Jayapura (image by sandranahdar, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0)
As I write this, I'm sat in a hotel lobby looking out on to a market place where women are sat on the hard tarmac, blankets with tomatoes, lemongrass, onions and chillies spread out before them. Towering behind them is the incongruous bulk of the local KFC and, although there was torrential rain an hour ago, the streets are bone dry. That's because it's very very hot which is not surprising when you're a few degrees south of the equator.
I should be on board the Esperanza but a slight problem with the ship's internet connection has forced me ashore to Jayapura. The small but busy town, wedged up against the Indonesian side of the border with Papua New Guinea, has been my home for the past few days. As part of a team of Greenpeace staff and supporters, I've been preparing for the second leg of the Forests For Climate tour and in a couple of hours we'll sail off on a voyage to visit other areas of this vast and exotic archipelago.
The first leg was on the eastern side of the border in Papua New Guinea where the team spent six weeks documenting the threats facing these magnificent forests, particularly from illegal logging. With pretty much a complete change in crew, the baton is now being passed to us and we'll be doing the same in Indonesia where the forests face the usual list of horrors - industrial and destructive logging, mining and (the one we're going to concentrate on) the ballooning palm oil industry which threatens to gobble up what's left of the country's forests.
Having worked on the Dove campaign that ran in the UK earlier this year (which was of course all about palm oil), it's a fantastic opportunity for me to see how our campaign ties in with the work being done in south east Asia. And like most of our campaigns, it's very much a global effort - in places like Europe and the US we concentrate on the big brand names at the consumer end of the market, while here on the other side of the world, it's the government and palm oil producers we want to change.
The massive gulf between the women I saw in the market and the shiny hallmarks of Western capitalism which are evident all around Jayapura is typical of political rhetoric in Indonesia. The government says that this economic development - in the shape of logging and palm oil plantation concessions, as well as major projects like a trans-Papuan highway - is for the benefit of the Papuans themselves. But it's clear that the real benefactors are the large timber and agricultural companies clearing the forests and (in a country where corruption is endemic) government officials as well.
As the name of the tour suggests, it's all about how the few remaining areas of forest have to be protected if we're going to get this climate change thing sorted. Indonesia is already the largest palm oil producer on the planet, and has plans to expand even further which means getting rid of the forests. The country also ranks third in the top greenhouse gas emitters, and that's largely down to deforestation, so you can see the problem.
I'll be posting a few highlights from the trip here, but you can follow the full story on the Forests For Climate blog. I've already had the chance to meet a few Papuans from other environmental and indigenous rights groups, and you can hear interviews with them on the blog. Internet problems permitting, I should be posting most days.
