Revitalizing the Pantai Sejarah Batu Bara, Uniting Nature and Modernity

Batu Bara, January 16th 2024 - During 2023, PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminum or INALUM was developed the cultivation of the Mangrove area on the Pantai Sejarah at Batu Bara Regency. The revitalization and development of the mangrove area is one of the programs to improve community's economy in the areas, and empazing Batubara Tourism and Coastal Conservation through planting mangroves and protecting rare animals.

INALUM Corporate Secretary Mahyaruddin Ende said that this program has been ongoing since 2020. He said that this program provides concrete solutions to 3 big problems in the coastal area of ​​Pantai Sejarah, namely Prostitution, Abrasion and Economic Inequality.

"INALUM as a company realizes that the Batu Bara coast is a vital area for fishing communities and the environmental ecosystem. Therefore, INALUM has implemented a sustainable program since 2020 and hopes it can be a solution to 3 big problems in the region. "We hope that this program can continue to run and that all elements of society support this good program," said Mahyaruddin.

The program has been running since 2020 with the main focus being Mangrove Planting. Then in 2021, INALUM began to innovate to create a mangrove tourism area. Furthermore, in 2022, INALUM was developed Mangrove Batik with mothers and women as the empowered parties. Next year in 2023, INALUM will also carry out further innovations to create a tourist area that is comprehensive and complete in terms of services.

During the 4 years the program has been running, INALUM has provided solutions to 3 crucial problems in the Historical Coastal Area, namely Prostitution, Abrasion and Economic Growth. This program fully encourages the community to eliminate prostitution from the area and make it a family-friendly area. Furthermore, this program has also succeeded in providing protection from sea abrasion by planting mangroves. Lastly, INALUM succeeded in improving the community's economy after the Covid-19 pandemic with its innovation programs in the area.

The programs carried out by INALUM are carried out with collaboration and synergy across multiple disciplines. This is because the tourism industry is complex and can only be answered through collaboration. In eco-tourism and conservation, many companies provide knowledge sharing, including; HSE encourages the effectiveness of mangrove planting. Then civil engineering with landscaping and destination development. Then PR and IT with digital marketing of tourist destinations.

Mangrove conservation has succeeded in protecting the existing mangrove forest area of ​​15 ha, and carried out gradual planting of 5 ha. Apart from that, KTCA is also involved in providing mangrove seeds to be planted at Jono Beach, Lalang Village and at Asahan Beach. The Mangrove Ecosystem  has the effective ability to absorb CO2 up to  871.9 Tons of CO2/ha/year.

During the 4 years running there have been several successful achievements, including:

Planting 51,000 Mangrove Seedlings (Rhizophora Stylosa). Conservation of 20 ha of mangrove land and expansion of conservation at Jono Beach, Lalang Village and Beaches in Kab. Asahan. Generates an accumulation of up to IDR 910 million per year for tourism which has given birth to 70 new MSMEs on the Historic Beach (income IDR 150-200 thousand/month). In total, there are now more than 40 people working as Mangrove Park Coal tourism managers. Then there is also the UMKM group with 20 members,  20 people for Batik Making, 15 people for Tunjang Bakau, and 20 people for Silvo Fishery. Not to mention including workers who are paid daily if holidays and visits increase. Apart from that, INALUM and KTCM also collaborated in providing new skills "making batik" for 20 women as well as providing digital marketing skills to the Love Mangrove Farmers Group (KTCM). Collaboration with 2 Conservation Groups (KTCM and the Coal Student Association (IMABARA)) gave birth to the Group Batik Crafts (Mangrove Flower Batik)

Now the face of Historical Beach has changed a lot. Inalum also proposed that the name be changed to Batubara Mangrove Park (BBMP). The community accepted the proposal. The number of visits continues to increase. On weekdays the average is 100 visitors, on weekends it reaches 1,500 to 2,000 visitors. Even during big holidays it reaches 5,000 visitors.