learningfromhumansinnature

[learningfromhumansinnature]

Reflections from a volcano in the middle of nowhere

Written from: Una Una, Togean Islands, Central Sulawesi

Pictured: Views from a sunrise run

After uprooting my life to live on a small volcanic island in the middle of nowhere 12,000km from home, it was inevitable that I would spend some time questioning my decision. Not least due to my own (totally misplaced) need to justify such a dramatic departure from the life that someone of my age and background is expected to live - including leaving the best support network that anyone could ever dream of, a beautiful home, and a career in environmental advocacy which felt like cheating because I enjoyed it so much. 

However, what I used to self-consciously refer to as my "fake" life - which involved moving to a tropical island to dive and drink coconuts every day - has, in two short months, taught me so much more about humanity and what it means to rely on a healthy environment than I ever could have learned back home. This is without doubt the biggest dose of reality that I have ever been faced with, and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

I first came to Una Una four months after receiving a malignant melanoma diagnosis that left me with lots of stitches, an MRSA infection and an inability to look forward to anything just in case it got taken away from me again. Having tried and failed to come here three times since 2012, when I finally received the green light from my doctor to travel to this tiny dot on the equator, it had a lot to live up to. I shouldn't have worried, because I have never felt more myself than the first time I floated on top of the reef, came across a famliy of bumphead parrotfish and watched the sun set over Una Una's impeccably forested Colo volcano.

Pictured: The crater at Mt Colo

This is a place where the ferry schedule is dictated by the size of coconut harvest - the thing that the majority of islanders rely on for their income. Where fishermen still whittle their canoes out of tree trunks, and where the entire population (rumoured to be 500 people) rely on their catch for sustenance.  Where alcohol is distilled from palm leaves and drunk from plastic bags. Where the ongoing threat of a volcanic eruption looms over everyone who lives here. Where there are no formal electricity, water, health or rubbish facilities. Where medical support is scarce, education is only provided up to the age of 13, and most buildings cannot be expected to last beyond a few short years. It is also home to the friendliest and most supportive community that I have ever been a part of.

In this environment, a threat to the trees, beaches or reefs is a threat to everyone who lives here. However, just because it is critical to protect these essential resources, it does not follow that it is easy. Una Una is located in the Gulf of Tomini, within the 3,600 Km2 Kepulaun National Park that includes all 66 of the Togean islands. Unfortunately, it is conservation area in name rather than nature - a "paper park", with limited oversight and little evidence that the nominal (and soon to increase) park entrance fee does anything to support its residents, or protect it from exploitation. 

Pictures: Coconuts being loaded onto the ferry

For example, last week I walked past a group of at least 30 men whose daily practice of stealing sand from Una Una for construction is causing devastating coastal erosion.  Only yesterday, our staff found the severed head of a black-tipped reef shark floating above Pinnacle 1 - the dive site located within viewing distance of our dive centre where an unknown fishing boat had been loitering suspiciously the day before. Upon investigation, it seems that rich Indonesians have a habit of bribing locals to help them catch sharks, reportedly using dolphin heads as bait. 

Today, we received a dynamite fishing alert when a boat full of Bajau people from another island was spotted speeding towards Apollo, a dive site to the West of Una Una where we take guests to see schooling barracuda at least two times a week. Driven by bribery, corruption and sheer desperation, the Bajau people have developed a practice of making bombs out of fertiliser and using them to speed up the fishing process. Let that sink in: a people whose reliance on coral reefs is so ingrained that that they have genetically evolved to favour free diving, is now actively destroying those reefs, in a way that poses real danger to theirs an other's lives, in an area that is supposedly dedicated towards marine conservation.  

Pictured: A shark head found on our local dive site, reportedly caught using dolphin heads as bait.

Clearly, they are complex dynamics at play here, and as the newest non-Indonesian resident of the Togean islands, I know next to nothing about how one might start to address them.  I certainly can't claim a moral high ground - I come from a country that was built on the spoils of exploitation and I took about a hundred flights to get here - nor do I have any right to determine whether one people's needs on this islands are greater than another's. I also don't want to get embroiled in reporting environmental crimes when, more often than not, it results in the families of the whistleblowers receiving death threats from those involved.

What I can say is this: everyone on this island deserves to benefit from their active, courageous and continuous decision to protect rather than exploit the nature that surrounds it. And if Una Una's residents don't have the power, means or time protect it from the greed and desperation of others, then those who do, including those who work for the National Park and across the Togean archipelago's various resorts, have an obligation to intervene on their behalf. The plans that we have on Una Una already span advocacy, education, plastic removal and conversion and coral propagation, but that is the only the beginning: there is so, so much more that we can be doing to help.

Pictured: A local resident off on a sunset fishing trip

I have so much to learn from those who have been navigating the complex dynamics of remote archipelago living for far longer than I have, and who are already working to address some of these challenges. For example, the residents of Una Una who have taught me everything I know, or the amazing Togean Conservation Foundation, which was working to support Bajau people to develop alternative livelihoods in seaweed farming before the pandemic crashed the global market. So instead of trivialising a phase of my life that I once described as "pretend", I will instead be using it to try and make a meaningful difference for those who have so generously welcomed me into their community. Rest assured that (internet allowing) I’ll be sharing what I learn along the way, one coral fragment / impassioned letter / beach clean / WhatsApp group or dive site stakeout at at a time. 

Pictured: A happy surface interval off Apollo dive site, which is currently under threat of being bombed by members of the Bajau community.

[learningfromhumansinnature]

Climate hypocrisy and imperfect activism

Written from: Flores, Indonesia

Picture: Post-cyclone volcano views near Bajawa, Flores.

Yesterday I purchased some cookies to sustain myself through a volcano hike that was subsequently cancelled as a result of an unseasonably aggressive (climate change-induced) cyclone. This morning, I munched on said cookies whilst learning about the horrific human rights abuses that are taking place in West Papua - partly as a result of mass-deforestation in the region which is being driven by unprecedented global demand for palm oil. (An area of forest thirty times the size of Manhattan was converted to plantations in West Papua between 2000 - 2019).

The irony of eating cookies which probably contain the palm oil that was grown in these plantations, whilst working for an organisation that is trying to protect those affected by them, is not lost on me. However, it has made me reflect on why many people find it so offensive when they realise that many of those who work on ‘climatey things’ are not, in fact, 100% certified carbon negative beings. 

Indeed, highlighting climate hypocrisy and using it to render the arguments of climate activists redundant has been a favoured tactic of climate-denying journalists over recent years. They joy that they (Piers Morgan) experience when they find out that an activist they are interviewing doesn’t have a heat pump, or once took a flight, or had a great great grandparent that made money from fossil fuels, is palpable. 

It is also absolutely infuriating, because of course most climate activists are hypocrites. They live under a system that forces them to rely on fossil fuel extraction to do almost everything, unless they are privileged and wealthy enough to afford or have access to alternatives. They eat foods that can most likely be traced back to deforestation and human rights abuses in places like West Papua, or droughts in places like Mexico. And yes, they probably occasionally purchase products that have plastic in them. 

This is exactly why they have had to take to activism: they are fighting to change the system that they are trapped by, in order to ensure that it is not just the wealthy few who are granted access to low-carbon lifestyles whilst the climate crisis continues to unravel the lives and livelihoods of millions of people around the world. Activists should not be punished for daring to imagine a better and more equitable way of doing things. Living within your values is a privilege, and it is absolutely OK if sometimes you can’t afford or manage to do so.

The cookie incident has made me think about this a lot, because my personal carbon footprint has been far from optimal over the past few years. I have lost count of the number of flights that I have taken to move between islands or conservation projects in Indonesia. When on the ground, I have almost exclusively used fossil fuel-reliant transport to get around. If I’m in a rush and need someone else to do my laundry, it will definitely come back wrapped in plastic. Palm oil is in basically everything I touch - from shampoo to fuel to cooking oil. Even when diving and banging on about the importance of protecting coral reefs, we use fuel to power the boats that get us there, and to fill the tanks that we rely on to breathe. I have no doubt that the vegetables and rice I eat every day in an attempt to avoid fish and meat have been given a helping hand by pesticides.  The power I use to charge everything - and the minerals that make those devices work - do not come from places that sit well with my conscience. 

Image: Barefoot Conservation Camp, Arborek, West Papua. Reached by plane, ferry and (fossil fuel powered) boat.

This may make me feel guilty on a daily basis, but I am learning that it does not invalidate the experiences I am having, or the work choices that I make (I am currently freelancing for three different environmental NGOs). Nor does it detract from the lessons that I am learning along the way.  If anything, it makes them even more valuable, because it emphasises just how difficult it is to generate change on the frontlines of the climate crisis, in regions which are largely dependent on the products of extraction and deforestation, and the funds that they create. It is also putting me in touch with people who are working to come up with solutions to this conundrum every single day.  

The suggestion that one cannot authentically work on climate-related projects until they completely clean up their lifestyle is a myth. It is based upon the narrative - propagated by the oil and gas industry - that we (normal people) are somehow responsible for the climate crisis, and the solution lies in our actions, rather than the actions of those who continue to prop up and subsidise fossil fuel extraction in the face of overwhelming evidence that they shouldn’t. And whilst I do believe in the power of individuals - especially when it comes to voting, protesting and signing petitions - I do not believe that those who do ‘good’ in their professional lives are somehow more responsible than those who don’t to atone for any environmental wrongs they might commit along the way. (Unless their professional life involves handing out advice to others which they personally ignore for reasons than are not related to finance or access, in which case - do better). As long as those who can are doing what they reasonably can, then it’s OK by me. 

So yes, I am absolutely a hypocrite. And no, I do not believe that I will (or should) one day do something big and important enough in my working life to entirely obliterate every environmental impact that I have ever had. I don’t work on environmental projects because I think it somehow offsets my existence - I work on them because I enjoy the challenges, the joy, the rewards, the experiences, the people and the occasional achievements that they bring. I am also sufficiently heartbroken about the state of everything that I can’t imagine spending my time doing anything else.  

So whilst I recognise that the need to point out climate hypocrisy is largely driven by people’s desire to feel better about themselves and the choices they make, I also think it is something that we all - myself included - need to get over.  Because focusing on hypocrisy is the MOTHER of all delay tactics. It is a way of avoiding engaging with the reality of the situation that we are facing, and it is entirely self-defeating because it distracts from the systemic change that needs to happen if we want to have even a passing chance of preventing catastrophic climate breakdown. If the world was perfect, we wouldn’t need activists. And if all activists were able to be perfect, they probably wouldn’t have anything left to fight for. 

Image: Easter day feast ft. bananas fried in palm oil (unconfirmed).

[learningfromhumansinnature]

The trappings of Voluntourism

Written from: Arborek, West Papua

Image: Caged Orangutan, North Sulawesi

Ten years ago I spent two weeks volunteering at an animal wildlife rescue centre in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. The majority of my time was spent preparing food for a variety of animals (orangutans, sun bears, macaques etc.) who’d been rescued from the illegal wildlife trade. Whilst the intent of the project was admirable, the reality was devastating. Without enough funds or infrastructure to implement proper rehabilitation programmes we were left catering to a bunch of highly stressed, caged animals with little-to-no prospect of release. Volunteers were treated as transient cash flow opportunities and I often wondered whether the animals themselves would have been better off had they not been rescued in the first place. 

Since then I’ve been determined that any placements I undertake or projects that I help to fund - through The Iris Project or otherwise - are built upon a robust, community-integrated methodology which ensures mutual benefits for everyone involved. So far this year I’ve been hugely fortunate in that both of the programmes I’ve worked with (Alam Sehat Lestari in West Kalimantan and Barefoot Conservation in West Papua) have fulfilled that requirement, but this is a depressingly rare occurence.  

I have just spent two months in Raja Ampat - an archipelago and partial Marine Protected Area located on the coral triangle on the Northwest border of West Papua - where you’d be hard pushed to find a hotel that doesn’t identify as a 5 star ‘eco’ resort. These are often run in collaboration with ‘conservation’ initiatives which not only lack accountability frameworks to substantiate their eco credentials, but also employ questionable methods for conserving local species. The excitement of spotting a Blacktip reef shark is somewhat diminished when you realise it has turned up to collect the leftovers from lunch. 

Image: Piaynemo viewpoint, Raja Ampat, West Papua

The nuances are complicated here, and I appreciate that not all conservation projects can be set up with the sole objective of ensuring the viewer feels satisfied with the authenticity of their wildlife-spotting experience. Take the whale sharks that I was fortunate enough to see in Triton Bay, for example. Whilst it may feel a bit unnatural to dive with a whale shark off a bagan (floating platform) on which fishermen are enthusiastically feeding it scraps, it does actually solve a major ecological problem.

Image: Whale shark spotting from a Bagan, Triton Bay, West Papua

Previously the sharks were being killed by fishermen to prevent them from stealing their catch. Now, they circle under the bagans eating pre-approved catch whilst bringing in money - and as superstition has it, luck - for fishermen in the shape of enthusiastic, camera wielding tourists.  It’s a win-win situation, and a great example of the sorts of transitional ecotourism projects that might just help ensure a future not completely devoid of marine biodiversity. 

Image: A feeding whale shark

The true frustration lies in the plethora of self-styled conservation projects that are actively working against the causes they claim to be supporting. One morning when working with Barefoot Conservation on Arborek Island - located in Raja Amat’s Dampier Strait - we spotted some suspicious looking activity on the local reef. Upon further investigation we found a group of individuals removing entire colonies of Digitate, Acropora and Submassive coral from the reef and stashing them in their boat. When asked what they were doing, they proudly announced that they were working for a conservation project that was helping to restore the coral reefs around the Dampier Strait.

Image: The reef off the Barefoot Jetty on Arborek Island

The problem was that no one on the island - including the head of the village - had been informed about their work, and that this ‘restoration’ project was actively damaging the reef that Barefoot had been working in partnership with the local community to protect. Generally speaking, taking massive pieces of living coral off a reef is not a good thing to do, nor is transplanting those colonies to a different marine environment, especially without testing whether they’re going to take to it first. 

The accepted methodology  - which Barefoot follow as part of their coral nursery project - is that you never remove a coral fragment comprising more than 10% of a colony, and it’s ultimately much better to gather fragments found lying on the seabed than to take them off the reef itself. Barefoot’s approach is itself an experiment, used for educating the local kids as well as working out the best approach for effectively restoring the reefs around the island and beyond. However, it is based on a robust, thoroughly researched methodology that is constantly being monitored and updated based on the results. 

Image: Tending to one of the coral nurseries

Barefoot don’t have any ownership over that reef, and perhaps we were all being a little too protective of the place and project we’d come to love when we encountered these coral-stealing strangers.  However, this experience is symptomatic of a much broader problem: these volunteers believed that they were doing a good thing. It was evident in their body language and communication that they were proud to be ‘helping’ and they were dedicating a lot of hours and money to the project. Sure, they rejected the offer of collaboration when it was handed to them, but - much like my experience in Sulawesi ten years ago - it’s not really their fault that they brought into the idea of the programme so enthusiastically.

Voluntourism is not an easy problem to fix. These projects need money; willing and at times naive volunteers are an excellent source of funding, especially with so much eco anxiety-induced gilt floating around. However, the time for tokenism has long passed. A project is simply not worth running unless it’s supported by a robust monitoring and evaluation framework that can help determine whether or not it is delivering against its objectives.

This is why monitoring and evaluation js such a core focus for Barefoot, for ASRI and for the Iris Project - where we’re 100’% committed to altering our approach if we find out that it isn’t having the intended impact. From the outset we’ve been clear that we’ll admit where things are going wrong and try to fix them, because there is no time for misplaced pride on a broken planet. As much as I applaud those who are taking time to help address these issues, I hate the idea that their time and funds might be wasted on an Instagram-friendly vanity project that is working against the impacts it is claiming to deliver. 

Image: Local kids helping to set up new coral nursery lines, Arborek Island

[learningfromhumansinnature]

When listening becomes radical

Written from: Quito, Ecuador

Image: On a "Goats for Widows" community visit, Sukadana, West Kalimantan

Before I went to work with ASRI in Sukadana, I was ever-so-slightly sceptical about their programme’s flagship concept of 'radical listening'. Was it really so radical to speak with communities before trying to establish interventions to help change their behaviour? Wasn’t that the whole point? As it turns out, yes, but in our arrogance, we appear to have massively over complicated the issue.

A lot has rightly been written about western-backed conservation initiatives as a form of 'green colonialism'.  You can see why. Historically, they have tended to kick people out and militarise in order to let ‘nature’ do its thing - occasionally providing a good photo or trophy opportunity to the highest bidder. 

Not only is this another iteration of ‘west knows best’ colonisation in which foreigners make sweeping decisions about the relative value of one life against another, but it also doesn’t work - at least not on a sustainable basis. It fails to account for the fact that there was (and still is) a time where people and nature lived and worked happily side-by-side.

The best articulation I’ve come across of this 'blindness' is in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s excellent memoir Braiding Sweetgrass. Amongst many anecdotes, she describes 'sweetgrass' or wiingaashk as an ecological, cultural and spiritual healer, as well as a teacher. In her experience, sweetgrass thrives under conditions of physical care and affection, which in turn enables it to provide more substantial gifts to its human kin.  

She goes on to argue that where humans insist on elevating ourselves above nature - even to the extent that many of the languages we have created fail to afford agency to nonhuman beings - it is no wonder that we find it so easy to justify destroying ‘things’. It is the absence of acknowledged personhood that is enabling ongoing planetary destruction.

Image: Appropriate levels of tree-related affection, Ubud, Bali

Perhaps it is this plant (and human) blindness that has ensured discourses about the benefits of locally and indigenous-led conservation have taken so long to catch on - at least in Western political circles. Over 80 % of the world’s biodiversity is ‘managed’ by indigenous communities; we should have started asking questions sooner about what that entails. Instead we bulldozed in - literally - displaced people from their lands, forced our own capitalist-driven forms of extractivism on them and asked them to accept the consequences. If this is the best ‘solution’ the west can offer, I can see why so many might not really believe that it is one. 

This is exactly what makes ASRI’s programme of listening so radical. Had they not spent two years talking to villagers in and around Gunung Palung National Park before establishing interventions to reduce incidences of logging, they wouldn't have identified healthcare as a solution. Had they not asked people what they needed in return for keeping the forest standing, they wouldn’t have come up with goats as a solution to the financial hardships of widows. And, surprise surprise; it works. Logging is down, health is up, pride in the National Park is at an all time high and one widow I met sold so many goats that she managed to pay for her granddaughter’s university tuition fees. 

Image: A former logger giving a tour of his ASRI-backed honeybee business

Of course, listening isn’t always easy and there are times it can be extremely uncomfortable. In theory, we probably should listen to Brazil’s president when he says that the only way to stop the ongoing destruction of the Amazon is to pay him a shed-load of money. He has a point. Who are we to tell Brazil that they can't cut down their trees and make money from their oil reserves when that is exactly what enabled the 'West' to develop in the first place?  And if that is truly the only way to stop the destruction of the Amazon, shouldn’t we shelve our pride and find a way to deliver that doesn’t involve directly lining Bolsonaro’s pockets, and instead provides tangible benefits to the communities and individuals whose livelihoods we are trying to curtail?  

On the one hand, it’s clear that we have to get far more sophisticated. Better supply chain monitoring can help drive accountability and ensure that corporates can no longer claim they ‘didn’t know’ about the impacts they were having. Innovation could lead to battery solutions that don’t rely on environmentally-damaging extraction practices which are incredibly dangerous for both people and planet. 

On the other hand, we need to stop over-complicating things and go back to the times where we held real conversations, asked people questions, shared stories about our lived experiences and worked together to co-create solutions. Where putting the environment first wasn't a surface-level corporate vanity project, but the right thing to do - socially, environmentally and in terms of prospects for humanity's survival. The fact that we still define listening to people’s needs as ‘radical’ shows just how much further we have to go. 

[learningfromhumansinnature]

The 221st Chainsaw

Written from: Sukadana, West Kalimantan.

Picture: Mursidi (right) and Pak Augus reading through the terms of their agreement.

Last Thursday I was sitting cross-legged on the floor of a doorless house taking part in my first “chainsaw buyback” ceremony. I was accompanied by the host’s family, multiple ASRI staff and a National Park ranger - all overseen by a giant yellow teddy bear. After 23 years of logging, two months of negotiations and god knows how many felled trees, Mursidi was hanging up his chainsaw.

It was the 221st ceremony that ASRI had conducted as part of their 15 year health-conservation programme, which works to incentivise local communities to stop logging in the nearby Gunung Palung National Park. In return for his commitment to quit, Mursidi and his wife would receive 4 million IDR worth of in-kind support from ASRI to help set up a new business selling Areca nuts. They would also receive a 6 million IDR loan, to be paid back over two years. That’s a total of $700 USD.

As individual actions go, this was incredibly moving to witness. So much of what I’ve experienced in Sukadana has simultaneously restored my faith in humanity and further entrenched my anger about the apathy that so many in the West express towards the climate and ecological crisis. Whilst some refuse to sort through their recycling because it will “probably get burned anyway”, a man at the wrong end of the poverty line was giving up the only source of income he had ever known in a bid to protect his local rainforest.

Picture: Mursidi fires up his chainsaw for the very last time.

There is a phrase here that goes“Tak kenal, tak sayang." If you don’t know something, you can’t love it. For me, this was that moment. The commitment that Mursidi was making - made all the more moving by our humble surroundings, his beaming ageing parents and his almost toothless wife - had me on the verge of tears. Thankfully, I managed to hold them back. Having had absolutely nothing to do with any of the day’s achievements it would have been gratuitous for me to steal the limelight. However, that feeling has been stuck in my throat ever since.

There is a legitimate debate back home about the power of individual action. What’s the point in trying to avoid palm oil, beef or soya when - as recent studies show - the Amazon is being logged at a rate so unprecedented that it has now become a net emitter of carbon? How can one person’s actions possibly make a dent against the likes of the food giant Cargill which is profiting off this destruction and still not being held accountable? What can someone in Europe do about the oil spills that are threatening the lives of multiple human and non-human species across Peru, Ecuadorian Amazon and Nigeria?

What we have to remind ourselves is this: this sense of apathy is a delusion. If the actions and desires of Westerners had no consequences, the world would be a very different place today. If the decisions that we make on a daily basis had no impact, the “chainsaw buyback” ceremony that I witnessed last week would not have been necessary.

Picture: 220 chainsaws, all lined up in a row.

For as long as I can remember I have expressed (and felt, deeply) a concern that “the world is running out”. I now recognise what that means. Opportunities to witness nature at her most raw are few and far between and planetary destruction can at times seem both inevitable and unstoppable. As Dr Kinari Webb puts it in her memoir; “in dark nights of the soul, it is hard to remember that there are butterflies.” But, as she goes on to argue, that is no reason not to try.

I was reminded by a somewhat questionable LinkedIn post this week that individual actions can take multiple different forms. Some, such as giving up meat and switching lightbulbs, can seem futile in the scheme of things. Others - supporting indigenous land rights, campaigning against new oil fields, protesting to protect our civil liberties - hold much more visible weight.

Not everyone has a chainsaw that they can give up. But what Mursidi’s commitment has shown is that we are all uniquely capable of making contributions within the constructs of our own lives and the unique set of circumstances that they hold. We can all use our voices, our wallets and (especially in the West) our privilege to collectively affect change. Ultimately it’s one of the most self-interested moves we can make, because we all depend on a functioning planet to survive.

In her memoir (yes, I'm obsessed) Kinari Webb shares a line by Alice Walker: “ecstasy is uncut forest and the smell of fresh baked bread”. Whatever our ecstasy is, and whatever activities we chose to take to protect it, we have no choice but to try. Because butterflies do still exist, and in some corners of the world ancient rainforests are still, miraculously, intact. We all have a responsibility to ensure that this continues to be the case.

Picture: 'Orangutan corridor' at the base of Gunung Palung. A 10-year-old reforestation programme has enabled ASRI to create a migration link between parts of the forest which were formerly separated by rice paddies.

[learningfromhumansinnature]

"If you care about the environment you should fly with easyJet"

Written from: Sukadana, West Kalimantan

Quote source: A response to my scintillating dinner party chat

Picture: Oil Palm (Sawit) plantations replace the grasslands which replaced the lowland forest on the edge of Gunung Palung National Park.

A few weeks before Christmas I was sitting at a restaurant in Lisbon having an animated discussion about carbon offsetting with a friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend whose journalistic career has focused on aviation. The point he was making was well-intentioned, albeit reeking of Kool-Aid: if I was feeling guilty about having flown to Lisbon (which I was) then there were actions I could take to assuage that guilt. For example, electing to fly with a carrier that had committed to “offsetting” the climate impacts of it flights. In this instance, easyJet.

There is potentially too much to delve into here, not least my subjugation to the fossil fuel-funded programme of indoctrination that has led me to believe that I am somehow personally responsible for the destruction of our planet. Broken systems aside, the suggestion that we can “offset” our way out of the climate crisis is a truly terrifying one.

I am all for channeling vitally important funding to the people and communities who have the wisdom and capabilities to protect the earth’s vitally-important life sources. I am currently volunteering at one such community-integrated health conservation initiative in West Kalimantan - Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI) - and could not be more inspired by the people I’ve met and the work that they do.

Picture: Visiting one of ASRI's reforestation sites, 8th Feb. 10 years ago this was all grassland, which had grown in place of a former logging site.

I also whole-heartedly agree with the argument that “developed” nations - who have massively profited by getting us into this mess and wreaked untold havoc along the way - should be doing more to help dependent economies avoid making the same mistakes. Not least because they are the ones suffering the most from the impacts of climate and ecological breakdown, and the protection of the world’s remaining forests is now a matter of human survival.

However, I am inherently suspicious of any climate “solution” that has received such unanimous support from the fossil fuel industry. The suggestion that you can continue to pollute as usual and everything will be OK as long as you plant a few trees, protect a few peatlands or mechanically suck some CO2 out of the air is worryingly simplistic.

The current “offsetting” frenzy fails to put the requisite focus and accountability on emissions reductions, and creates a false and extremely dangerous sense of security. It is also causing an aggressive corporate land grab which is once again taking natural resources out of the hands (and means) of those who can manage them best. Simply put, the earth doesn’t have enough land to absorb the volume of offsets that corporates have included in their “carbon neutral” pledges.

That’s not to say that a solution can’t be found, but getting it right is incredibly complicated. Take ASRI, for example. They conduct a huge amount of forest protection and restoration which has resulted in an estimated 0.59 terograms (tg) of above-ground carbon loss being avoided over a 10 year period (2008-2018). This would have equated to a gross value of $65.3 million USD if they had elected to sell these “carbon savings” as credits on a carbon market, voluntary or otherwise (Jones et al, 2020).

Picture: Bamboo cases ready to receive their seedlings at Laman Satong reforestation site.

In spite of this, ASRI are not currently involved in any carbon offsetting schemes. The money they make from reforestation comes from people purchasing seedlings as gifts for others (a practice I can highly recommend if you haven’t yet nailed your buying strategy for planet-lovers-who-don’t-want-new-things). This is partly because the land that ASRI are reforesting belongs to Gunung Palung National Park, but also because the Government is incredibly weary of “selling” the Indonesian forest in any capacity (except perhaps that which enabled the influx of Oil Palm (Sawit) plantations in the first place, but I haven’t quite got my head around that particular contradiction yet).

The extent to which fear of foreign intervention defines daily decision-making in West Kalimantan is heartbreaking, and clearly a result of years of colonial and neocolonial exploitation. When ASRI asked if I was allowed to accompany their reforestation team on a seedling scouting mission in the National Park - to enable them to cultivate and plant more lowland forest - the park officers rejected the request; they were concerned that I might try and steal some of the seedlings and take them back to my own country.

Of course I did not take this personally, although I suspect that if more Westerners - and specifically Western leaders - did experience the impacts of “carbon colonialism” more acutely we might move further and faster towards finding a solution.

Picture: Gifted seedlings.

The commoditisation of nature is uncomfortable here. My hunch - although I have not tested this theory - is that this accounts for the relative lack of shame attached to working on Sawit plantations, compared to that imposed on those who undertake logging. Sawit - an invasive species rendered all the more “unnatural” by the fact it seems to ignore the seasons by fruiting sporadically throughout the year - does not really belong to nature. The forest - and the logs that are stolen from it - do. Hence one can be commoditised and the other cannot.

A similar notion (though experienced very differently) is explored in anthropologist Sophie Chao’s excellent study of perceptions of Sawit among indigenous Marind in West Papua. Whilst the Marind consider native forest species to be sentient kin, they view Sawit as the state’s “biological ally”, or as Chao puts it a “profoundly immoral and invasive plant-person” with “radically destructive inclinations”.  A small number of villagers even feel sorry for Sawit because it has been forcefully uprooted from its native home and overwhelmingly subjected to human control. One old widow questioned who Sawit’s family where, and whether it missed them and wanted to return home.

ASRI’s founder Dr Kinari Webb was clearly acutely aware of the offence that nature commoditisation can cause in West Kalimantan when conducting the “radical listening” through which the concept of ASRI was born. As such, in the two years (2005-2007) in which she travelled around talking to local communities about what it would take to stop logging in Gunung Palung National Park, she took care to situate her questions in the context of reciprocal gift exchange, rather than anything that came close to a monetary transaction.

According to her excellent memoir - Guardians of the trees - she asked what gift the global community could provide the protectors of the precious rainforest in return for the gift they were giving the world by keeping it standing. The answer - repeated across hundreds of listening sessions in every village (desa) around the National Park - was affordable healthcare. Dr Webb has made it her life’s mission to respond.

Picture: Ambulances at ASRI's health clinic in Sukadana, West Kalimantan.

I’m not sure where the offsetting answer lies, but I do know that there are better, more meaningful and far more impactful ways to afford value to nature than those which rely on commodification. I for one would be significantly more comfortable with a solution rooted in concepts of reciprocal gift exchange and shaped by the desires of local communities, than with any system that is defined by the destructive corporate greed that got us into this mess in the first place.

[learningfromhumansinnature]

“This new city will be very special”

Written from: Sukadana, West Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo).

Quote source: Jakarta Post

Picture: Old Dock, Sukanada

One morning, after a run along a beach (Pantai Palau Datok) on the edge of Gunung Palung National Park, I found myself at “Old Dock” discussing with a Doctor from Central Java whether Tony Blair had the right to decide where Indonesia’s new capital should go. It wasn’t the first time that I’d heard the rumour that he was involved in the decision-making process, but it was the first time that I had paid proper attention. 

I was in the first week of a Planetary Health “professional work exchange” with ASRI (Alam Sehat Lestari) - an award-winning conservation initiative that provides healthcare discounts to local communities in exchange for commitments to reduce illegal logging in the 900km2 National Park. Against all odds, 10 years of interventions (2008-2018) have contributed to a 69.8% reduction in forest loss in the region compared to the control period (2001-2007), alongside significant improvements in health outcomes (Jones et al, 2020). 

It is one of the few conservation success stories in Kalimantan, which has been beset with an influx of Oil Palm (Sawit) plantations as growers try to satisfy unprecedented demand from across the globe. In a region where the majority of people live below the poverty line, where education is inconsistent, and where nature has still not been afforded the value it deserves, it is not surprising that so many have jumped at the opportunity to work in this field. 

Picture: Oil Palm fields, near Pontianak.

What is surprising, is the suggestion that moving an entire capital city - which is currently home to over 10.5 million people - to the shores of East Kalimantan could do anything other than exacerbate this trend towards environmental destruction. 

The rationale for moving the capital - or at least the Government’s administrative functions - appears to be solid. Jakarta is one of the fastest-sinking cities in the world. It is highly congested, dangerously polluted, and suffers regular flooding. The island of Java has disproportionately “benefited” from development funding, and it’s time that somebody else had a go. 

What this move will mean for the environment is more of an open question. Can an island whose forests and their non-human residents have been subjected to industrial-scale deforestation since the 1960s afford to clear another 100,000 hectares of land to make space for the new capital? Can the atmosphere afford to absorb the estimated 48 million tonnes of CO2 that will be released as a result? How many people will actually move with the capital? How many new flights will be required to ferry people back and forth between the old financial and commercial districts and the new administrative one? Is this really going to magically fix all of Jakarta’s problems?

Although the move has been delayed on account of COVID-19, a bill that was recently approved by Parliament makes it all the more likely that it will go ahead. And on the high-level panel that contributed to this decision? Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and of course, the crown prince of Abu Dhabi - a decision that may or may not be linked to the UAE’s recent $22.9bn commitment to help finance “infrastructure and energy projects” in the region. Reassuring stuff.

Tony Blair’s credentials on this matter are somewhat mixed. True, he does currently run an international foundation that offers “strategic advice and practical support” to help deliver reform that “raises standards and transforms lives”. However, his track record when it comes to making decisions about what is best for the people of other countries has been widely criticised, with the disastrous impacts of some of those decisions still being felt, profoundly and devastatingly, today. 

This is not an attack on Tony Blair. However, his acceptance of the role is symptomatic of a much broader problem: the refusal of British leaders to learn from the devastating impacts of our colonial past and neocolonial present. Neither of which serve as a ringing endorsement for Britain’s continued interference abroad, in spite of our “world-beating” environmental record. Indeed, the fact that our current Government continually emphasises how it is “beating” the rest of the world against pretty much every metric demonstrates how bad the problem has become. 

It is not my place to have an opinion on whether Indonesia should move its capital, and where it should put it if it does. I know next to nothing about it, save for what I have gleaned from a quick scour of the internet and one conversation on an Old Dock scattered with young children fishing for their daily bread. 

However, the fact that a former British Prime Minister has accepted a role in the decision-making process demonstrates that we have not even begun to learn from our past (and present) mistakes. If being at ASRI has taught me anything, it’s that decisions about land-use and community are best placed in the hands of those who know them best. It is those living in and around the site that has been earmarked for the new capital that we should listen to, rather than an illustrious international panel of "high level” decision-makers. 

If we want the world’s remaining rainforests to stay standing - which is akin to asking whether or not we want humanity to survive - there are much more pressing decisions that we (Britain) can get ourselves involved in. We could start, for example, by putting our weight behind calls for climate reparations to be made, by reversing the cuts to our foreign aid budget, and by introducing stronger environmental protections in trade deals to ensure that UK demand is no longer fuelling deforestation abroad.