Since May 22, 2017, Gabriel Asem has been the Regent of Tambrauw. In two regional elections, he was selected to serve as the Regent of Tambrauw; the Tambrauw Regent Elections in 2011 and 2017. He works for the Golongan Karya Party as a politician.
Early Life of Gabriel Asem
Gabriel Asem was born in Kebar, West Irian, on October 26, 1963. He married Anjela Kalay, and has a child named Alexander Asem.
Gabriel Asem spent his childhood in the forest, hunting in the Kebar valley. The experience of living in the forest taught Gaby that protecting the forest has a big correlation with adat. Because adat, earth, land, and forests are mothers, as a source of life.
That is Gabriel Asem, a native son of Tambrauw who 10 years ago ran for the regent to make the forest in Tambrauw the “mother” of the lives of all living things. Because of that, he refused anyone who intended to destroy the Tambrauw forest.
Gabriel Asem Achievements as Regent
Gabriel Asem has many achievements in developing the Tambrauw Regency. During his leadership period, Tambrauw Regency registered itself as the first district in Indonesia to enter into a contract to buy and sell electricity from renewable energy with the State Electricity Company (PLN).
The people of Tambrauw greatly applaud Gabriel Asem for his achievements as a pioneer in developing Tambrauw, which is environmentally sound.
The most prominent achievement in his era was building Tambrauw Regency infrastructure from scratch. He succeeded in moving the capital of Tambrauw from the city to the wilderness.
He is also a person who dares to say “no” to gold mining and palm oil investors who continuously want to exploit Tambrauw to the fullest.
Because of his love for the Tambrauw forest, Gabriel Asem only allows investors who seek to make Tambrauw green through an environmental preservation program.
Another achievement is that the Tambrauw area was designated as a conservation area because it has biophysical uniqueness in the Abun area, where there are the best turtles in the world (the leatherback turtle) with the largest population in the world to the Pacific Ocean.
For this achievement, Tambrauw is known internationally as the world’s oxygen buffer zone and is a big home for 716 unique species of birds that exist and remain in the world.
In addition, he also develops nature tourism, such as bird-of-paradise observation spots, tree kangaroos, and others.
Gabriel Asem First 100 Days as Regent
The program for the first hundred days as regent was to build public facilities so residents could carry out their activities comfortably.
On the first day as Regent, Gaby ordered all officials to immediately move to the new capital in the interior of the Fat forest. At that time, there was no road at all for access to Tambrauw. All could only be reached by sea using a motorboat for about 3 hours. No sign of life.
There were no houses, only a public elementary school building. The building was also empty. That was the first Tambrauw Regent’s office.
Gabriel Asem also built telecommunications networks throughout the Regency so that people could enjoy technological advances like other regencies.
Gabriel Asem and Economic Improvement for Tambrauw
Tambrauw only permits the development of agriculture, animal husbandry, fisheries, and natural tourism. Gaby’s dream for Tambrauw is eco-friendly farming. Because of that, he allowed the opening of large-scale corn fields, cattle, sheep, and fisheries.
At the end of his term of office, he developed the fisheries sector. This sector will become the backbone of Tambrauw Regency’s economy in the future.
Because of that, he asked the Ministry, as well as fisheries partners, to help in efforts to develop this fishery.
The method taken is to build several cool-storage and ice factories in Tambrauw. Gabriel Asem hopes this can become the forerunner of Tambrauw’s economic strength in the future.