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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Photo by Jeff Greenwald
The Kawangkoan rain forest and (inset) children in the new school in Kumu, Sulawesi, Indonesia.
Activists have hit on a new way to save Indonesia's endangered tropics: Pay for local projects in exchange for conservation.
Nov 25, 2005 | Without a tsunami or volcanic eruption in progress, there's very little drama on your average island. Sulawesi, an X-shaped island in Indonesia, located just east of the larger island of Borneo, has its share of woes: Ethnic conflict between Christians and Muslims has been a flashpoint for years. But in the tiny region around Sulawesi's northern tip, tensions are like family dramas, invisible to casual visitors. Green dive boats rock in the swell; mantises and geckos stalk their victims; small black hens peck through the grass and wood shavings between bungalows. Waves slap the shore with an effervescent crunch, like someone rolling over in cellophane.
But if one were to speed up the clock, the crisis threatening the region would become obvious. The mangrove swamps would recede, making way for new resorts; the reefs would burst and dissolve, destroyed by dynamite fishing, coral harvesting and pollution. Swaths of tropical rain forest would vanish, giving way to erosion. Mudslides would pour though villages. Worst of all -- and invisible even in time-lapse photography -- one species after another would blink out of existence, its last member obliterated with no more concern than the accidental crushing of an ant.
It's happening everywhere, of course, but on islands the rate of species extinction is snowballing at a stunning rate. Globally, 75 percent of all recent animal extinctions have happened on islands; nearly three-quarters of all the plant and animal extinctions recorded in U.S. history have occurred in Hawaii alone. Today, Indonesia's 10,000-plus islands have more species threatened with extinction than any other nation on the planet.
Sometimes environmental pressures come from outside developers; sometimes they come from traditional practices like hunting, fishing or tree-cutting. It's hard to break such habits or show why resisting development is a good idea in the long run. That's where Seacology comes in. The nonprofit group, based in Berkeley, Calif., represents a new league of environmental groups that work directly with indigenous people to help them preserve their communities. Seacology, which focuses on islands, offers local people tangible benefits such as a new school for protecting the biodiversity of their lands. It also empowers village councils to monitor and enforce the protected areas.
On a recent morning, furious wind and intense rain hammer Manado, located in northern Sulawesi, scattering the tinny call of a mosque in all directions. I'm driving south to the village of Kawangkoan, where Seacology is renovating a primary school in exchange for 140 hectares (roughly 350 acres) of "no-take" tropical forest: a zone that will be left in pristine condition, protected from logging or hunting by villagers or the government. My guide and companion is Meity Mongdong, a short, sparky woman with features that one might mistake for Mayan. Mongdong is in her early 30s and a native of northern Sulawesi. Her father is a teacher from Minahasa and her mother a nurse from Manado Tua, a cloud-wreathed, Bali Hai-ish island to the north. In 2002, Seacology awarded Mongdong its annual environmental prize for her work in the marine sanctuary of Bunaken, where she galvanized the local community and put what had been bumbling, top-down management of the national park into the hands of local villagers, fishermen and dive operators.
We stop at a small church to pick up Janny Rotinsulu, a graphic designer and community leader who was instrumental in getting the Kawangkoan project off the ground. Rotinsulu is a young, immediately likable man with a round, clear face and an astonishing smile; he made a bundle living in Jakarta, designing ads for BMW, before moving back to his home village.
Kawangkoan, Rotinsulu explains, means "Big Land," the name given by the original inhabitants. The parcel of rain forest being protected with Seacology's support, he explains, is a beautiful tract of land with two waterfalls, giant hornbills and numerous rare mammals, including tarsiers (the world's smallest primate, a tiny monkey with Bill Keane eyes) and wild cows. I didn't even know wild cows existed. Rotinsulu nods grimly. "They can be very aggressive," he says.
The moment we leave the outskirts of Manado, the rain forest becomes thick and heavy. As we enter Kawangkoan, signs of earlier inhabitants appear in the form of warunga: mysterious stone tombs that litter the landscape by the thousands. Little is known about them; they might be anywhere from 300 to 700 years old, and are decorated with odd, sometimes macabre, carvings. They remind me of the ghostly tombstones found in old Dutch cemeteries around Tarrytown and Hastings. This is probably not a coincidence; the Dutch controlled Indonesia for centuries, even though these northwestern reaches were also on Portuguese routes.
The forest itself is a tract owned by Kawangkoan, and the decision to create and enforce a no-take zone requires only village approval. Indonesia already has strict laws against cutting the forests, and I wonder how this newly protected area will affect people hoping to build new houses. But Mongdong and Rotinsulu agree that the lack of lumber isn't an issue; when wood is cut down, it's usually shipped off to Jakarta for wealthy people wanting to build Minahasa-style homes. The real ecological problems here are game poaching and people clearing land for farming.
We drive our Daihatsu van down a dirt road and arrive at the existing elementary school, built in 1975. "The building is awful," says headmaster Christian Wenas. "It is falling apart. Huge chunks are missing from the roof; during the rainy season, water pours in."
We stand outside one of the large classrooms beneath a plumeria tree. A cow wanders by; I eye it with some apprehension. Wenas, who has been in the local education business for 37 years, shows me the holes in the roof, the broken benches and inadequate desks. The school serves 183 students, ages 5-12, from four villages. The terms of a financial agreement with Seacology are fairly simple: Seacology will provide around $12,000 for the project, money the foundation raised from private donors. In return, the village council will sign on the dotted line, promising to leave the agreed area of the rain forest intact. Rehabilitation of the school will begin as soon as the village leaders sign the agreement. When it's all settled, Kawangkoan gets a new school, as well as a protected rain forest -- not exactly a hard bargain.
By the time we return to Manado, the island is obscured by massive gray clouds. The wind rises, and within minutes the sky opens, pelting the tin roof of Mongdong's office, peppering the sea and cleaning the dust off our van. We drive the narrow lanes slowly, passing two little girls gleefully shampooing their hair in the rain.
