A patrol team documents an illegal logging operation in a village forest. Habitat protection and community empowerment are both crucial parts of orangutan conservation. Conservationists often seek to combine both through Indonesia’s social forestry program, which lets communities sustainably manage state forest. To succeed, such ‘village forests’ require collaborations between many different parties. In this image, the community’s forest management team joined forces with staff from a conservation NGO, a national park ranger, and an official from the forestry service. Photographs and GPS tracks, as well as written documentation, form evidence that forest protection is actively happening. Documents such as these have been instrumental in enabling this village forest to get a new funding agreement. However, recent instances of forest clearing point to the continuing challenges facing village forest projects, particularly those relating to lack of information, involvement or agreement among other villagers.
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