Geographic condition and accessibility
Labuangkalo, a village located above the swamp, is a seashore area located the Southwest of the East Borneo Province. It is a village located on the small island of Tanjung Harapan District, Paser Regency. Labuangkalo can be reached from Samarinda by conducting the 11-hour land trip and the rest 1.5 hours trip by sailing. The change of transportation mode is placed at Lori.
The surrounding environment of Labuangkalo is a mangrove forest and the condition of the swamp is categorized as muddy. Regarding the geographic condition, the people of Labuangkalo modeled their house as a stilts house. Based on the conducted survey, the Stilts house is the most proper residential model in the seashore area or the area that possessed the potential unpredictable flood as a natural disaster.
People of The Village
The amount of household that resides in Labuangkalo is 251 households which is the cultural assimilation of some tribes, they are the people tribe of Bugis, Makassar, and Java. They use the Bugis language as their daily spoken communication method. The local people happen to live in a cultural condition that relies on their faith in the cultural events of a chief’s tribe. The role who acted as the decision maker is predominantly male as well as doing the heavy duties to provide the household necessities.
The main profession of the male of Labuangkalo is fisherman. The profession is divided into sailing fishermen and harvesting fishermen. The sailing one is the people who obtain their fishery product by sailing at the sea ranging period of daily to the longest about two weeks (depending on the amount of fishing boat’s fuel). Their fishery product tends to be more varied than the harvesting fishermen. The harvesting one is the people who obtain their fishery product by harvesting at the pond.
The Facility and Electricity Existence
Labuangkalo consists of 170 houses and 17 public facilities to assist the community’s activities. It seems the necessity of the Labuangkalo people is fulfilled but it is just the number that matters. A more decent health facility can be obtained by crossing the river and located at the Lori. The same condition happens in the economic sector. To provide for their daily need, they have to cross the island which the schedule only available once a week.
The current situation in Labuangkalo is good enough because there is a construction project for a Solar Power Plant. It is hoped can fairly provide the local people with electricity to help their daily activities. The planned quota for each house happened to be 700 Wh meanwhile the public facility is given 1000 Wh for each.
The Certain Circumstances
Labuangkalo has abundant products of fishery products. Due to the lack of information and preservation methods on fishery products, the people have some sort of problem with trading the products. On the other hand, the fishery product had already been distributed to overseas and foreign countries. There are only a few people which blessed with the skill to preserve or change the fresh fishery product to the processed one which tends to be more durable in quality.
The benefit of living in the seashore is the people of Labuangkalo can utilize the natural seashore products to be the major product to enhance their economy. On the other hand, they had to face the lack of accessibility to clean water. The daily water consumption can only be reached by purchasing the water at a cost Rp. 50.000 per 400 liters.