Bearing Witness: Empowering Indonesian Communities to Fight Illegal Logging

Sustainable livelihoods begin with the ability to exercise control over the natural resources on which one depends. For many forest-dependent people, illegal logging short-circuits this control, robbing them of traditional forest uses and income. But some communities in Indonesia have found a way to fight back to preserve their forest livelihoods. With training in the use of video cameras and film-editing techniques, they have begun to document illegal logging incidents, using the footage to gain media coverage and to lobby for action against corrupt forest practices.

The video training, provided by a pair of environmental NGOs (nongovernmental organizations), has created a network of empowered citizens based in illegal logging hotspots in 15 regions across the archipelago