G

uns and butter. Even non-macroeconomists know what that means right? It’s national security versus human security, e.g. food, clothing, health, housing, etc. — the classic notion of opportunity cost.

But have you ever heard of chainsaws versus stethoscopes? Does it refer to a one-or-the-other deal as well?

Kinari Webb, an activist, thinks that if it’s a choice between forest preservation and the environment, and people’s health and welfare, then no. In fact people’s health is not just connected, but inextricably linked to the health of the planet.

This is certainly the case in the areas around Gunung Palung National Park (GPNP) in West Kalimantan; in fact the choices are pretty stark. To provide for their family’s wellbeing and health, locals often have to resort to illegal logging. For example, Pak Sofyan cut down 60 trees to pay for his wife’s C-section. And we’re talking about huge trees, which make the earth shudder when they hit the ground. Ouch!

As Kinari recounts in a 2012 TED-talk entitled “Chainsaws and Stethoscopes”: “Pak Sofyan knows the forest is critical for his family’s well-being. He has a cultural understanding that logging leads to a higher incidence of disease.” It’s true, research shows higher rates of malaria-carrying mosquitos in logged areas.

As Kinari said, it’s easy to hate the loggers, but they are simply people with families who have no choice. What do they do when a child gets sick? Even if they know logging is bad, they will still do it to pay the medical bills. They can’t send their kids to school, and they also aren’t learning any new skills. But if they do, like illegal loggers who become rice farmers, they try to persuade their neighbors to stop logging, in fact, to become guardians of the forest.

Here are four critical issues: poverty, not enough knowledge, lack of access to healthcare and environmental destruction.

Since 1960, but even more so since the 1980s, extensive logging, burning and clearing to transform forest areas into agricultural land or oil palm plantations has occurred in Kalimantan. Much of the clearing and logging is illegal. Half of the world’s annual tropical timber comes from this island, the third largest in the world. This has resulted in the highest rate of deforestation ever to occur. Kalimantan, the “lungs” of the planet, has had its forests reduced drastically.

So who is Kinari Webb? She’s an amazingly inspirational woman, an American medical doctor trained in family health and conservation, who is driven by panic about the fate of the planet we live in, but who is also guided by a vision. Her vision emerged out of surveys and 400 hours of “radical listening” to the views of the local populace.

Radical listening? Yes, it’s a bottom-up approach that works by truly listening to what people see as the problem, as well as the solutions. Radical listening is also, she says, “a subversion of the normal power structure”, which is usually a top-down imposition that often results in failure.

The consensus among the communities around GPNP was that they needed high quality, affordable medical care. So in 2007, she founded Health in Harmony (HIH) and with Hotin Ompusunggu, a dentist, co-founded Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI), two sister organizations who work hand-in-hand which gives healthcare incentives to halt logging.

ASRI is based in Sukadana, a village at the foot of GPNP, and works on the ground, while the HIH, based in the United States, provides support “including fundraising, monitoring and evaluation expertise; communicating the impact of ASRI’s programs; managing an exchange program that brings medical and other expertise to ASRI”. (For an account of how ASRI and HIH operate, read “Healthy forests for healthy lives”, The Jakarta Post, Oct. 13, 2017).

In early 2017, they started the “Chainsaw buyback”, a microenterprise program targeting loggers. ASRI buys the chainsaws and provides training and additional startup money to transition from logging into small business entrepreneurship. To date, ASRI has bought 58 chainsaws, and amazingly, none of the businesses has failed. “This program has the potential to bring the number of loggers in the region to near zero”, Kinari says.

Last year, 2017, was the 10th anniversary of ASRI and the HIH. They have a team of highly trained and motivated staff and numerous volunteers, but their success is also a result of collaboration with other NGOs, the local government and the GPNP Police.

Up to now, what they have achieved is incredible. There has been a doubling of household income; 42 percent more children finishing grade school; 34,000 patient visits and 100 providers trained; 49 percent decline in diarrhea, and a 70 percent drop in infant deaths, from 3.4 to 1.1 per 100 households over the first five years.

After 10 years, the estimated figure of households engaged in logging has shown a tremendous 89 percent drop, from 1,350 households to 150 as of February. Furthermore, satellite data shows stabilization of primary forest loss starting in 2007 when the program started and now regrowth of secondary forest, Kinari explained.

So in 10 years, the ASRI program has not only reduced illegal logging; it has simultaneously done so by alleviating poverty and improving the health of the local populace.

With their astounding success, there are obviously calls for replication. Their ambition, in fact, is to spearhead efforts to bring this successful model to scale worldwide. What’s stopping them? The HIH-ASRI model could easily be considered a blue-print.

Right now, they have plans to recreate the ASRI model in Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park. This was chosen to provide a comparison as it’s close to the original program site and it can use ASRI resources such as doctors and nurses. They are also planning to partner up with International Animal Rescue (YIARI), which can assist in their goal of releasing rehabilitated orangutans into the wild.

March 21 was declared by the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 as International Forest Day.

Indeed every day should be International Forest Day as forests are so vital to the health of our planet, which is in perilous danger.

Want to help save the planet by helping the guardians of the Kalimantan forest which has one of the greatest biodiversity on earth? Either donate to Yayasan Alam Sehat Lestari (alamsehatlestari.org), help a logger family start a new business with Rp 10 million (US$ 727), buy their chainsaw for Rp 4 million, or volunteer.

I’d love to volunteer. Want to come with me?
__________________________________

The writer is the author of Julia’s Jihad.