REDD-Monitor

The Harapan Rainforest Project covers an area of 100,000 hectares of extremely biodiverse lowland rainforest in Sumatra, Indonesia. Without the project, the forest would be destroyed. Two former logging concessions operated in the area. It is bordered by oil palm plantations and active logging concessions. Yet it is still relatively intact. Harapan is home to 20 Sumatran tigers, almost 300 bird species, gibbons, elephants, clouded leopard, tapirs and sun bears. But the project has run into criticism. Local people accuse the project developers of kicking them out of the project area. They also accuse them of intimidating them.

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The Harapan Rainforest project in Sumatra, Indonesia is becoming increasingly controversial. A new film documents how local people are excluded from the project and how their livelihoods are threatened by the project. The Harapan project is run by PT Restorasi Ekosistem Indonesia (PT REKI), which consists of a local group Burung Indonesia, the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and BirdLife International. REDD-Monitor has repeatedly asked John Lanchbery at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds for a response to the critiques of the project from local people in Indonesia. He has so far failed to provide a public response.

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Last year, Prince Charles visited Indonesia and planted an ironwood sapling at the Harapan Rainforest project in Sumatra. A month later, Sarwadi Sukiman, a farmer from Sumatra went to the Polish city of Poznan for the UN climate negotiations. He was there with Via Campesina to protest about the project.

The Harapan Rainforest project is run by PT Restorasi Ekosistem Indonesia (PT REKI), which consists of a local group Burung Indonesia, the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), and BirdLife International. “The forest restoration project has angered landless farmers who say they were evicted from forest land now being managed by PT REKI,” Hilary Chew writes in a recent article for Panos about the Harapan Rainforest project.

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