Protecting the environment with intelligence
It’s the colours and the sounds that are most striking. We had spent two days walking through lush, verdant forest – the last ancestral forests of Muara Tae. The close, varied greens teeming with life could not have stood in greater contrast to the landscape that now stood in front of us. A monochrome, muddy yellow [...]
“If you walk down through the forest, you will walk past our nursery and then you will see the river. You can take a bath there and we can eat dinner afterwards,” said Pak Asuy, a village elder of Muara Tae. Deep in the interior of East Kalimantan, we were there to meet up with [...]
Dayak community under assault from invading palm oil companies MUARA TAE, EAST KALIMANTAN: The fate of a Dayak community deep in the interior of East Kalimantan demonstrates how Indonesia must safeguard the rights of indigenous people if it is to meet ambitious targets to reduce emissions from deforestation. The Dayak Benuaq of Muara Tae, in [...]
In November last year, we and our Indonesian partner Telapak broke the news of how villagers in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province found themselves in direct conflict with a palm oil company’s bulldozers in an ongoing land rights dispute. PT Munte Waniq Jaya Perkasa had moved into the forests around Muara Tae, a village in West [...]
Villagers in Indonesia’s East Kalimantan province are squaring off against a palm oil company’s bulldozers in an ongoing land rights dispute which some observers fear may spill over into violence. PT Munte Waniq Jaya Perkasa has moved into the forests around Muara Tae, a village in West Kutai, and has started clearing land for [...]
It is a scene that occurs all too often in the forests of Indonesia. Local communities facing intimidation from plantation companies, backed by local government officials, which want to clear forest land to make way for palm oil production. Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto, President of EIA’s Indonesian partner Telapak, describes one community’s struggle to protect its forests [...]