From Economist.com
FAR above the treetops, in Indonesia’s remote Papuan provinces, the spotter planes are circling. They are looking for a place to strip the forest and produce the big cash crop of the moment: palm oil. And if not palm oil then jatropha, cassava or sugar cane, all of which can be used as either food or biofuel. With the price of oil so high these crops have become known as green gold, and they are being sought in some of the last remaining tracts of virgin rainforest in Asia.
Few of the Papuan tribesmen who live in these forests have any idea what the planes up above are doing. Nor do they realise that the future of their land for ten generations could well be determined by the people flying them.
The next Scorsese?On one side, the Indonesian government wants to become the world’s biggest producer of palm oil and seems ready to sign a number of multi-million hectare concessions—lasting up to 100 years—on Papuan land. The contracts are worth around $8.5 billion. Opposing them are many governments around the world, who worry about the carbon emissions such deforestation would invite. And on another side still is the regional Papuan government, which has its own ideas about what should be done with the land. In the middle of all this are the people who actually live in the forest. Nobody seems quite certain what they want.
In this situation, it would come as no surprise if the environmental NGOs arrived on their flaming green steeds to argue that locals don't want their forest cut down. That may indeed be true. But wouldn’t it be better if the locals could say what they wanted for themselves?
This is the idea of a new project in Papua that uses film-making to promote civic action and local political participation. The project is being run by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), a group best known for its work exposing the nefarious deeds of environmental criminals around the world.
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