Lesan

February 15th, 2010

Just got back from Lesan. It was a very interesting couple days. Currently Lesan protected forest is at a turning point. The TNC has been working in the area with the local communities for the past years, trying protect the forest from palm oil investors. Driving in the boats up the river to the Research camp, the shorelines were littered with logging concessions. In the last year, the logging concessions and palm oil plantations have received permits from the local government to being extraction. The TNC has now removed all the their rangers from the research station for their is no more that the can do. On Friday, we were able to visit one of the recently established palm oil plantations and talk to the manager of the operation. the reality of the situation of heart breaking. It was very difficult at times to listen to the manager speak of his views on the environment. “Forest are not productive” he said. The sort of phrases bring back the reality of the overpowering nature of money. Quite obviously productivity = money. Its very frustrating knowing that unless we can provide these types of people with different economic options, they will never stop going in the direction in which they have begun. Moral and ethical reasons that many of us feel very passionate about have absolutely no connection to them. Even the biological facts behind forest protection is not enough to influence them and quite frankly there is just no where else for these people to work.

After two night at the research camp we got back in our canoes and traveled down river to Lesan Dyak village. The TNC still has a house in this community that still has one TNC staff member living at. The Lesan Dyak community has a population of 150 people and is the most remote that we have visited so far. Their ‘government’ in the village is composed of 3 chiefs. One chief in particular was very unwelcoming. For the first time on the trip we felt the hostile behavior towards us simply due to the fact that the we were unknown to these people. Over the next day we slowly got interviews with different members of the community are started to get the whole picture of what has happened to this community. The villagers assumed that we were all part of the TNC and immediately did not trust our motive. Over the last 5 years, the TNC has been involved with this community helping them to protect their environment and convincing them to say no to palm oil development on their land. Unfortunately, the community and the TNC suffered some communication issues, and many of the offers that the TNC made to the community were taken as promises. Therefor when the oil palm plantations received their permits despite the conservation efforts of the TNC and the TNC were forced to make the decision to walk away from the project, the community was left with very little.

The community has now lost their forests in which survived off of and there hopes and dreams for education for their children, doctors for their elders and preserving their community has been lost. It is extremely sad to think that these people will literally be forced off of their land because they will longer be able to sustain their basic needs.

Through many conversations and translations, we were finally able to explain to these people why we were here. They slowly began to trust us and open up to our questions. After two days of working through the language barrier we had the entire community asking us to stay for longer. It was incredible to observe how quickly mindsets can change and trust be built is you approach a situation with patience and understanding and of the others history and state of mind. it was very hard leaving this community knowing that there really is nothing that we can do and that it is now in the hands of the palm oil plantations. As we are observing the loss of the biodiversity of all the creatures in the forest we must remember that it is culture and diversity of people that we are losing.

It is now time for vodcast editing. We have a long 24hours ahead of us as we prepare ourselves for the final leg of the journey.

It’s almost island time and the one-piece bathing suit is ready for some action.