Wild honey harvest

Catriona Croft-Cusworth, CIFOR, Indonesia

Additional contributors: Yeni F Nomeni, Melki Fobia, Novemris Tefa and Oktofianus Tanesi of the Olin-Fobia community

The Kanoppi Research Project in West Timor, Indonesia is a combined effort between the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF). It has found that customary laws surrounding the harvesting of wild honey by the local Mutis-Timau community are having a strong impact on forest protection, at least equal to the national and provincial laws.

Every year the traditional custodians of the Mount Mutis Nature Reserve travel back to their ancestral lands for an important cultural ritual – the harvesting of wild honey.

The annual honey harvest is not only important for the continuation of an ancient tradition: it is an important contributor to social harmony, livelihoods and the preservation of the nature reserve as instructed by national law. According to scientist Ani Adiwinata Nawir: “It is a success story for community-based landscape management and how it can contribute to forest conservation.”

As a non-timber forest product (NTFP), Mount Mutis honey provides supplementary income for its harvesters’ livelihoods. And because honey production relies on a healthy forest environment, there is an extra economic incentive to ensure protection of the ecosystem it depends upon.

Isak Fobia, leader of the Olin-Fobia community. He is responsible for guiding the honey harvesting ceremony from the beginning to the end, and for dividing the harvest among the community

Photos © Nanang Sujana/CIFOR

An ancient tradition

Harvesting honey is a sacred business for the Olin- Fobia Community combining indigenous and religious rituals.

The traditional custodians live a two-day journey from the forest where they collect the honey. When the blossoms of Eucalyptus alba appear, preparations begin for a two or three-week camp. Food and shelter must be prepared for the journey, and personal conflicts are expected to be resolved before departure, ensuring social harmony among the community.

Camp is set up at the place considered to be the ‘gateway’ of the harvest area, and religious prayers are performed.

At nightfall, a group of people head out to the harvest location. Led by the Amaf (Community Leader), the group includes individuals with the technical and spiritual knowledge to safely collect the honey. The dangerous task involves climbing to branches 80 m above ground, where colonies hang from the towering trees. An older tree can host as many as 120 colonies.

One person, the Meo One, makes the climb while another, the Meo Menesat, sings below, flattering the giant honey bees (Apis dorsata) by calling them ‘beautiful forest princesses’, and asking permission to take their honey. “They consider the bees as their partners in the harvest,” says Ani Adiwinata Nawir, Kanoppi’s Co-ordinator for Policy Research at CIFOR.

Using fire and smoke to repel the bees, the harvesters slice the honeycomb from the tree, bringing it back to share equally among the community, as determined by the Amaf.

The whole community joins the journey to the harvest location, and the rewards are shared equally among them

A sustainable product

There is usually enough honey from the harvest for the community to use for their own purposes, and to sell outside the area. Up to 30 tonnes is harvested in Mount Mutis annually, accounting for 25% of total production in the province of East Nusa Tenggara.

The World Wildlife Fund in Indonesia (WWF Indonesia) is working together with the community-run Mutis Community Network (JMM) to brand and package the product for better market impact. The initiative is part of WWF Indonesia’s Green and Fair Products campaign, which promotes the development of sustainable products sold at a fair price.

The honey is now sold as Mount Mutis honey, and exported mainly to Java, Sulawesi and Bali in Indonesia. The commercial success story is good news for Kanoppi’s research into NTFPs and the multiple benefits they can bring poor communities.

The sale of honey brings additional income for the whole community. Since it does not involve cutting down trees, the harvest has a low impact on the protected Mount Mutis Nature Reserve. And because the continued production of honey relies on the health of the entire ecosystem, there is an additional incentive for the community to preserve it for generations to come.

The unusual sight of a honey harvester working by day. A single tree can host more than 100 colonies

Local law, national law

Overlapping laws and regulations from the central, provincial and district governments determine the types of forest product uses allowed in the area. However, the research has found that local people are generally unaware of these rules and how they apply to the forest products that their livelihoods depend upon. Nonetheless, customary laws are inadvertently delivering on national laws by regulating access to, and use of, protected forest.

Kanoppi’s research has found that the traditions surrounding the honey harvest may be among the most sustainable and effective governance measures now protecting the national nature reserve.

At other times of the year, nearby communities collect honey made from the blossoms of Eucalyptus urophylla, known locally as the ampupu tree. But Eucalyptus alba honey harvest is reserved for the Olin-Fobia community. Mutual respect among communities in the Mutis-Timau landscape for traditions regarding forest governance, and shared interest in the continuation of those traditions, are in effect fulfilling national policies on forest protection.

The project’s recommendation to support the honey harvest tradition has already been adopted in the district government’s strategy on landscape-level integrated management of NTFPs, as a reference for local government agencies.

Ani Adiwinata Nawir says that the success of the project suggests great potential for customary laws in sustainable natural resource management. It also suggests that better participation is needed by local people in creating the laws that affect them and their livelihoods.

Kanoppi is supported by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and implemented in collaboration with the World Wildlife Fund in Indonesia (WWF Indonesia) and a locally established policy working group.

The honeycombs are usually harvested at night, using fire to drive away the honey bees Apis dorsata

First published in CIFOR’s Newsletter Forests News, October 2016 www. cifor.org/blog/wildhoney-harvest/