• Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Linkedin
Skip to content
Menu
REDD-Monitor
  • Start here
  • About REDD-Monitor
  • REDD: An introduction
  • Contact
REDD-Monitor
In search of the forests of Kalimantan, Indonesia

In search of the forests of Kalimantan, Indonesia

Posted on 25 August 201129 March 2022

By Chris Lang

“Cari Hutan” is a new documentary by a young German film-maker called Florian Augustin. Earlier this year, he travelled to Kalimantan, to find out what is happening to the forests there. The film turned into a road movie in search of the forest.

The film starts on the boat to Kalimantan. Augustin travelled around Kalimantan by hitch-hiking and recorded interviews with the people who picked him up. He found that everyone had an opinion. For example, a truck driver told him that

“I wish there was no more illegal logging, no more coal mining! If we go on cutting down all the trees, in the long run this world will end. And where are we supposed to live then?

He also interviewed farmers who described how the chainsaws arrived and the destruction started. He spoke to villagers with a 21 year-old chainsaw who joked about how many hectares it has already destroyed. “This machine is our life. If it was taken from us by law we wouldn’t have any source of income,” one of them told him.

Here is part 1 of the film:

Augustin also interviewed “experts” including Bungaran Saragih, Indonesia’s Minister of Agriculture from 2001 to 2004 (during which time the area of oil palm plantations in Indonesia doubled), Simon Husson, of the Orangutan Tropical Peatland Project in Sebangau National Park, Sumali Agrawal of the NGO Yayasan Tambuhak Sinta, Arie Rompas of WALHI Central Kalimantan and Chris Lang of REDD-Monitor.

Early in the film, Augustin finds a series of plywood and saw mills and is surprised to hear that the wood comes not from Kalimantan, but from Sulawesi – there is no wood left on Kalimantan he is told. He gets a lift from a palm oil truck driver and they drive through an area that has been deforested for 20-30 years already.

He visits a coal mine and a gold mine. Coal mining is a major cause of deforestation in East Kalimantan. When the coal is exhausted, the mines are simply abandoned. Gold mining is responsible for mercury pollution, present in many of the rivers in Kalimantan.

An interview with a farmer who has now started to grow oil palm is particularly interesting:

“A company called ‘Itzi’ destroyed our forest. After that the forest fires started. The biggest were in 1982 and 1997. The fires completely destroyed all my fruit plantations… So now I started a co-operation with a palm oil company, because I can’t manage my own plantations any more, I started growing oil palm as well. But actually I haven’t made any profit from that yet. ‘Itzi’ destroyed our forests! Not us, the locals. They destroyed everything, even our little fruit trees. We, the people of the forest, used to live the same way as our ancestors did. We never destroyed the forest. We knew the forest. We preserved the forest! We knew how to prevent the fires! We used to open up field in one spot. Harvested them. Then moved to another field and so on. After three years we would return back to the first one. But now a lot of people say we are to blame for the deforestation. But I tell you, we are the wrong address!

The only improvement are the roads and infrastructure. But economically it’s much harder today. Simply because we don’t profit from the forest anymore. So really the only hope today are the plantations. there is no other economic choice. At the plantations we get a 20/80 share of land and profit.”

In between the interviews, there’s the hitch-hiking round Kalimantan road movie, which is pretty entertaining. He tries fishing (unsuccessfully) and climbing a coconut tree (successfully).

After two weeks of travelling he at last finds pristine forest – and films logging trucks loaded down with timber on logging roads through the forest. He documents how a logging company that is operating legally buys timber from local people who are operating illegally outside the company’s concession area.

The video is an excellent antidote to romantic views of indigenous peoples living in harmony with the untouched forests of Kalimantan. Apart from anything else, vast areas of the forest have long since gone. In one village near Sebangau Natuional Park, villagers talk about “the era of illegal logging”, which has now passed. “The whole problem is poverty,” one of the villagers says. “Compared to the times when we were still allowed to log our economic opportunities are extremely narrow today.” Another adds, “Our hope for the future is to preserve nature. But what hope is there for us if our nature is destroyed by palm oil companies?” Then Augustin films villagers logging in the north of the park, in orangutan habitat.

Towards the end of the film, Augustin returns to Jakarta, and discusses REDD, as a “possible solution”. Here’s what Augustin has to say about the moratorium that was passed in May 2011:

“In my opinion, the logging moratorium passed by the Indonesian government is definitely a joke and in fact, I did not expect much more. On the other side however, it should also be said that US$1 billion is far too little if we want Indonesia to completely stop all its logging activities and palm oil production. So really the commitment by industrialised nations is still by far too little.”

The film ends in Germany, with some suggestions for consumers in Europe. Don’t buy products that use palm oil. Avoid biofuels. Ride a bicycle. Reduce meat consumption. Reduce paper and wood consumption. Don’t trust the Forest Stewardship Council. “The most sustainable product is the one that’s not used at all,” as Augustin puts it.

Florian Augustin has already started his next project. He is currently in Istanbul on his way from Berlin to Papua. By bicycle.

 

6 thoughts on “In search of the forests of Kalimantan, Indonesia”

  1. Dr. Nigel Miles says:
    25 August 2011 at 6:17 pm

    This documentary has summarized all aspects of commercial development which is at the heart of the Indonesian national developmental policy. The oligarchs in control wish to emulate everything which German citizens require in their addiction to gluttonous consumption of finite resources which is now the insuperable concern of the now 7 billion human inhabitants of planet Earth.

    Unless we realize this at the fundamental reality for us all the so called forests of all Indonesia and across the tropical world’s in particular will be totally razed.

    There are a few exceptions; on Kalimantan, the “Heart of Borneo” project…but too little too late. In the west we have to reevaluate our addiction; we need to realize that we are able to have “Prosperity without Growth”….(Tim Jackson)…yes you did read correctly and heresy to most even those who use this site. But what is the alternative. The Indonesians are emulating we western material capitalists; this video just provides examples of the reality of the activities for the forests demise and the pauperisation of the local communities.

    I wrote about this in my SEEBif Initiative which I gave at the Green Economic Institute’s Annual Conference in 2009; the situation has not improved; no one is listening; if this video does anything it is another conscious pricking for we “twee” westerners…but for 90% it will never be seen let alone understood….

    If the UN can through the opportunity of its Intergovernmental (Scientific) Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services address this fundamental reality – the greatest paradigm needed for a global civilized society in the 21st Century can be activated but we need to heed the warning of limiting our rates of consumption and base such on redefining of what our natural capital (or corpus) allowances should be for each of the 7 billion of us…..

    This is just an extension of the warnings of what should be done to avert disaster by the author of this video….

    Nigel Miles

  2. Florian Augustin says:
    28 August 2011 at 4:06 am

    Dear Dr. Miles!
    Thank you so much! This is really the most sophisticated and flattering commendation that I could think of. For all that are interested, the first travel-video of our Berlin Papua bike ride has been uploaded! I hope you enjoy:

  3. Yunus Yumte says:
    7 September 2011 at 12:25 pm

    Hi Florian Augustin,
    Thanks for this video, we get new reference and a live picture of forest management in Indonesia. Can we get the copy of this video? I was work for one NGO in Bogor and been tasked to Papua for the next one year. This would be good to shown to our partner as a learning material.

    Looking forward to hear from you,
    Yunus

  4. Shiva says:
    8 September 2011 at 11:03 pm

    Hi Florian congratulations on this documentary. I haven’t watched it yet but it is very highly rated. I’d like to download this documentary please. Is this possible? thanks

  5. Yunus Yumte says:
    11 September 2011 at 12:11 am

    Hi Cris,

    Hopefully we could get another easy way to get this video because it difficult to download more than 100 MB in place work place – network and download service capacity is limited.

    Any way, can the redd-monitor get the news which is provided by EIA (Environmental International Agency)? They have a lot of investigation and live story of forest management problems in several places in Asia-Pacific. They are also provide interesting video to show it.

    Cheers,
    Yunus

  6. Chris Lang says:
    11 September 2011 at 11:38 am

    @Yunus Yumte – thanks for this – I’ve asked on AugeFilms facebook page whether there are any plans to produce a DVD.

    Thanks for the suggestion about EIA – there are already some posts on REDD-Monitor based on EIA’s research (and I’ll continue to follow what they are up to!), for example these:

    12 September 2010: “Norway: Funding REDD and deforestation”

    17 June 2011: “REDD faces all round. Norway’s investment in forest destruction”

    30 June 2011: “Mining for REDD (with a little help from Norway)”

    3 August 2011: “New report exposes illegal timber trade from Laos to Vietnam”

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

SUBSCRIBE!

Enter your email address to receive notification of new posts.

Recent themes
Natural Climate Solutions
WWF's conservation scandals
Aviation and offsetting
Conservation Watch

Recent Comments

  • shahid on James Moore sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for his role in the Bar Works scam
  • Kathleen McCroskey on Offsetting is not an option if we are serious about addressing the climate crisis. My response to Hartmut Graßl
  • Delton Chen on Offsetting is not an option if we are serious about addressing the climate crisis. My response to Hartmut Graßl
  • Kathleen McCroskey on Offsetting is not an option if we are serious about addressing the climate crisis. My response to Hartmut Graßl
  • Chris Lang on Offsetting is not an option if we are serious about addressing the climate crisis. My response to Hartmut Graßl

Recent Posts

  • Offsetting is not an option if we are serious about addressing the climate crisis. My response to Hartmut Graßl
  • Papua New Guinea Environmental Alliance letter to Pogio Ghate, Minister for Environment, Conservation and Climate Change
  • Ecomapuá Amazon REDD Project, Brazil: Pública investigation reveals Ecomapuá Conservação is selling “illegal” carbon offsets from land it does not own, without transferring the money to local communities
  • Response from Steve Zwick, Verra: “Verra will ask Kanaka Management Systems to cease and desist any actions that may mislead communities into thinking that Verra has not already rejected the project”
  • Response from Kanaka Management Services: “Please do not conduct legal trail or castigate REDD+ project developers on the website by writing text which shows the project developer in bad light”

Recent Comments

  • shahid on James Moore sentenced to more than 11 years in prison for his role in the Bar Works scam
  • Kathleen McCroskey on Offsetting is not an option if we are serious about addressing the climate crisis. My response to Hartmut Graßl
  • Delton Chen on Offsetting is not an option if we are serious about addressing the climate crisis. My response to Hartmut Graßl
  • Kathleen McCroskey on Offsetting is not an option if we are serious about addressing the climate crisis. My response to Hartmut Graßl
  • Chris Lang on Offsetting is not an option if we are serious about addressing the climate crisis. My response to Hartmut Graßl

Issues and Organisations

30x30 AB 32 Andes Amazon Boiler rooms California Can REDD save ... ? Carbon accounting Carbon Credits Carbon Offsets CDM Conservation-Watch Conservation International COP21 Paris Deforestation FCPF FERN Financing REDD Forest definition Fossil fuels FPP Friends of the Earth FSC Green Climate Fund Greenpeace Guest post ICAO Illegal logging Indigenous Peoples Natural Climate Solutions NGO statements Plantations Poznan R-M interview REDD and rights REDD in the news Risk RSPO-Watch Safeguards Sengwer The Nature Conservancy UN-REDD UNFCCC World Bank WRM WWF

Countries

Australia Bolivia Brazil Cambodia Cameroon Canada China Colombia Congo Basin region Costa Rica DR Congo Ecuador El Salvador European Union France Germany Guatemala Guyana Honduras India Indonesia Kenya Laos Madagascar Malaysia Mexico Nicaragua Norway Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Republic of Congo Sierra Leone Sweden Tanzania Thailand Uganda UK Uncategorized United Arab Emirates USA Vietnam West Papua
©2022 REDD-Monitor | Powered by WordPress and Superb Themes!