This morning we got up early and took a walk into the concession area to do a show and tell to the new campaigners that just arrived.  They toured the forest destruction caused by conversion of forests to palm oil plantations.  We took a walk through the wasteland of the charred remnants of trees and saw the network of canals that have been dug to drain the peatland.  Yifang and Frode, from our Chinese and Nordic offices had many questions, and the tour, not surprisingly, was sobering.  I've attached a photo which can give you some idea of what it looks like out there.

Our camp borders the concession area.  The local village, Kuala Cenaku, has contested the rights of Duta Palma, the company clearing the forest and planting the oil palms, saying that they have historical rights to the land.  And if it were up to them, they would've preferred that it stay as native forest.  Tragically, the forest next to their village is being logged and burned, and it continues to be logged today.  From our fire observation tower we can see the edge of the forest clearing. We're using every means we have to put a stop to this forest conversion and all other peatland forest conversion, until a region-wide environmental sound policy can be implemented.

Meanwhile our camp is nearing completion.  Nearly all the walkways are built, John and I spent all day yesterday treating the water so that it is safe enough to wash and cook with, and we only have a few finishing touches to put on it for the camp to be fully completed.  Some people have noted that it's beginning to look like a sort of "eco village", especially with the addition of some campaigners who spend some of the day "lazing around" in the shade under the trees typing things on their laptop computers.  We've also had a lot of new arrivals lately and we're nearly at capacity.  In fact, we've decided to build an annex to the main sleeping quarters to accommodate even more people who will be arriving in the coming weeks. The camp has really taken on a more active vibe.  Evenings are filled with meetings, planning sessions, and even English and Bahasa Indonesia classes so we can help bridge the language gap among us.

In addition to the campaigners, we've also had some guitar players join us, who also happen to know how to pilot a para-motoring machine.  A few evenings we've had late night guitar playing sessions and stayed up until the very late hour of 10:30.

That's all I have for an update now.  We have to do a quick cleanup, as the village chief is paying another visit to our camp this afternoon.

More to come....

Hayden
at the Forest Defender Camp, Sumatra, Indonesia