Merabu; a story of hope and imagination for the rainforest, people and planet

Meet Franly Oley. A quiet, none assuming guy, smiley and helpful. He will be our guide for the next 5 days as we venture into a remote village set a little way into the interior of Kalimantan, Borneo. We’re on our way to spend 4 nights in primary rainforest, increasingly hard to find in Kalimantan due to the astonishing rate of deforestation wrought over the last 2 decades.

We chose to visit Merabu to experience the adventure of the rainforest in all its authenticity, including prehistoric handprints, 10,000 years old (see blog) but the main draw was to meet this small village that took on the palm oil companies in a fight to protect its forest and to learn more of it’s inspiring story. We had the honour of spending 5 days with Franly Oley, ex village Chief of Merabu village.

11 years ago, Franly Oley arrived in Merabu from Sulawesi as a carpenter to help build a school. There he met his future wife and settled down. In 2012, at the grand age of 22 he was encouraged to stand in the election for Village Chief. There was only one candidate and they needed another. When we probed a bit more ‘but why you?’ he struggled to answer, eventually he said ‘ I really don’t know, maybe because I could play music?’ Even in remote villages deep in the heart of Borneo, the general public can’t resist a musician or actor as a politician! He told us that he never dreamed that he would win and when his victory was announced is legs were shaking. He was a reluctant candidate and there he was, Village Chief at the age of 22!

One day, early into his term, they were walking through the forest and to their surprise, happened upon three bull dozers on their land. They confronted the workers who said ‘we’re just doing what the boss tells us’. It was a complicated situation where the Government had given permission to palm oil companies to enter the land. The Government has its own map of who owns different land areas but the chiefs of the villages that occupy that land have their own maps. According to the Government, the area in question was set in a neighbouring village but this did not accord with land ownership maps that the individual village Chiefs adhered to. The neighbouring village had given permission for the company to take over its land; Merabu had not.

Merabu villagers came together, confronted the company and succeeded in taking the bulldozers hostage, taking the key and driving them into the village until a solution was agreed upon. The long battle led to the first rights being granted for indigenous communities in Kalimantan to manage their own forests.

Franly cares deeply about the forest. He meets an international NGO with a branch in Indonesia - The Forest Conservancy who does too. Through working closely with them he learns so much, he says about the environment and what damage the palm oil and mining industries are causing. Together the Villagers and the NGO use a process to imagine and create a different future, a shared dream of what Merabu could become through developing an alternative form of economy.

Merabu has plenty of resources — a cave with prehistoric handprints, an emerald green limestone lake, mountains to climb, wildlife to spot and of course its incredible story. Part of their dream was developing eco tourism which is now run by the villagers who were once nomadic dwellers within the forest.

Franly has also managed to secure solar panels for the production of electricity for the village as well as WiFi. He is no longer Chief of the Village but still works hard to keep the support of the villagers who in the main want to protect the forest. But it’s an ongoing challenge to resist the lure and seduction of what palm oil can bring as Merabu residents watch the immediate benefits that palm oil has brought to neighbouring villages. Immediate increases in consumer goods and comfort but at what cost for all of us long term? Franly says the villagers want to see faster progress but that developing alternative forms of economy takes time.

It would be unfair and folly to blame the other villages for selling off their land. Internationally, our lifestyle of fast, convenient, insatiable want is the root cause of deforestation; the other villages are simply following suit. It shouldn’t be down to them alone to resist it, we all have a part to play; the planet will restore itself, but humans…well that remains to be seen but it is not looking hopeful. We can blame companies and governments (and undoubtedly they could all do much more), but ultimately it is our lifestyle and way of consuming that results in this collective slow suicide. The Yanomami in Brazil (facing similar land issues but with gold) believe that their creator buried precious metals deep in the earth to protect them and that wreaking destruction by extracting them will disturb evil spirits. It’s not a bad metaphor for what is about to come.

When I ask Franly, what gives him hope he laughs and smiles.

‘It is our village, we have to do it for the village and for the environment.”

Whenever I ask this question of hope, people seem to react similarly. The odds are against them, but what other option do they have but to persevere? All you can do is act. With action comes hope.

There are lots of ideas and plans on the horizon which give hope.The 10,000 year old handprints are on the waiting list for UNESCO World Heritage status, there is talk of potential cocoa plant and honey production. Experimenting with more sustainable ways to create an income from the land and forest that thinks about long term gains and their role as ‘good ancestors’ for fture generations.

If interested in finding out more about palm oil you can read more here and if you want create hope by taking action, here is a list of products that avoid palm oil.

Background note on palm oil and rainforests in Borneo

• 80% of the habitat of the critically endangered Orangutan has been decimated in the past 20 years as a result of coal mining and more recently the boom of the palm oil industry.
• Palm oil trees have dangerously helpful properties. It grows fast and yields massive crops, it is long lasting and easy to transport. As a result it is ubiquitous in our food (particularly processed food) and in cleansing and beauty products. Demand for it is high from worldwide populations wanting ever faster, ever more convenient ways to consume. It is the perfect crop to placate our insatiable economic appetites.
• Primary rainforest is the target for plantations. The importance of biodiversity and knowledge of the mind blowing number of different species that exist in the rainforest is perhaps somewhat already known. Less well known perhaps is the irrecoverable impact of the process of deforestation.
• Species of trees in the rainforest absorb a much higher amount of carbon dioxide than other species of trees. Which means that a) they take much more carbon dioxide out of the air (very helpful to humans and planet) but also b) when they are cut down, they release dangerous levels of carbon dioxide (very bad for humans and planet).
• The damage wrought by bull dozing the land means that future chances of reforestation are difficult. The bulldozers destroy the soil, digging deep, ripping up the nutrient rich top soil which washes away with the rain.