$2,000 to support a project in Sarolangun District, Jambi Province, Sumatra, Indonesia, working to promote Indigenous land rights through a multi-stakeholder workshop documenting the advantages of Indigenous management systems that, unlike the plantations and gold mining that are threatening the region, provide income supporting the local economy while protecting forests and the watershed.
$5,000 to support strengthening community capacity in Jambi Province, Sumatra, Indonesia to protect peatland ecosystems from the expansion of pulp and paper and palm oil plantations through participatory mapping of community claims and forest cover status to determine how that intersects with where current concessions are located and which companies have the licenses, as well as developing trusted relationships with community leaders, raising awareness generally regarding legal rights and the impacts of plantations, and formulating plans of action towards a process of achieving negotiated resolutions.
$2,500 to support organizing a series of workshops in villages throughout the Mentawai Islands off the coast of West Sumatra, Indonesia with the aim of building awareness of the negative impacts of palm oil and promoting with the District government office green and community based economic options, such as agroforestry methods based on local knowledge. In addition to the importance of local people’s rights to land, local customs, culture and food security that would be supported by these efforts, the Mentawai Islands have particular ecological importance because they have been separated from the mainland for more than half a million years and the long geographic isolation has resulted in numerous endemic mammal species, including four primates.
$3,000 to support a project in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, working with villages and training a grassroots team to build a community-based monitoring system to track the implementation of Asia Pulp and Paper’s Forest Conservation Policy commitments and gather evidence to be used to hold the company accountable.
$3,000 to support a movement of environmental activists, Buddhist monks, and remote communities fighting to stop the proposed Cheay Areng dam in the Areng Valley of southwest Cambodia that would flood 50,000 acres of rainforest and displace thousands.
$3,000 to support a project working with farmers in Sumatra, Indonesia who lost over 17,000 acres seized by Asia Pulp and Paper in 2001. Through helping to establish a rubber tree seedling nursery in the conflict area and facilitating a mediation process, PPJ helped the farmers re-secure control over more than 10,000 acres.
$4,500 to support field work, mapping and research to produce a study and short video to provide a detailed understanding of suppliers, potential impacts on forests, and local peoples’ perspectives related to a major new pulp mill that would be one of the world’s largest requiring an estimated 1.5 million acres of forest to feed its operations, planned for South Sumatra, Indonesia.
$5,000 to support work with 5 villages in Jambi Province, Sumatra, Indonesia to strengthen community management systems and values and help secure control and protection for over 40,000 acres of customarily-owned “village forest” through holding a series of meetings to reach collective decisions to develop and implement 35 year management plans that consider ecological, economic and social dimensions and provide for sustainable sources of income that reflect local cultural values.
$4,000 to support a series of capacity building workshops with local communities in Riau Province, Indonesia to protect peatland forests through the development of low carbon livilihoods that protect biodiversity and prevent high CO2 emissions, while providing just and prosperous sources of income, as an alternative to the devastation caused by the pulp and paper industry.
$4,000 to support community outreach, education, and organizing in the Musa Pongani area of Oro Province, Papua New Guinea, to resist new logging permit applications covering 250,000 hectares approved by the government without consultation as 99 year leases.
