A women's group taking part in training - CC-Attrib / Elsje Fourie

The newspaper editor who had commissioned this article from me changed his mind with the explanation that “stories on development don’t sell” (!), so I let it gather dust for a while.  But after an estimated 1100 died in the tragic Sumatra earthquake of September 30th, this piece–about working with lndonesians to prepare for natural disasters–suddenly seemed very relevant again.  My heart goes out to those who lost their lives or loved ones in the quake, and I hope that the Indonesian authorities will take disaster risk reduction (DRR) more seriously than it does at the moment.  Amidst the horror, the hopeful story of a town where careful planning prevented a single death, emerged this week to show that DRR does work.  However, the scale of the destruction shows that Indonesians need help from the international community and their own government so that the lucky villages are not as few and far between…

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For those who do not live above the world’s tectonic faultines, it is difficult to imagine: one morning you realize the lamp hanging from your ceiling is swaying, before the floor begins to roll underneath your feet like water.  Or you are told to leave your home for three months, not knowing whether all you leave behind might be covered by a blanket of lava upon your return.

This is the reality for most in Indonesia, however.  Situated almost entirely on the famously volatile Ring of Fire, Indonesia has 220 active volcanoes and suffers an average of 7000 earthquakes a year.  Four months of heavy monsoon rains, aggravated by deforestation and erosion, causes flooding and hundreds of landslides each year.  Forest fires, tornadoes and tsunamis add to the chaos.  According to the UN, more disaster-related deaths occurred in Indonesia than in any other country in 2006.

Poverty, and more specifically lack of education, poor infrastructure and unsound construction methods, only exacerbates the situation.  Often, nearly half the deaths attributed to an earthquake will actually have occurred hours afterwards on the roads, with people panicking and looking to escape the tsunamis and volcanic eruptions they fear will follow.  Too little is spent on public works and safety measures such as dams and anti-tsunami walls, and corruption often hampers those initiatives that do get off the ground.  Most of the damage caused by natural disasters, then, is all too preventable.

Happily, this realisation seems to be growing both in Indonesia and in the region as a whole.  At the Asian Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in November last year, ministers from 47 countries pledged to integrate disaster preparedness and reduction into all socio-economic development and planning activities.  An array of new regional institutions, early-warning systems and other mechanisms exist to prevent tragedies on the scale of the 2004 tsunami.  Earlier this year, the Indonesian government launched a National Action Plan for Disaster Risk Reduction after a nation-wide consultation process with civil society and local government.

Disaster risk reduction is beginning to make its way into the national budget and discourse, and has cropped up everywhere from the Bali conference on climate change to the curricula of primary schools.  And this extends far beyond the government—in Indonesia alone, many dozens of local and international organisations are engaged in disaster risk reduction activities.

In the latter half of 2007, I had the chance to contribute to this larger effort through a post-disaster reconstruction program in Yogyakarta, Central Java.  In January this year, the NGO I worked for put the finishing touches on earthquake-resistant clinics in three villages in Klaten, a nearby district particularly vulnerable to the impact of natural disasters.  Of these, there has sadly been no shortage—5778 local residents died in the devastating Bantul earthquake of May 2006, and the city lives in the shadow of Mount Merapi, one of the world’s most active volcanoes.

However, the international aid community has, fortunately, moved on somewhat since the days when all that recipients could hope for was a “here is your well/bridge/clinic—all the best and goodbye”.  To this end, we worked with the community every step of the way, training its members in disaster preparedness and safer construction methods.  Farmers came in from the rice paddies to meet with us, and women’s groups told us of their concerns for children still recovering from the trauma of seeing their houses crumble around them.  The tightly-knit, highly structured nature of village life has been a boon, and I was able to meet with micro-loan cooperatives, youth groups and community leaders.

In each of these villages, the most dedicated participants formed a local Disaster Management Team to take charge of all future disaster preparedness, response and recovery activities in the community.  They began to map hazards and risks in their area, and to plan for evacuation.  In short, in the few months since we began working in Klaten, they communities started to take ownership of the project and engaged with us on a level that was truly inspiring.

Disaster preparedness programmes in Indonesia do face their own set of challenges and surprises, of course.  After thousands of years of living dangerously, Indonesians have developed a complex animist mythology that exists quite comfortably, for the most part, alongside the country‎’s primary religion of Islam. Mount Merapi, for example, is regarded by the people of Central Java as sacred, the King of the old royal capital of Yogyakarta.  To him, and to the Queen of the seas to the south of the city, the Sultan and his subjects pay homage in yearly rituals.

Thus, when lava began to roll down the volcano in the days following the 2006 earthquake, the villagers living on its slopes heeded not government warnings asking them to evacuate immediately, but the advice of the mountain’s spiritual “gatekeeper” who assured them that the gods would not destroy their homes.  Only disaster preparedness programmes which demonstrate that a safer future is possible without doing away with local knowledge and traditions will reach the audience they desire.

The belief that natural disasters have mystical origins has another unexpected result—where homes are indeed destroyed, divine retribution from the many gods and spirits that watch over the archipelago is often suspected.  In a study conducted in June 2006 by Survey Circle Indonesia, 78 percent of those polled saw the spate of recent disasters as a warning—in the view of many, directed towards a government out of touch with nature.

Never, then, has the time been so ripe for the country’s leaders to demonstrate their commitment to preventing and planning for disasters.  The plans are well-thought out and far-reaching—now, with the help of civil society, they must be put into practice.  The model must become one of preparedness in all aspects of society, rather than the mere fighting of fires as they happen.  The villagers of Klaten, Yogyakarta, have demonstrated to me that this is both essential and possible.

• For further information on DRR see the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. There is an Asia-Pacific regional site here.

• For information related to DRR in Indonesia, see the website of local organisation the IDEP Foundation or Preventionweb’s Indonesia-specific site here.