BENER MERIAH, Indonesia — Until recently, the village of Samar Kilang in Indonesia’s Bener Meriah district, near the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, was largely cut off from the rest of Indonesian society. The journey here from Simpang Tiga Redelong, the district seat just 70 kilometers (43 miles) away, took at least one wearying day on foot. So farmers growing maize, rice, candlenuts, durian fruit and other produce used bamboo rafts to transport their goods downriver to the neighboring districts of North Aceh and East Aceh. “We gather up the selected bamboo from the forest and then we string it together with coconut fiber rope or sugar palm fiber,” Aman Tris, a Samar Kilang Indigenous elder, told Mongabay Indonesia. “To make sure that the agricultural products don’t get wet, we crafted a platform up on the raft.” In 2020, a new road was built, rendering the rafts unnecessary for agricultural transport. Meanwhile, the road also brought local tourists, who came to Samar Kilang to spend time in nature. Families would drive up from comparatively hectic towns on the busy coastal road to enjoy moments of peace on the river. That prompted innovative young people like Alif Mudin, 27, to adapt the community’s traditional means of transport to a new economy. “We’ve prepared seats on the raft,” he told Mongabay Indonesia. Rafting Bamboo, which is managed by Alif together with other young people from Samar Kilang, is now open for business every weekend and on public holidays. Each raft fits…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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