The subtle combination of moderate Islam and mystical traditions in Aceh has resulted in the province forest only slightly impacted by humans and no know extinctions of species occurred in the last century. During the same period of time the rest of Sumatra has lost some 80 percent of its forest.

Until as recent as the 80’s most Acehnese would not consider felling a large tree without first conducting a mystical ceremony.

The opening up of Aceh’s forest to professional and outside concessionaires broke traditional taboos and demoralized many people who lived near the forest. They even joined the logging themselves and during the boom they left their farms and rice fields untended and looked down on those to stuck to traditional ways.

This threatened the traditional fabric of many local societies, by the time illegal logging was brought into some semblance of control many of the arts, crafts, traditional building skills and costumary norms were already in steep decline.

Realizing the importance of Adat in forest conservation in Aceh, BPKEL together with local community initiate the development of Balai Adat in Ketambe that started on June 2010. On Juli 20, 2011 Balai Adat Ketambe is officially inaugurated and the ceremony was attended by South East Aceh District Chief, Chairman of BPKEL, District Deputy Police Chief, South East Aceh Parliament Members and other guest.