Prepping for Bali COP13

Starting next week, I will be in Bali for the UN COP13 climate change negotiations. I'm working with the Tropical Forest Group (TFG). Among other things, TFG will be sponsoring a large tree display outside the conference center and a dance show (traditional Balinese dance!) to visually illustrate the importance of forest conservation.

The group has also set up a blog that will give a running commentary of the conference.

Among other things delegates at COP13 will be negotiating post-2012 climate change strategies. One strategy set to receive tons of press in the upcoming conference is REDD (Reduced Emissions from avoided Deforestation in Developing countries). In the past, countries have not been able to trade carbon credits in this category. Currently, tropical deforestation causes about 20% of greenhouse gas emissions. So REDD is a potentially important part of any future emissions reduction strategy!

Data Entry Time!

I’m back in Pontianak for a couple of weeks to finish up with data entry, pack up my room, and say goodbye to everyone before heading to Bali for the UN COP13 on climate change. Life is boringly happy here, with lots of time at the gym, and hanging out with my ex-pat and Indonesian friends. Email will be easier from now on, thank goodness. Terima Kasih (thanks) to everyone who sent happy birthday wishes!

Birthday in Kalimantan

Today was one of the most memorable birthdays of my life. I woke up at 5 am in Bayangan, to the sound of clumpiau monkeys singing. After eating kue (sweet cakes) and buying freshly killed deer from a villager for dinner that evening, my teammates and I packed up our bags and traveled to Mensubang, a nearby village on the Pawan river. We decided to stay the night in Mensubang and throw a little party to celebrate the end of fieldwork.

Dessy talked with the schoolmaster and arranged a evening big feast, and also extended invitations to all the important villagers – kepala desa, kepala dusun, Muslim leaders, village secretary, etc. I hung out in the village all morning, and in the afternoon walked to the mountains to check my email (my phone only receives a signal on the top of tall mountains…go figure). Of course all the villagers thought I was crazy to walk so far away alone (“weren’t you scared!?!), but it was quite nice to appreciate the rubber gardens, birds, and hills of Ketapang one more time before returning to more developed parts of the country/world. Unfortunately, the current frequent rains mean lots of mosquitoes, so my email checking was interrupted by frequent mosquito swatting.

After getting back to the village in late afternoon, I hung out with the village women and learned how to cook krupuk – dried tapioca deep fried in oil so that it puffs up. A uniquely Indonesian snack, krupuk comes in all shapes and sizes – we were cooking one with a flowery motif that came in a variety of colors. Unfortunately for me (but probably fortunately for health) I don’t enjoy krupuk, but it was fun to cook nevertheless.

The evening party started after the evening prayers, at about 7 pm. Everyone gathered in a large house. The men and women were dressed up – the men with traditional hats and sarongs instead of pants, the women with pretty shirts and makeup. The evening started with a speech from the schoolmaster (and then myself – amazing – speaking Indonesian in front of so many people!). After this, one of the older men in the village said an Islamic prayer for safe travels, wellbeing, and long life. Finally we got to the food, which was delicious: venison, chicken in coconut sauce, breadfruit, cassava leaves, roasted corn, chile, and of course rice.

After eating we just hung out, talked, and then (predictably) the photos started. I took a photo with most of the women and children in the house, before finally escaping around 9 pm to fall into bed exhausted but happy.

Bayangan – The Last One

Our last village was perhaps the most simple of all the places we’ve been to. Named Bayangan, it is in the mountains above the Pawan river. Only one road runs through the village, and it is perhaps the worst road that I’ve seen thus far in Kalimantan: slippery, narrow, steep, and rocky, sometimes all at the same time. Cars cannot navigate this road, so motorbikes or walking are the only ways to get to Bayangan. Thus the village is relatively isolated and very small, with only about 150 residents. Of course there is no power. The school does have an elementary school, but doesn’t have a health clinic – villagers must travel for a couple hours to reach a clinic or nurse.

We arrived in Bayangan at about 4 pm, and were warmly welcomed by the Kepala Dusun to stay in his house and survey the village. Amazingly, he was able to gather a group of villagers together to draw a village map the night we arrived, so we were able to begin field work the following day. Dessy and I chose to survey the cutway that the oil palm company created around the village, which marks the border between oil palm land and village land. Because the cutway was created about six months ago, and because this is the tropics where plants grow ridiculously fast, we had to do our own cutting to remove the new vegetation from the “path”. Our guide was the Kepala Dusun himself. The day, though long and hard, was one of the more fun field days I’ve had. We stopped at a hut and ate roasted corn, found wild tomato-like fruits, and picked peppers for dinner that evening. The final GPS point was located in the middle of a grassy swamp – we were all wet up to our armpits by the time we finished the day!

Happily, because of the small population size and small land use footprint in Bayangan, we finished mapping Bayangan within a single day. Which means….drum roll please…that the mapping component of the field work is finished!!! Woohoo!!! The best birthday present I could ask for. I’m exhausted, but happy and amazed that we’ve been able to collect so much data. Tomorrow we start the three day process of going home.

Pegawai Negeri (Civil Servant) Tests

In Indonesia, one of the most highly valued jobs is working for the government. Although the pay is not high, the security and benefits of being a government employee are great. People are guaranteed pensions, don’t have to work very hard, and know they’ll have a job for life. All of my coworkers would like to work for the government, and at the beginning of November they traveled home to Pontianak to take the required test which qualifies them for consideration as a civil servant. The test is like the SAT combined with current government affairs, with a bit about forestry thrown in. (All my coworkers hope to work for the forestry department). I think this is all a bit funny – all of the government offices that I’ve visited are filled with people who have too much time on their hands and not enough work. The result? Terrible inefficiency. In my opinion, the solution is not hiring more government workers, but that seems to be the way things are in this country…

Telok Bayur

After a three-day rest in Ketapang, Dessy, Pita, and myself traveled up the Pawan River (again) to a village named Telok Bayur. The other team members have returned to Pontianak to take a test to become an Indonesian Civil Servant. More on that later…

Bayur is our second-to-last study site (9/10), and possibly the most interesting study village I’ve yet encountered. Why? In Telok Bayur, an oil palm company has been operating for about 15 years. The village contains a factory, as well as barracks and houses to support the processing of fresh palm fruit into palm oil. Perhaps more impressively, the majority of the village area (more than 50%) is covered by oil palm plantation. Here, 20 meter oil palm plants create a dark, cool, and shady forest.

Instead of tramping around the forest every day, cutting our way through thorns and getting soaking wet in rivers, we drove around the plantation on motorbikes to complete the mapping exercise. Each morning from about 7am to 4pm I sat on the back of a motorbike with a village guide and drove around the plantation area, and asking endless questions about the villager perspectives on oil palm.

The most interesting thing I discovered is that villagers are so rich they are having rich peoples’ diseases! Instead of malnutrition and TB, present at most of our other study sites, this village suffers from health problems such as hypertension and diabetes. Villagers no longer have to do hard physical labor to earn a living, and they have more money to buy high-calorie, high-fat foods such as cakes, butter, chips, beef, and chicken. In this part of Indonesia, being fat is a symbol of being rich, and is a status symbol. Along with fat, people here (and in all of Indonesia) like to be white (a signal that they don’t have to work outside in the sun) and men often let one nail grow very long (a sign that they don’t do hard manual labor with their hands).

Ketapang Lagi

I am in Ketapang for about three days, to submit a grant application, catch up on sleep, and get away from the 24/7 attention that I get in the villages. Air conditioned hotel paradise with room service, woohoo!