Camping at the edge of destruction...........
Up to one-fifth of the world's CO2 emissions come from deforestation and Indonesia has the highest rates of deforestation on the planet. Over the past weeks Greenpeace has been setting up the Forest Defenders Camp, in Sumatra, Indonesia, as part of our international effort to protect the world's remaining forests and global climate prior to December's negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol.
Over the next month our volunteers at the camp will be blogging about their experiences - the first is from Hayden....
This morning we got up early and took a walk into the concession area to do a 'show and tell' to the new campaigners that just arrived. They toured the forest destruction caused by conversion of forests to palm oil plantations. We took a walk through the wasteland of the charred remnants of trees and saw the network of canals that have been dug to drain the peatland. Yifang and Frode, from our China and Nordic offices had many questions, and the tour, not surprisingly, was sobering. The image above gives you some idea of what it looks like out there.
Our camp borders the concession area. The local village, Kuala Cenaku, has contested the rights of Duta Palma, the company clearing the forest and planting the oil palms, saying that they have historical rights to the land. And if it were up to them, they would've preferred that it stay as native forest. Tragically, the forest next to their village is being logged and burned, and it continues to be logged today. From our fire observation tower we can see the edge of the forest clearing. We're using every means we have to put a stop to this forest conversion and all other peatland forest conversion, until a region-wide environmentall sound policy can be implemented.
Meanwhile our camp is nearing completion. Nearly all the walkways are built, John and I spent all day yesterday treating the water so that it is safe enough to wash and cook with, and we only have a few finishing touches to put on it for the camp to be fully completed. Some people have noted that it's beginning to look like a sort of "eco village", especially with the addition of some campaigners who spend some of the day "lazing around" in the shade under the trees typing things on their laptop computers. We've also had a lot of new arrivals lately and we're nearly at capacity. In fact, we've decided to build an annex to the main sleeping quarters to accomodate even more people who will be arriving in the coming weeks. The camp has really taken on a more active vibe. Evenings are filled with meetings, planning sessions, and even English and Bahasa Indonesia classes so we can help bridge the language gap among us.
In addition to the campaigners, we've also had some guitar players join us, who also happen to know how to pilot a para-motoring machine. A few evenings we've had late night guitar playing sessions and stayed up until the very late hour of 10:30.
That's all I have for an update now. We have to do a quick cleanup, as the village chief is paying another visit to our camp this afternoon.
More to come....
Hayden
at the Forest Defender Camp, Sumatra, Indonesia
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Comments
Hi Hayden! Great work, to be admired and imitated! The photo reminds me of the natural detruction in Greek forests recently, really depressing. Feel also guilty of not participating in any action but angry as well, since the Greek government-media have not promoted deeds like that! So, watch soap-operas and go to sleep, that's what is recommended to us by the authoriities, not sthing difficult to happen since we are all drowning in debts and working 4 at least 12 hours a day. Just wondering what is more likely 4 someone to worry 4: Forests and lack of oxygen or hunger and lack of milk in the fridge; Disappointed and dissaproving Mamba.
Posted by: S | October 27, 2007 2:55 PM