Population and economic growth over the past three decades have led many farmers to change professions and become brick and roof tile makers. The Agriculture Minister recently told local media that over the last four years the island of Java had lost about 600,000 hectares of farm land as a result of housing and its related industries. Java has about 3.5 million of hectares of arable land left, down from 4.1 in 2007. The production of bricks and tiles not only takes away valuable topsoil, which reduces the land’s future productivity, but can also cause erosion — a huge problem in regions with high rainfall. Some estimates have reported that the cost to rehabilitate and replace this damaged land would be around Rp 7.3 trillion. Together with the young people of Sindang Sari, I am pioneering an agroforestry approach to revegetate land by injecting it with compost made from agricultural and animal waste during the planting of banana and Albasiah (Albizzia Falcata) trees. The technique uses an intercropping pattern, combining the highly productive and restorative benefit of bean plants with the Albasia tree’s ability to prevent land erosion. I began learning about revegetation by planting trees on the banks of the Samoja near my parents’ farmland during my junior high school years. My brother and I now provide entrepreneurship training for young people in Garut in the production and marketing of bricks, sand and wooden frame products. As the winner of several national writing competitions in the field of volcanology and natural disaster mitigation, I am confident of the success of this method.