The following morning we drive west to several more villages in Minahasa district, where Seacology projects are well underway or complete. "I grew up here, in these coastal areas," says Mongdong, "and I loved the beaches and the reef fish. Even as a child, I could see that the coastal communities were poorer than the upland people; we depended on the marine environment, and the quality of those resources were going down. The distances fishermen had to travel for a catch were getting greater. That's why I felt that I needed to do something."

The road is as smooth and black as a graphite line drawn through the jungle. "When I was a girl," Mongdong recalls, "transportation to Kumu was by boat."

We pass the Telekom booths, traditional markets and horse-drawn carriages of Tanawangko, and drive through a town called Poopoh. "It means 'coconut,'" explains Mongdong.

Mongdong's hometown, Kumu, is a tidy village ending at the sea. There isn't a trace of litter on the streets. Motorbikes buzz up the road, driven by 12-year-old girls and fishermen with skin like fish jerky. There are churches everywhere, and the new school we've come to see -- built with Seacology's help -- is behind one of them. It's a single-level, L-shaped building with blindingly white walls and slatted wooden windows that channel the breeze into the large classrooms.

"My parents are both very socially minded," Mongdong says as we approach the school. "My mother works as a nurse for low-income families; I've seen her treat people in exchange for bananas. My father worked as a teacher. He has a strong personality, and can be difficult to get along with; he's hard-nosed, but also very honest. He helped the people in Kumu understand the impact of logging the forest and the problems it was causing; and he also helped see that every rupiah went to the project, and not into someone's pocket."

The school opened in August but already feels lived in. Classes are in session when we arrive, and I've never seen a more expressive bunch of kids. They shriek with glee as the teacher introduces us, then leap to their feet to sing an Indonesian version of "Frère Jacques" at earsplitting volume.

The teacher, a beautiful woman named Sartji Manangkoda, is seven months pregnant, and her desk is littered with flower parts: a big pink bud, broad leaves, long stems. "This is a science class," she explains. The children sit in neat rows behind shared wooden desks, dressed in white uniforms and waving their arms frantically after every one of the teacher's questions.

Two hundred fifteen families from four villages send 102 students, ages 6 to 13, to the school. During a break, all eight teachers -- four volunteers and four employees, who each earn between $100 and $150 a month -- meet me in the courtyard. They express unanimous delight with the building.

"The old school was very hot," one of them recalls. "There was no air circulation at all. During the rainy season, we had to tell the students to go home; water flooded the classrooms."

Still, the effort to build the school in exchange for protecting Manenembo-nembo -- the local stand of tropical rain forest, which borders all four villages -- met with opposition at the start, mainly from villagers who felt threatened by the idea of a no-take zone in the forest. The complaints stopped when people saw the new school, and realized that it hadn't been an empty promise.

A few hundred yards away, we meet the men charged with the conservation plan's development and enforcement. District supervisor Harry Runtualian, a rough-looking character wearing a black T-shirt, sums up the reasons the program has succeeded.

"Only about 5 percent of the villagers cut trees from the forest, but it had a big impact," he says. The river dried up because the trees were no longer holding water; a landslide covered the road; sediments washed into the sea and covered the coral reef, killing off the fish. Awareness of these problems came from the Sulawesi people, he says, not from an outside agency telling them what their problems were.

It wasn't just a matter of harvesting trees. Wild pigs and bats were being killed, and the endemic crested black macaque was hunted for food. The hunters were among the most vocal critics of the proposal. But they're not complaining anymore. When I ask why, Runtualian's answer seems both reasonable and ominous: "Face-to-face discussions."

Part of the deal included money for several thousand nantu saplings, which Runtualian and his two colleagues have been carrying, nearly two miles up into the open forest, for planting. It will take the hardwoods from five to 10 years to grow. When I ask who is charged with enforcing the no-take rule, Runtualian points to a tall man wearing a green Lacoste knockoff and a ten-gallon hat: "The Cowboy." Despite his Gary Cooper poise, Wely -- the man's real name -- doesn't look like much of a match for poachers armed with rifles or machetes. But all he has to do, I learn, is warn the culprits and report them to the local council. On a second infraction, the police and forestry rangers take over.

Impressively, conservation has quickly become a part of the local mindset. Erni Sumatow, a woman from the nearby village of Pinasungkulan, recently pushed through a Seacology project protecting the local reef, mangrove swamp and rain forest, all in exchange for a new drinking water distribution system. "People truly believed that it was their right to take everything they needed from the beach and forest, even using bombs to fish the reef," she says. "Building awareness wasn't easy; we informed people of the issues at every opportunity: at meetings, weddings, funerals, any time the villagers were together. Eventually, it worked. It was hard at the beginning -- but now people think it's a very good thing."

For all their apparent success, Seacology's projects prompt another question: If communities are being asked to protect their forests forever, what happens when the school, or water system, eventually falls apart? What's the incentive to keep Kumu or Kawangkoan from cutting down trees after 20 or 50 years?

In Manado, Meity Mongdong and I pick up a marine biologist and conservation specialist named Mark Erdmann, who has lived in the area for more than 10 years. We drive together to a rustic cafe, high in the hills overlooking the city. Mark and Meity order avocado smoothies; I wait and see if they look better than they sound.

Erdmann explains that conservation in Indonesia had typically operated in a top-down fashion. People were told that if they cut down trees or poached animals they would face stiff penalties. But the punitive approach wasn't successful. Seacology's approach to offer something in return, he says, "really grabs the interest of villagers."

Still, Erdmann says, Seacology knows it can't ask for anything in perpetuity. In general, it enacts commitments with villages that last 20 to 30 years. "But after that the school or dock will have fallen apart," Erdmann says. "At that point, we hope that the concept of conservation has sunk in enough so that people continue to respect it, and that things have progressed to a point where the villagers are not so dependent on natural resources.

"And if not, what's the worst that could happen? What if, in three years, Kumu turns around and cuts down its forest? At the very least, they got a school. It was a low-cost investment and it made a big difference in some people's lives. Compare that with what happens when huge conservations groups come in. They might spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on consultants and posters, and at the end of the day, when that project folds, the community is left with nothing."

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