Banjarmasin, (Antaranews) - When deforestation, plantation opening, mining, and various human activities, even the use of herbicides, tend to damage nature, the lives of thousands of plant species are threatened.
Of the many plants that are feared to be destroyed by human activities are endemic fruits of Kalimantan.
Hanif Wicaksono, a counseling worker for the Family Planning (KB) program who served in the remote area, felt concerned about the loss of natural resources. From time to time he continued to pay attention to the existence of these endemic fruits while breeding one type to another.
"Initially when I moved from East Java in 2011 I encountered various kinds of fruit that I had never seen on Java. It was more interesting when it turned out that many local people in South Kalimantan had never seen the fruit trees," he said.
"Encouraged by the feeling of pleasure towards the plants and curious, I began to explore to find the origin of the fruit. The longer it turned out that the fruits that I met more and varied. Ia finally thought to collect these plants to date," he continued.
One of the locations of his research was Marajai Village, Halong, Balangan, South Kalimantan. When with the author exploring Marajai while identifying various fruits here, it turned out that the results were astounding, truly extraordinary wealth.
"We are grateful that there are still areas of land that are overgrown with various typical fruits of Kalimantan, because they are not used as superior rubber plantations and palm oil as other lands in this region," said Hanif Wicaksono, who is actually a graduate of communication science.
Marajai contributed the most to durian traders in Balangan. Durian here has a variety of species, there are red-skinned durian called lahung (durio dulcis), durian kuning mantaula (Durio kutejensis), dark green durian, long pointed spines called mahrawin (Durio oxleyanus), and various other types.
Then there are nine types of tarap ( (
Other fruits identified in the Meratus Mountains village are Silulung (Baccaurea angulata) maritam (Nephelium ramboutan-ake) bumbunau (Aglaia
laxiflora), babuku (Dimocarpus longan subspecies malesianus), luying or luing (Scutinanthe brunnea).
There are kapul fruit (Baccaurea macrocarpa), kalangkala (Litsea garciae), gitaan or tampirik (Willughbeia angustifolia) and kumbayau (Dacroydes rostrata).
All those are identified rare and difficult to find in other areas, even though South Kalimantan is a producer of fruits with around 40 species of rambutan, 30 durian species, and dozens of mango species.
Hanif with his salary as an counselor set aside money to do a nursery which he later called the Tunas Meratus nursery (conservation of native Kalimantan fruit
trees) on Jl H M Yusi no 71 Gambah Luar Muka, Kandangan, South Hulu Sungai, South Kalimantan.
The goal is to save, introduce, and cultivate native fruits of Borneo because this endemic fruit is very feasible to be cultivated, but until now there are still many that are not yet known by the public.
He also wants to help stakeholders in formulating policies, both in the fields of natural resources, forestry, the environment, and horticulture.
He also wants people to be more familiar with the richness and diversity of genetic resources and help provide alternative choices for consumption of Indonesian fruit.
For more than five years the program has been running, he only once received assistance to create a nursery from South Kalimantan AIAT. The rest goes by setting aside personal funds.
One of the reasons why fruits are when planting fruit trees people will tend to maintain them. It is different when planting a wood tree that will definitely
be harvested by cutting it down, so the idea is to keep the tree as long as possible where one tree will produce more trees.
However, what is worrying is the lack of conservation efforts against the treasures of fruit plants. In fact, he said, genetic resources are the wealth of the nation as well as identity.
For example, kasturi (Mangifera casturi) is a flora of identity in South Kalimantan, but here there is no kasturi plantation or people who plant kasturi for plantation. All from natural products.
Whereas in California Kasturi and some endemic Mangifera from Kalimantan have been cultivated.
Not to mention the number of foreign people, especially Europe and South America, who contacted him to get various seeds.
"For me this is very strange where I get a lot of fruit that is not known to the general public, even if there is it is underestimated in my own country but instead becomes a target for hunting in other country." he added.
Hanif is a South Kalimantan person chosen from seven of the best people as recipients of the 2018 Spirit of Integrated Astra for (SATU) Indonesia Awards (SIA) of 5900 best people throughout the country.
