Australian-born Warwick Purser points sadly at a building once filled with ethnic Indonesian bric-a-brac and craft made by villagers living on the outskirts of the quake-hit royal city of Yogyakarta.

The roof of the showroom has collapsed, damaging craft such as pandanus leaf placemats, woven coconut shell ice buckets and black terracota plates that have made their way to department stores such as Macy’s in New York and Harrods in London.

Tembi, about 30 km (20 miles) south of Yogyakarta, is among hundreds of villages hit by Saturday’s quake which killed nearly 6,000 people and left more than 130,000 homeless.

The village is also the headquarters of Out of Asia, one of Southeast Asia’s largest exporters of handcrafted products. Around 1,200 people live in Tembi and most depend on the company for their livelihood.

“There’s a reason for everything in this world. Tragedies in some ways can give us a different motivation. And, of course, my motivation now is to work harder to rebuild the economy of the village,” said the company’s founder, Purser.

“A major objective is to try and get the activity in this village going again, so people can at least close their minds to this terrible earthquake that’s happened and get on with their life. We have to rebuild our workshops as quickly as possible.”

Purser founded Out of Asia more than 10 years ago. The firm’s annual sales are in excess of $6 million, with the United States being the main market.

The company’s employees are safe, though many suffered from injuries from the quake that damaged most buildings in Tembi, including Purser’s 150-year-old home which is a showcase of Javanese craftmanship and architecture.

In front of his house, a pendopo, a traditional open-sided pavilion, lies crumbled while a potted plant has fallen from its stand into the middle of a pond.

BATIK AND HYACINTH

Java is the main production centre of Indonesia’s handicraft, such as printed textiles, ceramics, bags made of a reed-like grass and water hyacinth and terracotta vases sprayed with tamarind juice.

Java is also famous for its batik or clothes made using “lost-wax” dye technique.

In Yogyakarta, widely seen as the centre of Indonesia’s handicraft industry, thousands of craftsmen work in various workshops in the city and surrounding districts.

Official data shows there were nearly 80,000 small and mid-sized companies in Yogyakarta in 2005 with an investment of more than 400 billion rupiah. These companies include workshops producing handcrafted products.

There are no estimates of the damage to the craft industry in Yogyakarta, but many ceramics workshops are located in the hardest-hit Bantul district.

In Kota Gede, just southwest of Yogyakarta and famous for its silversmith, many old buildings have collapsed.

“The ceramic workshop is flattened. I feel sorry for my staff. Now we may not be able to get raw material such as grass and water hyacinth from West Java because people there think Yogyakarta is totally destroyed,” said Subowo, who owns a batik and ceramic workshop.

The government said there was a plan to help Yogyakarta, which also depends on tourism.

“We must do something like what we have done for Bali. There should be Yogyakarta recovery plan,” Trade Minister Mari Pangestu said recently. She did not elaborate. www.alertnet.org

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