House Seeks to Promotes Local Knowledge-Based Cultural Heritage Mitigation

RRI.CO.ID, Jakarta – Indonesian historian and member of the House of Representatives (DPR), Bonnie Triyana, said he is pushing for the inclusion of local knowledge in disaster preparedness as part of the cultural heritage protection and mitigation strategy. This step is considered crucial given Indonesia's long history as a disaster-prone region.

According to Bonnie, various regions in Indonesia possess local knowledge, or local genius, passed down from generation to generation to address disaster threats. This knowledge, she said, should not remain merely a legacy of community stories but needs to be studied and integrated into cultural heritage protection policies.

"We often find local knowledge, local genius, within the community regarding disasters. If we put this local knowledge to work, we might be able to minimize the impact," Bonnie said during a hearing in Jakarta last week.

Bonnie, cited the example of the local knowledge of smong in Simeulue Regency, Aceh, a local knowledge passed down from generation to generation on the signs of an impending tsunami and how to respond. He argued that this knowledge demonstrates that the community has local mechanisms for recognizing and responding to disaster threats.

He believes this experience can be a lesson in strengthening cultural heritage protection in various regions. Disasters can have a significant impact on sites, buildings, and areas of historical and cultural value.

"If we both know what's going on, why not just do it? This is work that probably should have been done 20 years ago," he said, as quoted from dpr.go.id.

According to him, mitigation should not only be implemented after a disaster has occurred and caused damage. The existing cultural preservation center needs to have a more systematic strategy to identify risks, document local knowledge, and integrate it into cultural heritage protection efforts.

He added that this approach is increasingly important because the disasters' characteristics and risks vary by region. Therefore, local knowledge can be a valuable source of information in developing mitigation strategies tailored to local characteristics.

"It should have been discovered long before the disaster. If this disaster was somewhat anomalous, say it was the result of illegal flights or something, then we should have been able to identify it better," he said.

Bonnie hopes future cultural heritage protection policies will focus more than just on post-damage rehabilitation. Mitigation and the utilization of community knowledge need to be strengthened to ensure sustainable cultural heritage protection.

Therefore, the House's Commission X – dealing with education, sports, science, and technological issues – is encouraging the cultural preservation centers to strengthen local knowledge-based mitigation measures as part of its cultural heritage protection strategy. This way, efforts to preserve cultural heritage can go hand in hand with community disaster preparedness.