Besikalung: community

Friends of Nature, People and Forests teamed up with the local community to establish the Besikalung Wildlife Sanctuary in 2011. It is the first wildlife sanctuary in Bali set up by a private enterprise.

Local community groups asked us to help set up a sanctuary after hearing about our work to save the Bali starling and our Bali Bird Sanctuary on Nusa Penida. Five local villages and nine farmers’ groups are working with us and have all introduced traditional regulations to protect wildlife within the sanctuary.

Our team have released dozens of birds into the sanctuary, including white vented mynahs and peaceful doves. They’re also planting trees and are monitoring the condition of the forest, which borders UNESCO World Heritage protected rice terraces. Soon we will be starting work with UNESCO on a project to protect the 1,000-year-old traditional farming and irrigation system, called a subak, which has created these picture-postcard rice terraces.

Our team are also educating the local community about conservation issues, organizing visits to the sanctuary for school students, and are setting up an information center for the public. We hope community support for the sanctuary will grow and we can expand its boundaries to cover a larger area.

FNPF hope this is just the beginning and that one day the entire province of Bali will become a sanctuary for Indonesia’s birds and animals.