Papuan villagers in remote forest communities have recorded their experiences of illegal logging for the first time with the help of digital technology.
A series of short films produced by villagers in the Indonesian province were shown in Jakarta and London on November 28.
They decided to make the films because their communities were almost inaccessible to outsiders and closed to journalists. Training was provided by London-based NGO the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) in partnership with Jakarta-based NGO Telapak.
Four films were shot in the “Bird’s Head” region of West Papua, with some of the film-makers’ identities masked for security reasons.
“These people have worked extremely hard to bring these films together, sometimes at great personal risk,” said EIA project worker Paul Redman. “For example, one film-maker waited for four days in the forest to get footage of illegal loggers.
“Logging is a multi-million pound industry which impacts upon where they live.”
