Gregory Goes There

This past winter, Gregory helped support  a  National Geographic-funded expedition to Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem. The goal was to document environmental damage and how it’s linked to the communities in the region, raising awareness about what’s happening in one of the planet’s most fragile ecosystems (packs were needed because there’s a lot of remote, rugged terrain to travel through). The team’s goal was not only to document environmental damage; more positively, they wanted to seek out and profile examples of alternative livelihoods that support both community incomes and the environment. The team is back now, and they’re assembling a multi-media web site about their trip. Look for it soon at Distant Dipatches (you can find video updates posted during the trip there now.) One of the team members, Zarah Rahman, shown in the photos conducting interviews, sent us an update.

In 10 weeks in Aceh we traveled thousands of kilometers, interviewed illegal loggers, met villagers who had been displaced by newly opened palm oil plantations, saw tiger tracks, lived in jungle villages and ate unimaginable amounts of rice. We got the stories and images that we went to Aceh to get and now we’re back in the U.S. editing our materials and putting together our final media.

We set out last October with our Gregory packs loaded with cameras, a sound recorder, memory cards, batteries, chargers, power bars, maps, and leech socks. The challenges of accessing Aceh’s remote villages made getting the stories of rainforest destruction and illegal activity even more satisfying.

In our last update on the Gregory blog, we had just spent several weeks in villages involved in land-rights conflicts with foreign palm companies that have recently made large scale land grabs across Aceh. Land is the most crucial factor for villagers dependent on agriculture for survival. Forced off their agricultural land, many of these villagers now seek employment as day laborers in the very palm plantations that displaced them.

In the past year the price of palm oil in Aceh has dropped by 70%. This rapid decrease is linked to the global economic recession, to growing consumer awareness, and to oversupply. With falling prices, production has slowed and many Acehnese who have now come to depend on salaries from these plantations are wondering whether there will still be work for them here in the future.

After documenting the stories of these communities living in a sub-district in the SE corner of Aceh, our team loaded up the car and headed north to the tip of the island of Sumatra. The village of Lamsujen is only a few hours from the Acehnese capital city of Banda Aceh and sits at a critical point of entry into the jungle. Here where the Continue reading >>