AwarenessBased Systems Change to Address Climate Change

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it was i think it was through this

journey that we finally able to see

really see the people who would

otherwise be labeled as

encroachers in the national park as

actually

you know you might call them forest

dependent communities or you can call

them stewards

of of the earth

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this is work that i do with my current

organization united in diversity

and realizing that i’m giving a voice to

such a vast story that is still

unfolding

i hope this story conveys how sensing

takes away your freedom not to act by

moving

that you know concept of

intersectionality

from uh just a head concept a cognitive

concept

to the heart and and then to your body

into the hands

just a little bit of context um

so we are based out of indonesia i

believe

and i feel it is a very important place

and a nation and people

to our fight against climate change

due to its sheer size of course but also

because of the tremendous amount of

biodiversity that we have

and we share this with 273 million

people

17 million of which are indigenous or

added people

and there are about 568 that we know of

and of course the home to all this is

this irrecoverable carbon

uh that resides in indonesia’s

rainforests peatlands mangroves and

oceans

and so you can imagine the complexity

that arises in such a place

i think a program like what we do on

awareness-based systems change

is critical and timely because we bring

leaders from

across sectors and really highlight that

you know your perspective

can be very different from those across

the system there’s power gap there’s

imbalances

there’s systemic injustice and and by

bringing that

not only in the classroom but also out

outside of the classroom

and also with one another using

a different kind of awareness the

awareness of the earth body and the

social body

and we use that to sense into the

complexity of the relationships of the

actors in the system

including the voiceless stakeholders

the future generations wildlife

and mother earth and our values our

highest future potentials

are all there in the system for us to

sense and feel

into so it was in one of these cohorts

in one of these programs

entered this was in 2015

and he was at the time the person in

charge of managing national parks

across indonesia’s 17 000 islands

and perhaps one question that was

constantly bothering him in that role is

that why do i keep having conflicts with

the people around the national park

in and around the national park and some

of them are indigenous peoples

peoples who we know now are at most

at when stake comes to climate

effect and so um he had some key

questions

and through through the process of

understanding and sensing into this

system deeper

he came up with these questions and i’m

not going to go through each and every

one of them one by one

but i just want to highlight that these

questions

perhaps range from the system symptoms

level

to structures but also to what can i do

and what do i need to change that source

dimension

of change and it is these questions

that he finally brought into the sensing

activities

into one of the national parks that he

managed and this is

national honeymoon it’s one of the

parks on java which is actually the most

densely populated island in the world at

140 million

people on on a piece of land the size of

new york

state and it was

in this national park there’s a group of

indigenous communities

called to call themselves casa puente

taglar almost 600 communities about 8

000

families and sensing is not about

reading reports

you know if you go back to those

questions there are probably

many studies that have been written

about them but it’s not about just

reading reports and studies

it’s about bringing yourself to the

place of most potential

knowing what being there can

teach you when you when you arrive with

an open mind

an open heart and open will and so this

is

i have the honor and the pleasure of

accompanying this sensing journey and we

arrived to a very

festive welcoming party in which he

immediately took part in

we met with the village elder i call him

elder

but he’s actually one of the youngest

his people calls him abba which is uh

the

sundanese forefather and this is his

wife

and and by being there just simply we we

you know these are things that you don’t

experience

by reading reports or looking at your

computer screen

we we know now that they have this um

great big house at the village center

or the village um square if you will

uh and the door is always open always

open for anyone it would be like

a palace but if the palace were open all

the time to everyone that comes

and the kitchen is huge and massive

and the the this uh this wood fire stove

is

always burning always putting out food

for whoever that comes to stop by

and we sat down with the elders and

we learned to listen and this is the

part i think that was

you know you have to come to terms face

to face with the pain and suffering

because um suddenly now we’re hearing

that you know there’s this

ministry and nation state that is about

70

years old imposing uh

imposing laws and outlying people who

have been

in the area for about five or six

hundred years

uh so their oldest oral history dates

back to the year 1368

and and realizing that actually

they when they ask for road it’s

not um to open up more forest

that when they ask for road is because

their women are dying in childbirth all

on the way to the to the healthcare

facility

it’s because their their children don’t

have access to good education

and it is with these understanding

that we then go into their village in

their communities to

learn more about their way of life

the roads are hand built collectively

it’s a very communal society and

everyone has a role

and everything is governed by by a

communal schedule

and we learned about the happiness of

his people

and we learned about their relationship

with rice

rice is sacred and it’s their connection

with the gracefulness with the bounty of

mother earth

and rice is sacred and even though you

have an abundance

you do not sell they only plant six

months out of the year

and they don’t plant twice even though

they could because the soil needs to

rest

and the people need to be with their

family

and every year they have a tradition of

storing their harvest and their

traditional barns every family has one

every village has one and their whole

community has this

central barn in which all of the

rice harvest gets stored into so they

essentially establish the seed bank

and science comes along and say oh

apparently

this area has the highest diversity of

wild type rice 160 varieties that we

know of and counting

we shared meal this is actually the our

second day there was pabambang’s

birthday and we celebrated with abbahan

it was i think it was through this

journey that we

finally able to see really see the

people who would otherwise be labeled as

encroachers in the national park as

actually

you know you might call them forest

dependent communities or you can call

them stewards

of of the earth right because they

inherently know that their lives their

their

their future generations are so

interconnected

with nature and that it’s in their best

interest and the futures generation’s

interest to keep it in good shape

so this is their rice barns and this is

their

rice irrigation system and they know

that

to keep water flowing from the top you

have to keep the mountain tops forested

and they have zonation system that

that’s far more advanced than what we

know about the core

uh the zoning area of national parks so

they know where to put their houses they

know where to put their um rice fields

and and vegetables they designate a

sacred

the lands that are not to be disturbed

for any reason

and which actually leads to a common

understanding

for this person who who um whose role is

to manage national parks

actually has the same goal you know

we’re protecting national parks so that

we have

this piece of land for future

generations to come

and it was this mutual understanding the

shared intention the shared awareness of

a common vision

that allows in witness by the village

elders

on the spot the agreement was reached

and and

actually uh made the gracious promise

and support that

okay we we we realized

where we stand and we need to make room

in a system

for indigenous people for other people

to coexist

and thrive and and that started with for

example

helping to transcribe their customary

laws into

into written laws and providing support

for education and health care

and access to a better more sustainable

livelihoods

and so this five years ago and i think

you know once you see it

sensing allows you to see in a way that

you cannot unsee

and it takes away your freedom not to

act i think that’s probably what

happened to baba mong because we came

back from that trip

and he actually went on

you know over the next five years to one

write the technical guidance

for facilitators under his team to work

with indigenous communities across

the nation on how to work with them so

that they can understand

since the eye-to-eye and give proper

recognition

to the stewards of the lands to manage

their own resources

and determine their own future and

is now the director general of social

forestry and

environmental partnership five years

later and he is now the person in charge

of giving

the recognition to the indigenous

communities that started

from this sensing learning five years

ago

and it is now a ministerial decree the

president of indonesia

i think this was in 2017 perhaps finally

giving recognition and allowing the

freedom of indigenous people to exist

in their land and continue to be

stewards for

future generations not just for their

future generations but for our future

generations

there’s so much more complexity behind

the story even if we did this

all right this is still a drop in the

bucket and there will still

be many many more examples of

complexities that arises out of you know

a huge

massive government system silent working

in silo and so on and so forth but

i think this at least shows one path

that

we can all do of taking ourselves out of

our habitual way of understanding the

world

and with an openness of mind and heart

and will

into places of most potential that

allows us

the courage to lose the freedom not to

act

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