STATE OF THE RAINFOREST 2014
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Indonesia: A view from the forest
Marisa village in Morowali Nature Reserve, Sulawesi
The sun is just rising, but the shrill non-stop crowing of the energetic
cock and the cackling of his enthusiastic hens make it impossible to
sleep. Outside, village head Apa Rauf’s house, the village is already
wide awake. In front of his house, Budi’s cousin is making a new
thatched roof from slim rattan leaves. Meters above us, Mirna’s
brother is balancing carefully, as he grapples with the long tree stems
to make the roof structure for a new house built with materials from
the surrounding forests. It will be constructed in the traditional way,
with the floor more than a meter above the ground.
Mirna is waiting for us in the kitchen. She is about to cook breakfast
in her open fireplace and wants to show us how she prepares snails.
Her son watches quietly with a serious look on his face while his
mother tells us about her life in the forest.
Yes, she has tried life outside the forest. She attended school - and
that was fine. But she didn’t like life there, she explains. It was in one
of the small towns down by the coast. It was noisy and polluted.
‘Here inside the Morowali forest I’ve got what I need and life is
better’, Mirna says. But she wants her son to go to school and learn
more than what she and her husband can teach him.
Although it is too late in the day, and too dry anyway, Mirna shows
us how she plants rice in the burnt soil between branches and roots.
The Tau Ta’a Wana practice shifting cultivation, as they always have
done. They have gardens in different parts of the forest, practicing
long rotation circles. Many of the villagers have left to attend to their
crops and vegetables several hours’ walking distance from the village.
Medicines on the doorstep
Next to the ‘rice fields’ we meet Apa Sudin, one of the community’s
experts on medicinal plants. Some species grow on their doorstep.
Apa Sudin shows us remedies for fever, healing wounds, for stomach
pains and headaches.
Walking around the village, we are impressed at every turn wide
range of plants and animals made use of, and the skills the Tau Ta’a
Wana show in how to utilize the various plants and animals. These
aren’t skills they learnt from the town school – or picked up from
the TV in the corner of Apa Rauf’s hut, connecting the village to
mainstream Asia’s world of soap opera through a satellite dish. This
is knowledge passed on from generation to generation, accumulated
through the Tau Ta’a Wanas’ long history as a forest people.
Dressed in a clean white shirt, looking ready for office work in
Jakarta, Budi enthusiastically demonstrates the traditional art of
using the blowpipe as a hunting weapon. He then leads us into
the forest. Only a few hundred meters away from the clearing he
points out some rattan and starts to explain the usefulness of this
multi-purpose plant. Among other things, it can be woven into
baskets or mats, furniture, used in house construction, or sold in
the local market.
Source: Margono B.A., et al., Primary forest cover loss in Indonesia over 2000-2012.
Nature Climate Change 2014, WRI, Global Forest Watch, accessed August 2014
Java Sea
South China Sea
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Indonesian forests exploitation and degradation
Degraded forest
Logging concession
Oil palm concessions
Primary forest
