In the village of Terusan, rattan was formerly utilized only to weave baskets for private use and was regularly destroyed in the opening of new swiddens.
Local people are now, however, planting bamboo and rattan plants.
This is a very positive step as it demonstrates the will of the local people to think forward, particularly as the rattan planted now can only be harvested seven years from now. Challenges Among the PFMA forest communities, time off from school during the dry season is commonly spent tapping, processing and selling rubber in order to earn enough money to pay for the upcoming school semester. When the rubber tapping season was to begin, the dry season became a very wet one and tapping became impossible. In the meantime, Dian Tama had been requesting damar samples for over one year, an offer which had no takers. That is, until rain fell during the rubber tapping season and families in villages throughout the PFMA spent the rainy days collecting damar and delivering it to local traders in Bantai village where the Dian Tama field office is located.