EquatorThe Architecture of the Equator

Tropical rainforests dominated by broad-leaved trees that creates a huge canopy and thick forest.The term exotic hardwood comes from the species known for its extreme hardness and natural beauty, being for the grain, colors and textures.This majority of species offers depth in which hard to replicate and its extraction is usually tightly controlled by some responsible parties. Due to its high demand for these hardwood, the tree became very scarce as time has become the main challenge for its production, also it only grows in certain areas in the tropics, which creates a very high value for these range of tropical hardwood.

‘The Golden Green’ is a name given by the dutch toTeakTree during their colonization in Java, Indonesia, apart from the actual golden color shown on the grain, because of it preciousness where people see teak as something very valuable like gold.

There are many hypotheses for the origin of natural teak forest in Java island. Although the many versions are implausible to be concluded, its presence could be traced back to the Hindu-Buddhist kingdom era where Java teak came from India, allegedly led by the Hindu (Altona 1922; Charles 1960). Teak forest in Java is natural, however according to scientists the genetic of Indian and Javanese teak is different (Gartner 1956;Troup 1921). The following decades has told different assumptions, during the colonization of Dutch in Indonesia in the 1600s, the Dutch traders known as the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie orVOC) found a stretch of teak along hundreds miles in Central Java.These resources were then being managed by them and was mainly used as the main material for ship. In 1961, a town of Jepara, located along the north shore of Java, became the center of trade where at that time, teak has become something that was more valuable than spices.The Dutch has successfully bringing teak to modernization in the 1800s, forcing the local man sources to extract wood for them in return for the ease of tax policy.

After gaining its independence in 1945, Indonesia was tightly controlled by its individual provinces, for some regions, that control was leaning towards a continuation of Dutch colonization.The tipping point was after the collapse of the New Order in 1998, which makes Indonesia began to adapt federal state system.This was followed by enhancing regional autonomy and strengthens local ethnic identities.

Before monetary crisis in 1998, the timber industry in Indonesia is one of the biggest income after petroleum, which also provided a lot of job opportunities in the country.At national level, the political, economic and cultural factors in Java influences directly how social forestry programmes were made in the region. It was intended to involve local people in the management and distribution of forest resources. National government expects state foresters to produce marketable timber and other forest products on a large scale for export or domestic luxury wood markets, usually reluctant to increase local people’s access to take over the resources unless they are employed as labourers (Peluso 1993, 138).