SDG GOOD PRACTICES, SUCCESS STORIES AND LESSONS LEARNED – Second Open call

We gave our story to the United Nations Organization. Here what we gave them:

Details

Question Title

* Introduction (Max 700 characters including spaces)
What the practice is about; brief description of background, context and beneficiaries. 

At 2008 I decided to create an Ecovillage on the land of my ancestors in a small remote village on Samosir in the Lake Toba in Sumatra. The most young people left the village to go to the big towns. I started to invite international volunteers to help me to create: a permaculture forest, combine the old culture techniques with the modern to get self sustained, to create an income for the villagers from products we can make there, to create a farmstay with local and international guests as practice and learning place, getting involved in the tourism and economic development of the regency to create an Ecotourism around Lake Toba.

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* Objective of the practice (Max 850 characters including spaces)
Objective of the practice: Distinguishing feature(s) making it an effective response to the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs (e.g. integration of environmental, social, economic indicators; design for acceleration of progress or for reaching the furthest behind; interlinkages among the SDGs and targets; institutional changes; other innovative change in line with the transformative spirit of the 2030 Agenda, etc.)

To get an Ecovillage successful running at a remote area with 2019 more then 1000 international guests we got a lighthouse project for a sustainable tourism development in Indonesia. We turned around the rural exodus to a place, where the family members want to come back home from the towns. They can get here in income, which is higher. The people start to understand about healthy and sustainable food. Now the local population is coming as visitors and students to learn and pay for experiences in an ecologic lifestyle. In 2020 we have had more then 2000 local guests. We built a cooperative for the products of Samosir. I am now consultant for the new elected regent of Samosir to create the regency for a sustainable tourism and agriculture. In the next weeks we create the plan for the next five years together.

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* Contribution to SDG Implementation (Max 600 characters including spaces)
Provide information about how the practice has been framed/adapted/tailored to support the SDGs and how it is contributing to the implementation and follow up of the 2030 Agenda.
Practices that initiated before January 2016 MUST inform how they have been adjusted to incorporate the SDGs.

The approach to create an integrated Ecovillage which reproduce from the own power is the frame to integrate all the SDG´s in the concept. The aim to produce the own food and to realize the Zero Waste concept fully go ahead with the SDG´s. We were fully happy to get the support of the publishing the SDG´s. With this it was much more easy to get accepted from the GO´s. Specially after 2016 the SDG´s getting implemented the success of our project increased and we could reach now a rate of selfsustainment of around 90 %. The inhabitants feel the success.

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* Implementation of the Project/Activity (Max 1800 characters including spaces)
How the project/activity has been applied and executed. Should include information about planning and execution (activities) of the project.
Should inform if monitoring mechanisms are in place. Should list resources utilized in the project, including financial, in-kind and human resources.

The plan is to not have a plan: It is driven by my VISION. I was working for 12 years in international logistics in Medan and Jakarta. I wanted to go back to my home to the village of Silimalombu. I remembered my childhood and got the vision of a place of richness where all the people from the world can come and can live from the nature. I met lecturers from the Monash University, Melbourne which support my Vision by the first. Then even more international Volunteers came and also my family support me. I took care of the whole family land. We built a guesthouse step by step. We planted a lot of trees with edible fruits and even more people came and it was getting a place of international exchange. But in my vision I have had principles with leaded me and the project:
– Never borough money or take investments from others, they want to have it back
– I can do new things with the resources I have or which we produce: money, land, fruits, plants, people. New projects came out of ideas and power of the people being at my place. For this we can use also the money we earn. I don´t need it on a bank account. It make me rich and proud to create a sustainable place.
– I am guest on our planet. I can serve the place and I can take care. I will protect the nature and the environment and I will live from it and i love to invite others to do it with me
– What is getting successful, I will share, I invite the others to learn from it and help them.
– We try a lot of things, where we believe in it. We learn out of it. Even from projects they are not successful in the moment.
– If we not try, it cannot be successful. But when I have the first soap, i made from our own oil absorber in my hand, then I now it.
The vision give the plan each day new!

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* Results/Outputs/Impacts (Max 1000 characters including spaces)
What are the evidence-based results and outputs (quantitative and qualitative) arising from the practice and how are they contributing to SDG implementation? Explain changes in status and trends (e.g. with relation to individuals, families or geographic areas). Unanticipated spill-overs – positive and negative, including how negative impacts were alleviated or mitigated. Longer term results to which practice contributes. Differential impacts including how to contribute to leaving no-one behind. Key messages including impact, what made the practice break new ground and other lessons learned.

Evidence based is at our place what you see, and what the people feel. Even 5 years ago, the people in the village felt poor, because they don´t have had money on their Bank Account. Now the people are proud to live in Silimalombu, because a lot of people from all around the world are coming and want to know, what we are doing. The Indonesian Tourism Minister came, a lot people from other Indonesian ministries also came and a lot of Universities, from Indonesia, but also from Malaysia and Singapore. At the 12th of march 2020 the Dutch Royal couple King Willem Alexander and the Queen Maxima of the Netherlands visited our place. The people in the village even don´t have problems to talk with them.
Why this happens?
– because they learned to go around with foreigners and they are working as Tutors. We give them Certificates of the trainings
– because we explain and live it, to live out of the nature and to make something out of it.

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* Beneficiaries, Key stakeholders and partnerships (Max 450 characters including spaces)
Provide information about beneficiaries of the practices, key stakeholders engaged and partnerships developed.

Directly the Inhabitants of the village generate an own income, don´t feel poor like before anymore.
A lot of visitors take seeds or seedlings from us and plant them at there place. A lot of them changed the way of living and cooking.
Universities and schools come to learn from us.
We work intense together as a member of the Hotel and Restaurant Organization of Samosir (PHRI) and they join our ideas of a sustainable tourism.
Also Government Organizations

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* Enabling factors and constraints (Max 650 characters including spaces)
Enabling conditions that helped the practice to succeed, including but not limited to financing, investment, technology, human resources and partnerships. Specific constraints that needed to be overcome during implementation and how this was done. Innovations that the practice may have brought about, or new ideas/technologies/ways of thinking that it was able to leverage. Cost/efficiency implications – benefits relative to costs.

The most important factor for the success was just to start and going on. To trust our selves and trust our vision. And just doing it. Without money. The biggest constraint for the people was that they never learned to make a project on their own. Still they had the mindset to follow authoritarian organizations like the not existing Batak Kings, the Colonialists, the Church or the Suharto Administration. But now, after we got successful, the people in the village and on Samosir they try to make own projects or Business. We founded now a for each entrepreneur open cooperative, which is getting supported from the government, especially to help for licenses.

Also a huge thing was to change the attitude in the relationship to the government: “The Government has to serve the people”. This we could overcome.

* Sustainability and replicability (Max 1000 characters including spaces)
Elements that are in place to sustain outcomes of the practice. Explain if/how the practice could be replicated to support SDG implementation in other places. Present any plans for extending the practice more widely or encouraging its adoption in other contexts.

Our visitors get the food, we make out of the plants from our garden. A lot is raw food with herbs and fruits. The people later take or buy the seeds or seedlings and bring it home. Also they make a lot of selfies for the social media and publish this. They are proud what they learn. Out of this other people come and the people start planting for example the herbs in their flat or garden. They change their nutrition for a more healthy life. For example now everywhere on Samosir the people plant now Cosmos Caudatus the herb with the most Vitamin C.
The people buy our Candlenut oil, which we produce and use this for all kind of skin treatment, and also instead of cosmetics or whitener for their face.
The people are proud, that they have land on Samosir and after retirement or even before they come back to the village. We started that the people want to come back to the village and don´t want to go to the towns anymore. Also a lot of our NGO´s and GO´s come to our place to learn from us.

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* COVID-19 Impact and Support in building back better (Max 800 characters including spaces)
Please, indicate if COVID-19 has impacted the implementation of this practice and any mitigation measures put in place. Please, also indicate how this practice can support in efforts to building back better from COVID-19 impacts.

In Samosir we got the Shutdown at the 12th of march 2020. No tourist could come anymore. We changed the focus in producing nursery and made an offer for the locals to come to our place for our Botanical garden and give them an offer of all you can drink and eat for 3 USD. Including our Mango wine testing. This was the best, what could happen to spread the vision of a sustainable paradise of Samosir. Now we have our Garden and Restaurant full with locals. We made a Sambal “Corona” out of Long Coriander and other herbs and offer our first Pizza Sauna of the world to strengthen the body. Covid-19 gave our Vision a huge thrive!
Our visitors learned that they can take care themselves with a positive mindset and healthy body and they will give an better footprint to the earth.

* Other sources of information (Max 600 characters including spaces)
Related websites, published articles or news stories, formal assessments, guidance notes or other documents that have drawn upon the practice. Links to YouTube videos and social media.

In the description of Lake Toba in Wikitravel: https://wikitravel.org/en/Lake_Toba
Our own homepage: www.laketoba.net
Video from our Candlenut production: https://youtu.be/OGleT-_IgSg
Video from the Ecovillage: https://youtu.be/Qjojk–oJuI
Video from the Visit of the Dutch King and Queen: https://youtu.be/OU1cR7Vu6fg
Concept for Tourism Development made by us: https://usercontent.one/wp/www.laketoba.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Presentation-Ecowisata.odp