Examples of successful forest protection efforts by Indonesian community groups and NGOs, assisted by EIA/Telapak surveillance training and equipment, include:

CENTRAL JAVA
LOCAL VIDEO SURVEILLANCE GROUP: ARUPA

Made up of 14 former forestry students turned environmental activists, ARuPA now acts as a resource hub for forest-based activists across Central Java and has itself trained members of 20 NGOs to document environmental crime and mismanagement.

Using the skills gained through EIA/Telapak training, ARuPA’s members documented illegal logging in Java’s teak forests by Perhutani, a government-owned forestry company. Their films also featured villagers’ complaints about Perhutani’s disregard for forest dwellers’ rights and were shown to local civil society groups and decision-makers. In 2002, ARuPA’s efforts contributed to the revoking of Perhutani’s Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification by Smartwood, an international timber assessor, which impacted the company’s market among Western furniture buyers. Subsequent attempts by the company to regain certification and lost business have failed (Astraatmaja 2004).

ARuPA also uses film to highlight successful examples of alternative, decentralized, sustainable forest-based livelihoods, including community-based forestry management and a Javan community’s initiative to plant bamboo after local pine plantations had been clear-cut. “Bamboo forest protects communities from flooding, landslides, and drought—environmental services that could not be provided by the pine forest,” says ARuPA spokesman Rama Astraatmaja. After negotiating an informal agreement with the local timber company official, villagers planted bamboo, preserving water supplies for their rice fields and contributing to the village economy by selling bamboo poles.

CENTRAL KALIMANTAN
LOCAL VIDEO SURVEILLANCE GROUP: DAUN

Daun, a regional NGO, campaigns against deforestation in wildlife-rich Tanjung Puting National Park, whose endangered species include clouded leopards, sun bears, and orangutans. Daun’s members have used their media training to build public awareness of the destructive impact of illegal logging by showing photographic and video evidence to communities, and then explaining the connection with lost livelihoods. One film distributed among riverside communities living on the park’s fringes documented how a local village had successfully developed small-scale fish farming as a sustainable alternative to illegal logging operations.

SOUTH KALIMANTAN LOCAL
VIDEO SURVEILLANCE GROUP: LPMA

LPMA has produced educational videos both documenting the destructive impact of illegal logging in protected forest in the Meratus area of South Kalimantan, and promoting honey collecting as an alternative way of generating income. The films have been shown to forest communities and to local politicians with the aim (not yet realized) of generating financial support to expand commercial honey collecting.

SUMATRA
LOCAL VIDEO SURVEILLANCE GROUP: ULAYAT

Ulayat, a Sumatran environmental group, documented illegal logging in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park by Semaku Jaya Sakti, a company owned by the district government. After its compelling visual evidence prompted provincial and national media stories, the park manager sued the logging company, and its director was forced to resign. Ulayat’s campaigning also resulted in the Kaur district government creating a forest regulation enabling action against illegal logging.

RIAU
LOCAL VIDEO SURVEILLANCE GROUP: HAKIKI

Hakiki, a regional NGO, documented and publicized evidence that Diamond Raya Timber, a logging concession holder in Riau Province, Sumatra, was logging outside its approved harvesting area. Hakiki then worked with the Riau provincial government to establish the Community Anti-Illegal Logging Network, whose members include provincial authorities, law enforcement officials, NGOs, and three district governments.