ASOLOKOBAL, Indonesia — Laurensius Lani’s footsteps can be heard at dawn alongside the traditional honay thatched-roof houses of the Baliem Valley, here in the archipelago country’s eastermost Papua province. This…
Located on the Siretsy river delta in Papua’s Asmat district is the picturesque hamlet of Yepem, the 655 residents of this coastal enclave on the shore of the Arafura Sea…
The morning after a rainy night, mist enshrouds the lush canopy of the forest at Bawan village. This 1,453-hectare hillock packed with high-value timber sits on the edge of the…
KALAODI, Indonesia — August through September is clove harvest season here in this corner of the Maluku Islands. The scent of clove flowers pierces the air over the winding, precipitous…
On a cloudless September morning in the Central Javan hamlet of Pandansari, the coastal air drips with mist and the clamor of cawing seagulls. Forty-five-year-old Mashadi, who like many Indonesians…
On the eastern Indonesian island of Flores, verdant bamboo groves and thickets of tall mahogany and teak trees today carpet once bare hills. The young forest is the handiwork of…
PALANGKARAYA, Indonesia — The road from this inland provincial capital in southern Borneo to the delta city of Banjarmasin is littered with degraded forests and peat swamps, hallmarks of a…
ew places offer a glimpse of Indonesia’s forlorn environmental track record like Meru Betiri, a 58,000-hectare national park tucked away in the southeast corner of Java island. The park is…
Every day at noon Bahar and Nasirah set out on foot into the South Sulawesi backcountry. The couple moves instinctively through single-stem plants, gathering chilies and pumpkin, knowing as each day…
One night in June 2013, the rev of a car engine caught the ear of Markus Ilun, an indigenous leader in the remote Indonesian village of Punan Adiu. He was…
Deep in the mountains of eastern Bali sits a traditional Aga village, whose inhabtants – legendarily the island’s first – still reside and abide by ancient ways. Long before Indonesian…
On this rare occasion, the longhouse in Sungai Utik, a Dayak Iban settlement in Indonesian Borneo, was extremely busy. Every one of the 28-door dwelling’s inhabitants was home, gathered for…
On May 5th a group of indigenous people from two villages quietly gathered in their Central Kalimantan regency hoping to make history. After centuries spent fighting different ruling empires, the Dayak…
One March morning on the island of Sulawesi, not long after Yerri Otoluwa was appointed acting head of Rumbia village, two men she didn’t know arrived on her doorstep. “Can…
Jemi Delvian was astonished the first time he stood in the dipterocarp forest of Indonesia’s Pahmungan village. The lead singer of Hutan Tropis, the Sumatran punk rock band that cares…
When the children of Mendiro hamlet would hear the year 1998 in school, chances were it heralded a lesson on Indonesia’s violent lurch to democracy after the devastating financial crash…
lthough it is administratively part of Palangkaraya in Central Kalimantan, the village of Mungku Baru is far from the city in both distance and development. Cell phone signal is scarce,…
Dingo is a busy man. As the head of Tanjung village, in the Kapuas Hulu region of West Kalimantan, he barely has time for family as he works tirelessly toward…
Abdullah Rajab is not young. He has a shock of white hair. And when he laughs, it’s clear that many of his teeth are missing. But whenever a youngster asks…
amboo is a plant familiar to Indonesians. The archipelago is home to 159 species of this giant woody grass known for its prodigious growth rate and durability. In the Bukit…
Traditional law runs deep in the Kayong Dayak village of Sebadak Raya, a small hill community in West Kalimantan along the provincial border with Central Kalimantan. The pride the residents…
or hundreds of years water has run down the western foothills of Indonesia’s second largest volcano over the nearby Tiu Teja falls. But here on the slopes of Mount Rinjani…
Langkah Jones Lokan and his partners have come a long way as they trudge farther into the East Kalimantan forest. Sixteen years ago the company Jones now works with showed…
Out over the corrugated roofs and laundry lines dotted about Kinangkung village, forest canopy begins to fade into the foothills of Sumatra’s most active volcano. Here around 30 kilometers west…
What bugged Marwi back in 1995 wasn’t so much that villagers were barred from harvesting forest products in Gunung Rinjani National Park, a 41,000-hectare conservation zone anchored by the soaring…
Preserving mangrove forests is instrumental to bringing down emissions rates in Indonesia, a leading carbon polluter. Residents of Deaga village in North Sulawesi province also believe it is key to safeguarding their…
he Indonesian village of Dosan sits on the edge of the Kampar Peninsula, an enormous swath of peat in Riau province on the island of Sumatra. The peninsula is one…
Acacia seedlings are grown and planted in and around communities in Lampung, Sumatra, to help relieve logging pressures on natural forest. Photo by Ridzki R. Sigit. The village of Pekandangan…
Bonoran community members sustainably harvest bamboo from the surrounding forest to build traditional houses. Photo by Eko Rusdianto. "If we don't have forests, community grounds, burial place, and rice fields...…
Tall, forested mountains surround the village of Demaisi in West Papua. Photo by Duma Tato Sanda. A half-kilometer south of the village of Demaisi, Yohan Ullo pulls weeds from his…
