee. The masses are
satisfied with the commercialized and easy to drink coffee mixers, which does
not require high-grade coffee to be enjoyed. This condition caused
SwaraOwa to look for new ways for their coffee, the ex-situ distribution
efforts, such as creating a bond with the Singaporean Zoo to market their
products.
During my internship,
I found SwaraOwa to be particularly ingenious. Their ability to utilize
Petungkriyono’s coffee as a medium to converse the Javanese primates, utilizing
local empowerment through coffee plantations, was a breakthrough by itself.
Through this kind of collaboration, sustainability was provided for the
conservation activity that many have never recognized. SwaraOwa has ensured the
continuity of the program via a separate entity, namely OwaCoffee that has a
high interest in the market.
From this experience,
I found out that conservation activities can be strengthened through public
participation by various means, including market-based methods. The Indonesian
gibbons at Petungkriyono District in Central Java are one of the benefactors of
this mechanism.
