State of the Rainforest 2014

The island has extensive forest cover, but large parts of the lowland forest are degraded and the impact of logging, open-pit mining and plantations is evident along the coast. Salisarao village, outside the nature reserve The view is green from Salisarao village, which lays half a day’s walk from Marisa. Hillside after hillside with forest stretches towards the coast. On the horizon, however, we can see palm oil plantations gradually taking more land and replacing the biodiversity-rich natural forest with monoculture. Representatives of the palm oil industry have already visited the village, trying to get their hands on the land. The people of Salisarao told them to leave and hope they will not return. ‘No, we don’t want sawit (oil palm). They need such big areas, they take all the land. There will be no room for gardens’, Indo Laku explains as we rest by her family’s hut. She is spokesperson for the village. Her daughter, Laku, teaches in the village school. There are no government schools in these forests. The Skola Lipu ‘forest school’ is facilitated by the NGO Yayasan Merah Putih (YMP), a partner organization of Rainforest Foundation Norway. The school has built new confidence in the village. ‘Our children should be smart’ ’In the government school, people looked down on us because we are forest people, and because we are not Muslims’, the young teacher Laku explains. In Skola Lipu it is more than reading and writing on the curriculum. They are also thought about the area where they live and about plants and animals in the forest. ‘We want our children to be smart, to learn how to read and write and not be tricked by outsiders’, Laku insists.

‘Mostly, we gather the same plants and hunt the same animals as our parents and grandparents did, but a few mammals and some plants are getting more difficult to find. Like the vulnerable babirusa, also known as pig-deer’, Budi explains. Permission to live In contrast to many forest people living inside the conservation areas of Indonesia, these families have permission to live here. Apa Rauf travelled all the way to Jakarta to argue for their traditional rights in the area. They want permanent permission to live here, but were only able to get it for 25 years. There are still people who want them out of the forest – some because they think it is better for these families to ‘develop’ and move to modern villages, others because they think it will protect the forests. But having witnessed the vast monoculture palm oil plantations eating their way into the forest along the coast, it is evident that the forest is threatened by far more powerful actors than the Tau Ta’a Wana. Sulawesi’s forests are worth protecting. Seen from the air, the island resembles a sprawling octopus, with its green, forest-covered arms stretching in all directions. The long geographic isolation has given Sulawesi high plant endemism, distinct forest types which provide habitats for the highest number of endemic mammals in Asia, and numerous endemic birds. Mammals found only here include the endangered mountain anoa (Bubalus quarlesi), the vulnerable babirusa (Babyrousa babyrussa) and the amazing sailfin lizard (Hydrosaurus amboinensis), which is up to 90 cm long with a tail twice the length of its head and body put together! Sulawesi almost balance on the Wallace line, an area of biological discontinuity between Asia and Australia. It made up of two ecoregions: lowland rain forest, and montane rainforest dominated by oaks and chestnuts.

Mirna

Apa Rauf and daughter

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STATE OF THE RAINFOREST 2014