Homemade drones, text messages and blog against deforestation in Borneo

>> Maps as a factor in the fight against deforestation

Mapping is today an essential element in the fight against deforestation. This is because mining and lumber concessions are allocated on the basis of such maps. The official ones are compiled by consultants and government departments, which tend to favour the interests of economic elites.

In 2012, Irendra Radjawali, an Indonesian researcher at the University of Bonn, had the idea of using drones to map the tropical forest. Lacking any financial resources, he had to learn from the internet how to make drones himself. He worked together with researchers of the Swandiri Institute in Pontianak, a city in Borneo.

The Swandiri Institute’s approach is a participative one. The activists have established a "drone school" where everyone can acquire the needed know-how. They have been able to involve the local forest dwellers this way. These people are now calling upon the researchers for help when they see some obvious abuse.

>> Use of drones has resulted in several advances:

> it has shown the extent of the degradation of the forest and how fast it is happening.

> it has raised the awareness of communities living in the jungle – and some politicians.

> The drones have enabled the forest dwellers and the environmental activists to get back control of the data.

> The activists use their data to make reports to government, which can then take action.

>> Links

Website of the Swandiri Institute in Pontianak.

The mapping done by the environmental activists for part of West Kalimantan province.

>> Palm oil: produced there, consumed here

Palm oil is of great interest commercially because it has a high yield per hectare and is cheap.

Palm oil plantation in Borneo.

Yet production of it has definite impacts on the environment:

> To respond to world demand, palm-oil plantations are growing all the time, often at the expense of existing tropical forests. In Borneo, the land is often cleared by burning, which is highly polluting and detrimental to health.

> The deforestation and oil-palm monoculture mean a dramatic reduction in biodiversity and the destruction of habitat of rare animal species, like the orang-utang which is the very emblem of Borneo. The populations are endangered and could disappear within ten years.

> These plantations also require fertilisers and pesticides which then leach into the water and pollute the whole ecosystem.

>> Link

Website of Ruai TV

>> Ambivalent attitude of forest communities

For a long time, the forest dwellers paid little attention to the destruction of their jungle home. They adopted a utilitarian vision of the forest: they wanted to make a living from it. When industrialisation reached Borneo in the 1960s, these communities wanted to share in the prosperity. If a company offered them a large sum or undertook to build a bridge in exchange for using a parcel of land, why not?

But projects like the drones (see above) and unkept promises by the companies made people realise that the exploitation of the jungle was not in their interests after all. Local communities started to get involved in initiatives to protect and maintain the forest. The blog put out by young people in Loncek is one of these projects, like the surveying drones and the SMS alerts.

>> Link

The blog written by young people in Loncek.

>> The state’s responsibility

One of the main issues in the struggle against deforestation is the granting of mining and lumber concessions. Currently, companies can easily get the authorities to rezone forest areas as logging areas

Between 2009 and 2015, 2.2 million hectares were rezoned in this way by the government of West Kalimantan, says researcher Arif Munandar. Most of it went to palm-oil plantations.

Indonesia has shown some positive signs of wanting to control industrial exploitation of the tropical forest. But results are still meagre, mainly due to corruption.

>> A system likely to last

Illegal logging is a scourge in Borneo, just like the palm-oil plantations. Helmi, one of the woodcutters who appear on the video, explains to us how the system works. He takes all the risk: he goes into the forest, logs trees, sometimes in dangerous places, and has no accident insurance if something goes wrong. He sells the trees to his "employer", who transports them to small illegal sawmills that produce wood all day long.

According to activists we spoke to on the ground, the authorities and the police do nothing to stop these activities. The system shows every sign of continuing to flourish. World demand for timber is increasing, especially for production of wood pellets used for fuel.