In a world far, far away, where water and resources are fought over, where species are dying and diversity is being replaced by uniformity, a battle for survival is taking place. Led by an activist musician and a radical beauty a band of rebels are taking on the faceless and nameless to turn around the only thing that will stop ultimate destruction. With limited powers but extraordinary determination they will play out their battle for the survival of the planet through the peaceful art of persuasion…but will they be able to act in time? Can they get enough people to understand that true paradise is….Closer than Heaven?
Oh, wait this is not a movie…. This is not a far, far away planet, and it is Fa’ Empel and Robi Navicula, not movie characters but dedicated activists who are committed to preserving what’s left of the forests of Sumatra and Borneo and the habitat of the Orangutan and Sumatran Tiger.
How did two of Indonesia’s best known, charismatic creatures of creativity decided to become involved in the race to preserve what is left of their countries forests? What prompted the sense of urgency that led them both to declare time for action? And what, amidst lives that threw them willingly into the spotlight, has allowed them to turn the spotlight from themselves to illuminate a cause that unites them?
Robbi Navicula at Revolver Cafe Bali for I-MagazinFor Fa’ sitting in a café in Sydney, Australia, reading a paper, it was the call for an action group to be formed, a world-wide education task force, Deforest Action, created by stakeholders from innovative international corporations, that would be ambassadors for the forests of Borneo. Fa’ s response was immediate, her bloodline is Borneo, her childhood had been urban, her life, to that point had been international. “Was ‘home’ calling?” she wondered and despite her fears- “I just wasn’t sure if I had the right experience, or how I would fit in with a group of more academic, experienced types” and concerns that she did not know what was needed, the urgency of the call gave her determination. “I felt I could identify with the problem, I had been independent my whole life, I resist being penned in, forced to “be”, when I need to be free, this, essentially is what is happening in Borneo, and it turned out I did have what it takes, and not only that but I was the only person who could speak Indonesian. I ended up being the translator, the interpreter and also somehow connecting the cultural ideas, I became a middle person in really important discussions of how to make the project a viable success for everyone that was getting involved”. So it turned out this was right and today Fa’ is a vital member of Deforest Action, and the only Indonesian representative with a place on the board.
For Robi it was seeing first hand a tangled thread, the cyclical domination of the disenfranchised by purveyors of poison that leads to poverty and poor soils, robbing farmers of their pride and livelihoods. He could see how generations of unsustainable development, the silencing of protest left people yoked to conditions they did not create and seeking solace in suicide. This desperation found voice in his activism, the music of his band Navicula and his online media outlet, Akarumput.com. Recognizing deforestation in North Sumatra and Borneo would render every other protest mute, he, like Fa’, made the commitment.
“It’s still weird to me how it worked, we are after all just a band. There was all this good work going on around us, there was dedication, incredible expertise, but still only partial effectiveness. There was a missing link to the really big action, and because music is fluid, it invites everyone. It has no ego it can bring this all together, alleviate the difficulty of ‘meetings’, ‘factions’ ‘positions’. At one of our gigs in Jakarta recently there was Greenpeace and all these action groups, sitting talking with the government environment office, that guy said it could never have happened in a meeting, what they discussed, but the music gave them the fluidity, allowed them the soft approach to bring ideas together. And that is what we are in favour of, the core unity, we support the government, it has created good laws, we want to help them keep to the laws they made for the protection of the environment.
Through her organization Deforest Action Fa’ works to create world-wide awareness and support action about deforestation, she networks constantly with others linking up information sharing and education sessions. “You know it is the number one thing that most people wish they could change,” she says, as she agrees with Robi- “We need the forests, they are the lungs of this earth”
With his band Navicula, Robi uses lyrics, music and events, to raise up ideas and create places to discuss them. Reaching an audience whose access to information is limited with a strong message puts power in the hands of the people: Orangutan, you will not become a legend. Harimau, the tiger, I can hear your scream.Just as it was everyone, in some small way that created it, not all by design, not all on purpose, but through action parasitic to the planet, everyone can contribute to the change.Robi and Fa’ have spent time in the forests, felt the power of its depth, heard the thin moan of chainsaws, and seen the desperation in the eyes of animals confronted by man. And both ask the same questions: Is Indonesia in danger of being numbed by constant abuse, does it stand astraddle the oceans, encompassing more flora and fauna diversity that anywhere else in the world, yelping like a sick dog for whom no one cares?Will the continent seismically shake from its lands its indigenous species like so many fleas, leaving only dust as the palm oil plantations squeeze every last breath from denuded soils?Is it ok to think of a forest as something beautiful, breathing and alive but generated by computer? Is it ok to think Avatar was really about a planet somewhere else in space?And while further plantations are planned and people demand to see more ‘monkeys’ the future of Indonesia hangs precariously by a thread that once broken will break us all. We do not need to loose this ‘human’ race.
Follow up at:
http://dfa.tigweb.org/ Deforest Action
www.orangutancentre.org/ Orangutan preservation in Sumatera
www.naviculamusic.com Navicula Borneo Tour
www.akarumput.com Grassroots activism in Indonesia