by Gavin Bruce, CEO, International Animal Rescue

In October, at the Blue Earth Summit in London, we screened ‘Batutegi: Seeds of Hope’, a 29-minute film which provides an intimate insight into one of Sumatra’s last remaining intact forests, and the people working to protect it.

The Batutegi Protection Forest covers an area of more than 58,000 hectares in Lampung Province, home to Sumatran tigers, Sunda pangolins, Malayan tapirs, sun bears, clouded leopards and over 200 bird species. It is also a vital resource for people, feeding rivers that provide water and fertile soils for farming. But Batutegi is under pressure. Agriculture has consumed almost 9,000 hectares over the last four decades, especially for coffee expansion. Today, the remaining intact core forest is just 11,000 hectares.

Lack of opportunities is the underlying issue for many local communities. When there are few alternatives, families have resorted to forest clearance to survive. But as the forest disappears, so too does food security, clean water and soil fertility, and people become trapped in a cycle of vulnerability.

That’s why we support the efforts of our Indonesian partner Yayasan Inisiasi Alam Rehabilitasi Indonesia (YIARI) and the Forestry Department of Lampung Province to put in place a new approach that weaves together forest protection, livelihoods, education, science and governance.

Local patrols are using SMART monitoring, drones, GPS tools and Global Forest Watch alerts to deter illegal activity and detect and respond rapidly to encroachment when it happens. At the same time, we are training farmers in agroforestry so that they can diversify their crops, improve yields and raise incomes while also reducing pressure on the forest. To date, more than 260 farmers have taken part, and we are in the process of setting up farmer cooperatives to help producers get better prices for their goods and build climate-resilience.

Education plays an important role too, from reading clubs and conservation camps to literacy initiatives which have engaged over 2,000 local people so far. It is essential that the next generation grows up with the knowledge and sense of stewardship needed to ensure the forest is protected. At the same time, we are working with the University of Lampung and ITERA University to generate data on biodiversity and ecosystem health. 

Progress is also being made on the governance front. Participatory mapping has helped to expand the protected area of core forest by 385 hectares, while more than 340 tenant farmers, as well as forestry officers, are directly involved in managing and protecting the forest.

Farmers tell their story

For Batutegi’s farmers, seeing is believing. In December last year, a group of eight farmers accompanied YIARI on a study visit to Pesawaran to meet established farmer cooperatives that had successfully combined agroforestry with forest protection. The farmers walked among nutmeg, cocoa and cardamom interplanted with forest trees, and listened as tour guides explained processing techniques that can add value to crops. “They learned about producing quality cocoa,” explains YIARI CEO, Dr. Karmele Llano Sánchez. “The visit was a wonderful learning opportunity.”

Farmers came home full of new ideas and renewed confidence, determined to push ahead with their own cooperative. The impact of learning from one community and replicating it in another should not be underestimated. In Batutegi, conservation is a living example that success is possible.

In the protection arena, patrols are also making a difference. In January this year, a joint team of forestry police and YIARI staff trekked deep into the Rindingan Core Zone, one of Batutegi’s most threatened forests. Guided by satellite alerts and drones, they uncovered illegal land clearance for a coffee plantation, including huts, stacked logs and new vehicle tracks, all set up in just two months. The team were equipped with GPS and SMART technology, allowing them to document and dismantle these operations before they could do further harm. Illegal activity in Batutegi as a whole has now fallen by two-thirds and forest loss has halved. In Rindingan, patrols are going from reacting to incursions to prevention, making it harder for people to gain a foothold.

Win-win solutions

These interventions are starting to yield results. Farmers trained in agroforestry have seen their incomes rise, over 2,000 people have been reached by our education programmes and conservation is being embedded in local decision-making through participatory governance. Most importantly, wildlife is beginning to recover. Camera traps are recording increasing numbers of sun bears, Sunda clouded leopards, Malayan tapirs and Sunda pangolins, a clear sign that forest is starting to recover.

YIARI CEO, Dr. Karmele Llano Sánchez, puts it this way: “When communities really feel they own the forest, everything changes. They go from being bystanders to protectors. They start to see that their own wellbeing is bound up with the ecosystem. That is when conservation really takes root.”

Our vision for the future

We are ambitious for the future and we aim to achieve further reductions in illegal activities in the core zone; safeguard key mammal populations and further reduce forest loss. In the medium term, we will continue working to expand our conservation into the Way Waya corridor that links with Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, and roll out farmer cooperatives that can deliver climate-resilient, traceable coffee.

But funding remains critical. We need to raise funds to cover our 2025 core budget of $150,000 to support patrols, research, education and livelihoods – the essential ingredients of success. $110,000 of this is unfunded as I write this blog.

Batutegi: Seeds of hope

Our film Batutegi: Seeds of Hope is not a typical nature documentary. It is a story of resilience, told by the communities themselves. The film shows that conservation can improve livelihoods, empower women and give young people opportunities. At the same time it saves forests and species which are irreplaceable.

Our work goes beyond saving individual animals. We aim to protect whole ecosystems and the people who rely on them for their way of life. We do that not just through protection on the ground but also by reaching out to communities and using education to help them take steps to reduce their dependence on destructive practices, and become champions of conservation themselves.

What can we do?

For organisations, today, employees want employers to be environmental stewards, and it does impact, with 27 % of respondents saying a company’s environmental position would influence their decision to accept a job offer. In a global survey by Deloitte, 69 % of workers stated they would like to see their companies invest in sustainability, including in efforts to reduce carbon emissions and waste and around 70 % of employees say they would feel more loyal to a company that enabled them to do good for the environment in a meaningful way.

When a company’s employees can see a genuine, aligned commitment to the environment, morale is strengthened, productivity and profits rise, but organisations need to “walk the talk” on the planet.

The good news is that doing so can be quite simple. One approach is via partnerships with already fully certified companies, such as 1% for the Planet, which offers an easy-to-use, powerful platform to help align capital with climate and embed a purpose around the environment into the DNA of a company. 

If we can learn to live alongside animals and nature in harmony, we can protect the planet. And if we protect the planet, we are protecting ourselves. That is the future we are determined to build, one seed, one forest, one community at a time.

Find out more about or to support our work, please visit www.internationalanimalrescue.org