On 8 December 2022, Siemenpuu’s Indonesian partner organisations published the report Friendship between the North and South – Stories of Those Who Fought to Save Indonesia’s Environment with Siemenpuu from 2002 to 2021 about their cooperation with Siemenpuu.
In addition to discussing the two decades long cooperation, discussions in the lauch event revolved around environmental education and the future challenges and visions on Indonesian environmental activism. Siemenpuu’s programme coordinator Kirsi Chavda and researcher-activist Otto Miettinen participated in the event online.
Between 2002 and 2021, Siemenpuu supported Indonesian environmental organisations in the protection of carbon-rich peat swamp and other tropical forests and coastal mangrove forests. The cooperation focused on strengthening community-based forest protection and sustainable management, as well as promoting the rights of traditional forest communities and supporting their sustainable livelihoods. The cooperation focused on the Riau province in Sumatra, most recently in the peat swamp forests of the Kampar peninsula, which is the world’s largest peat reserve. Siemenpuu’s support helped stop the felling of 1.25 million hectares of peat swamp forests and their conversion into tree plantations.
Siemenpuu’s most important partner in Sumatra was the Jaringan Kerja Penyelamat Hutan Riau, or Jikalahari network, which is currently an umbrella organisation of 19 environmental civil society organisations.
You can download here the Friendship Between the North and South publication (pdf, 6 MB).
Jikalahari and Sampan have also published a study Space for Living (pdf, 2.5 MB) on the income generation alternatives in social forestry permit areas in Riau area in Sumatra and in Kalimantan.