Two decades of illegal gold mining in Jambi has led to the destruction of thousands of rice fields and mercury contamination in its rivers.
Category: Sumatera
‘We hide while working’: The life of children spraying poison on a pulp plantation
Living in cramped barracks with no access to education, these are the children earning $6 a day at one of Indonesia’s most profitable paper companies.
Zoonotic malaria threatens indigenous Orang Rimba in Jambi
As their habitat continues to shrink due to deforestation, the indigenous Orang Rimba group becomes more vulnerable, including to threat of the zoonotic malaria. Local authority is looking at One Health as a future solution to prevent outbreak.
Triptych from the burning land
A documentary film on artisanal coal mining in Muara Enim, South Sumatera, Indonesia.
Life and death in Muara Enim, Indonesia’s “dirty energy barn”
In Muara Enim, Indonesia, not only is coal mining not going away, it’s the only livelihood many people know. Meanwhile, a state-backed coal company hardly tolerates locals’ artisanal mines.
Indigenous group faces eviction for ‘New Bali’ tourism project in North Sumatera
The Indigenous Pomparan Ompu Ondol Butarbutar community faces eviction from the area that has been their home for generations, and have seen their farms razed to make way for the new tourism project.
Climate crisis-aware, Lampung residents move towards waste recycling, urban farming
Urban dwellers are increasingly more aware of the impacts of climate change. Residents of Bandar Lampung City are taking concrete actions to protect their environment.
Indigenous groups in Mentawai Islands resist the exploitation of their territories
The issuance of the Regional Regulation on the Recognition of the Mentawai Indigenous Peoples provides legal protection for Indigenous rights at the district level. However, new laws and inaction by the central government have paved the way for timber companies to exploit their land, natural resources and culture.
The determined fight against timber estates in Mentawai Islands
For years, the people of Mentawai have fought against the exploitation of their forests. The latest permit for timber estates issued by the government in Siberut Island was in 2017, without having consulted local communities
Hydroelectric project in Sumatra risks extinction of world’s rarest orangutan
As well as threatening the home of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan, environmentalists say the Batang Toru hydropower plant jeopardises the livelihoods of 130,000 people and increases the risk of landslides.