May 5, 2015 edition
AN aerial shot of Bukit Sebayan, a fertile zone of green hills in the Tayan community forest area of West Kalimantan, can be seen on a laptop. Pius, who is the chief of Sejotang village, in the Tayan Hilir subdistrict, is in a hurry to finish mapping the customary land. "From 300 hectares, 100 have already been partitioned," he told Tempo three weeks ago.
According to the 35-year-old man, finishing the mapping is an urgent matter: Large swaths of forest are being handed out to palm oil companies and miners, and rampant bauxite mining has turned the lake into a veritable wasteland.
Read More
More Outreach articles in other editions
April 28, 2015 edition
April 21, 2015 edition
Akriani, a resident of the Graha Lasinrang complex in South Sulawesi's Inrang regency, used to spend Rp400,000 a month on electricityRp200,000 just to operate her water pump. "Now, I only need to pay my loan installment of Rp110,000 to the local state drinking water company, PDAM, plus a usage fee of Rp25,000," explained the civil servant from Duampanua subdistrict.
Akriani is one of hundreds participating in a micro-credit water-connection scheme run by the Serba Usaha (KSU) Denas 66 Cooperative. In addition to reducing her electricity bills, she no longer runs out of water when the power gets shut off. "When the developer of my housing complex explained all this, I immediately signed up," she said.
Read More
April 14, 2015 edition
April 7, 2015 edition
It was already late at night when Tempo arrived at Martinus's residence in Flores Island community of Rampasasa. Under the dim light of a solar-powered LED lamp, Petrus Antas, a tua tenoa Manggarai vernacular for a customary leaderexplained the poor living conditions of the indigenous Rampasasa pygmies. He sat surrounded by hamlet residents.
Having no ID cards, the residents do not have access to government aid programs like the People's Health Guarantee, or People's Temporary Direct Aid (BLSM). The hamlet is not reachable by public vehicles. The state electricity company PLN has promised to link the community to the electricity grid by 2014 but a year later, "nothing has happened," said Martinus as he pulled down the lamp cord to make the light brighter. But due to the many hours of cloudy skies the February day that Tempo visited, little solar energy was stored, and therefore the lamps dimmed again. Antas is the father of Rampasasa hamlet head, Martinus.
Read More
January 1, 1970 edition
January 1, 1970 edition