#Tree plantation initiative

[vanamindiafoundation]

HARVESTING HOPE AND THE CONCEPT OF FEED FORWARD AT VANAM INDIA FOUNDATION

Vanam India Foundation, founded in 2015, is an NGO focused on environmental conservation through tree planting, rainwater management, plastic recycling, and organic farming. With over 1,000 members, they inspire sustainable practices and promote eco-friendly actions. Their rainwater initiatives help prevent erosion and recharge groundwater. Vanam also advocates for organic farming and recycling to reduce waste. The foundation’s efforts continue to inspire positive environmental change and a greener future.

To know more : https://vanamindiafoundation.org/27/blog_detail

[townpostin]

Jamshedpur District Administration Prepares for Smooth Durga Puja Celebrations

Jamshedpur administration and Durga Puja committees focus on resolving issues ahead of the festival, ensuring a seamless experience for devotees. Efforts are underway in Jamshedpur to address potential challenges and ensure that Durga Puja is celebrated without any disruptions this year. JAMSHEDPUR – Deputy Commissioner Ananya Mittal emphasized the need for the district administration and Durga…

[algoworks]

🌱 Embracing Growth: Algoworks kicks off 2024 with 'The Plantation Drive,' our inaugural Corporate Social Responsibility initiative.

Together, let's sow the seeds of a sustainable future and nurture our planet for generations to come.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Activists and scientists have been warning for years that schemes to offset carbon emissions by planting trees or other crops would lead to a surge in land grabbing, especially in the global South. These warnings are now proving true. GRAIN combed through the various registries of carbon offset projects to try and get a better sense of this new land grab and how it is unfolding. We identified 279 large-scale tree and crop planting projects for carbon credits that corporations have initiated since 2016 in the global South. They cover over 9.1 million hectares of land -- an area roughly the size of Portugal. The deals add up to a massive new form of land grabbing that will only increase conflicts and pressures over land that are still simmering from the last global land grab spree that erupted in 2007-8 in the wake of global food and financial crises. They also signify that new sources of money are now flowing into the coffers of companies specialised in taking lands from communities in the South to enrich and serve corporations, mainly in the North. To date, 52 countries in the global South have been targeted by these projects. Half the projects are in just four countries: China, India, Brazil and Colombia, which are developing their own industries of carbon project developers. But projects in these countries account for less than a third of the total land area involved. The most affected region, in terms of land area, is Africa, with projects covering over 5.2 million hectares. Many of the projects involve land deals to set up giant eucalyptus, acacia or bamboo plantations. Typically, these are pasture lands or savannahs that were used until now by local communities for grazing livestock or growing food.

17 September 2024

[fatehbaz]

The [...] British quest for Tahitian breadfruit and the subsequent mutiny on the Bounty have produced a remarkable narrative legacy [...]. William Bligh’s first attempt to transport the Tahitian breadfruit [from the South Pacific] to the Caribbean slave colonies in 1789 resulted in a well-known mutiny orchestrated by his first mate [...]. [T]he British government [...] successfully transplanted the tree to their slave colonies four years later. [...] [There was a] colonial mania for [...] the breadfruit, [...] [marked by] the British determination to transplant over three thousand of these Tahitian food trees to the Caribbean plantations to "feed the slaves." [...]

Tracing the routes of the breadfruit from the Pacific to the Caribbean, [...] [shows] an effort initiated, coordinated, and financially compensated by Caribbean slave owners [...]. [During] decades worth of lobbying from the West Indian planters for this specific starchy fruit [...] planters [wanted] to avert a growing critique of slavery through a "benevolent" and "humanitarian" use of colonial science [...]. The era of the breadfruit’s transplantation was marked by a number of revolutions in agriculture (the sugar revolution), ideology (the humanitarian revolution), and anticolonialism (the [...] Haitian revolutions) [as well as the American and French revolutions]. [...] By the end of Joseph Banks’ tenure [as a botanist and de facto leader] at the Kew Botanical Gardens [royal gardens in London] (1821), he had personally supervised the introduction of over 7,000 new food and economic plants. [...] Banks produced an idyllic image of the breadfruit [...] [when he had personally visited Tahiti while acting as lead naturalist on Captain James Cook's earlier voyage] in 1769 [...].

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[I]n the wake of multiple revolutions [...], [breadfruit] was also seen as a panacea for a Caribbean plantation context in which slave, maroon, and indigenous insurrections and revolts in St Vincent and Jamaica were creating considerable anxiety for British planters. [...]

Interestingly, the two islands that were characterized by ongoing revolt were repeatedly solicited as the primary sites of the royal botanical gardens [...]. In 1772, when St Vincentian planters first started lobbying Joseph Banks for the breadfruit, the British militia was engaged in lengthy battle with the island’s Caribs. [...] By 1776, months after one of the largest slave revolts recorded in Jamaica, the Royal Society [administered by Joseph Banks, its president] offered a bounty of 50 pounds sterling to anyone who would transfer the breadfruit to the West Indies. [...] [A]nd planters wrote fearfully that if they were not able to supply food, the slaves would “cut their throats.” It’s widely documented that of all the plantation Americas, Jamaica experienced the most extensive slave revolts [...]. An extensive militia had to be imported and the ports were closed. [...]

By seeking to maintain the plantation hierarchy by importing one tree for the diet of slaves, Caribbean planters sought to delay the swelling tide of revolution that would transform Saint Domingue [Haiti] in the next few years. Like the Royal Society of Science and Arts of Cap François on the eve the Haitian revolution, colonists mistakenly felt they could solve the “political equation of the revolution […] with rational, scientific inquiry.” [...]

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When the trees arrived in Jamaica in 1793, the local paper reported almost gleefully that “in less than 20 years, the chief article of sustenance for our negroes will be entirely changed.” […] One the one hand, the transplantation of breadfruit represented the planters’ attempt to adopt a “humanitarian” defense against the growing tide of abolitionist and slave revolt. In an age of revolution, [they wanted to appear] to provide bread (and “bread kind”) [...]. This was a point not to be missed by the coordinator of the transplantation, Sir Joseph Banks. In a letter written while the Bounty was being fitted for its initial journey, he summarized how the empire would benefit from new circuits of botanical exchange:

Ceres was deified for introducing wheat among a barbarous people. Surely, then, the natives of the two Great Continents, who, in the prosecution of this excellent work, will mutually receive from each other numerous products of the earth as valuable as wheat, will look up with veneration the monarch […] & the minister who carried into execution, a plan [of such] benefits.

Like giving bread to the poor, Banks articulated this intertropical trade in terms of “exalted benevolence,” an opportunity to facilitate exchange between the peoples of the global south that placed them in subservience to a deified colonial center of global power. […]

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Bligh had no direct participation in the [slave] trade, but his uncle, Duncan Campbell (who helped commission the breadfruit journey), was a Jamaican plantation owner and had employed Bligh on multiple merchant ships in the Caribbean. Campbell was also deeply involved, with Joseph Banks, in transporting British convicts to the colonies of Australia. In fact Banks’ original plan for the breadfruit voyage was to drop off convicts in (the significantly named) Botany Bay, and then proceed to Tahiti for the breadfruit. Campbell owned a series of politically untenable prison hulks on the Thames which he emptied by shipping his human chattel to the Pacific. Banks helped coordinate these early settlements [...] to encourage white Australian domesticization.

The commodification and rationalist dispersal of plants and human convicts, slaves, the impoverished, women, and other unwilling participants in global transplantation is a rarely told narrative root of colonial “Bounty.”

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All text above: Elizabeth DeLoughrey. “Globalizing the Routes of Breadfruit and Other Bounties”. Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History Volume 8, Number 3, Winter 2007. DOI at: doi dot org slash 10.1353/cch.2008.0003 [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Brazil faces moniliasis outbreak in commercial cocoa production

A case in Urucurituba (AM) marks the first occurrence in non-domestic crops

Thursday (5), the Ministry of Agriculture confirmed Brazil’s first moniliasis outbreak—a disease that decimated cocoa plantations in Ecuador and Peru—in a commercial production area. The outbreak, located in the municipality of Urucurituba, Amazonas, has been controlled, according to the Ministry.

While the outbreak in Urucurituba was initially reported in June 2024, the Ministry had not previously disclosed that it involved commercial cocoa production. According to Sivandro Campos, Plant Defense Manager at the Amazonas Agricultural and Forestry Defense Agency (ADAF/AM), the recent measures targeted this same outbreak. The region borders Pará, one of Brazil’s largest cocoa-producing states, alongside Bahia.

The Ministry outlined the control operation, which included crown reduction, fruit removal, and urea application to infected trees. Surveys were also conducted across nine municipalities near the Amazonas-Pará border to map the pest’s extent.

Moniliasis, caused by the fungus Moniliophthora roreri, poses a significant threat as its spores can remain active for months. Unlike witches’ broom, which devastated Brazil’s cacao production in the 1980s by targeting only young fruit, moniliasis attacks cacao and cupuaçu trees at any growth stage, greatly increasing its destructive potential.

Continue reading.

[marpufoundationblogs]

Why Marpu Foundation is a Leader in CSR Excellence

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has become a cornerstone of ethical business practices, and few organizations embody its principles as profoundly as the Marpu Foundation. With a relentless commitment to community upliftment, sustainability, and social impact, Marpu Foundation has set a benchmark for CSR excellence. Here’s why Marpu Foundation stands out as a leader in the field.

A Legacy of Social Impact

Marpu Foundation has consistently initiated and executed projects that address pressing social issues. From environmental conservation to education, healthcare, and poverty alleviation, their efforts span multiple sectors, making a tangible difference in communities across the country.

Education for All: Bridging the Literacy Gap

One of the foundation’s most remarkable contributions is in the field of education. Through scholarship programs, digital literacy drives, and school infrastructure development, Marpu Foundation has empowered thousands of underprivileged children with quality education. Their “Smart Classrooms” initiative has transformed traditional learning environments, making education more engaging and accessible.

Sustainability and Environmental Stewardship

Environmental sustainability is a core pillar of Marpu Foundation’s CSR strategy. Their large-scale tree plantation drives, water conservation projects, and waste management campaigns have helped restore ecological balance in numerous communities. By promoting sustainable practices, they encourage corporate and individual responsibility toward the environment.

Healthcare Initiatives: Accessible and Affordable Medical Care

Marpu Foundation’s healthcare initiatives have been instrumental in improving public health. Free medical camps, vaccination drives, and partnerships with local healthcare providers ensure that marginalized communities receive the medical attention they need. Their recent project, ‘Healthy Smiles,’ has provided dental care to over 10,000 children in rural areas.

Women Empowerment and Skill Development

Marpu Foundation actively supports women empowerment through skill development programs. By providing vocational training, micro-financing opportunities, and entrepreneurship workshops, they have enabled countless women to achieve financial independence and self-sufficiency.

Recognitions and Partnerships

The impact of Marpu Foundation’s work has not gone unnoticed. They have received numerous awards for their CSR initiatives and have established collaborations with major corporations, NGOs, and government bodies to scale their efforts. Their ability to forge meaningful partnerships amplifies their social impact and reinforces their position as a leader in CSR excellence.

Final Thoughts

Marpu Foundation exemplifies what it means to be a socially responsible organization. Their unwavering dedication to societal welfare, innovative solutions, and impactful projects make them a true leader in CSR excellence. As businesses and individuals look for inspiration in the world of corporate social responsibility, Marpu Foundation stands as a beacon of change.

[female-malice]

Mark Wootton and his wife, Eve Kantor, were the carbon-neutral pioneers of Australia’s red meat industry.

Years before the Paris agreement to keep global heating below 1.5C, and a decade before the Australian government committed to reaching net zero emissions, their family farm in south-western Victoria was declared carbon-neutral.

“In the early 2010s we were pretty cocky that we had conquered this thing,” Wootton says. “We thought we’d cracked the formula.”

Jigsaw Farms, a mosaic of lush pastures, eucalypt plantations, wildlife corridors and wetlands about 250km west of Melbourne, near the town of Hamilton, was the envy of the industry. It was lionised by the media, a favoured photo opportunity by politicians and held up by the red meat sector as a vision of the future.

The farm’s carbon-rich soils, 20% of which were forested, sequestered enough CO2 to offset its annual emissions from wool, lamb and beef production.

Or at least it did. The latest report tracking Jigsaw’s emissions, which is now undergoing peer review, confirmed that since about 2017 – the same year the industry body Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) announced a target of net zero emissions by 2030 – Jigsaw Farms has been emitting more greenhouse gases than it could sequester.

“Cows and sheep are still there producing the same amount of methane [every year], but the trees grow up and carbon sequestration slows down,” says the report author, Prof Richard Eckard.

Eckard is an agricultural economist and the director of the school of agriculture, food and ecosystem sciences at the University of Melbourne. He became involved in measuring Jigsaw’s emissions a decade ago.

The 3,378-hectare farm spans six titles, bought by Wootton and Kantor between 1996 and 2003. Hardwood timber plantations cover 295 hectares, 24 hectares is remnant forest and a further 268 hectares are set aside for biodiversity. It hosts a fine wool merino operation with about 20,000 ewes, and 550 head of cattle.

Initially, the hundreds and thousands of trees they planted, combined with a switch to perennial grasses, significantly increased the amount of carbon sequestered on the property.

But those trees have now matured and passed peak sequestration, meaning they absorb less C02 year-on-year, and the soil is so carbon rich it can’t sequester any additional C02 from the atmosphere.

“Ten years later it all slows down because carbon saturation,” Eckard says. “It’s just the law of diminishing returns.”

The latest Jigsaw study estimated that in 2021, the farm sequestered 70.3% to 83.2% of its annual emissions. By 2031, as the farm’s forests grow older, models predict it will absorb just over half of what it did when carbon sequestration peaked in 2012.

The dilemma Jigsaw now faces reflects the broader challenge of decarbonising Australia’s red meat industry, Eckard says.

The industry claims it has reduced its emissions by 65% compared with 2005 levels, but this reduction relies on recorded decreases in deforestation and increases in forest regrowth, which some analysis suggests is overstated.

“Carbon sequestration through forestry is a short-term buy out of trouble,” Eckard says. “You can plant your way out of trouble and, like Jigsaw, get seven years of net zero, but ultimately, unless you do something about the methane, you’re not going to stay net zero.”

Climate neutrality v the ‘seaweed solution’

Other efforts to reduce the industry’s carbon footprint have focused on attempting to reduce the amount of methane expelled from the rumen, which accounts for 80% of the sector’s emissions. MLA has put more than $180m towards the problem, with no solution forthcoming. The results from the longest running commercial trial of a seaweed cow-feed, which aimed to cut methane by more than 80%, were lacklustre.

Selective breeding and dietary changes can help, says Eckard, but it’s slow going.

“It took the animal 50m years to evolve to produce meat and eat grass the way it does,” he says. “That can’t be overcome in three-year funding rounds.”

But he says that if producers adopt current best practices that will reduce their emissions intensity per kilogram of meat produced while research finds the “seaweed solution”.

On Jigsaw Farms, high reproductive rates, fast-growing livestock due to genetic selection and ample feed, and grazing stock at double the density of other farms in the district helps reduce the emissions that go into producing each animal.

“If that lamb or calf grows faster, so it gets to market quicker, so it grows faster, so, to be brutal, it can die and be eaten – your carbon intensity is dropping,” Wootton says.

This allows Jigsaw to sell its wool, lamb and beef at a premium in a market that is increasingly looking for farmers who can demonstrate strong environmental credentials.

This is particularly important for the export-focused Australian market, Eckard says. Seventy per cent of Australian-grown beef is sold into global supply chains ruled by international corporations, all of whom have net zero targets.

That’s the impetus behind the MLA’s “world leading” net zero target. This month Guardian Australia reported that the industry body described the target as “aligning the industry” towards improvement and said it did not need to be met, though it remains committed to the goal. Environmental scientists say reporting on the goal is based on unreliable land clearing data.

David Jochinke, the president of the National Farmers Federation, says the target is about the “aspiration” towards decarbonisation.

“We’ve always said at the NFF, we’re not going to reduce production in an attempt to get to net zero,” he says. “Will we make it? I’m not really sure, but we are going to give it a red hot go.”

A 2023 CSIRO report found the industry would fall short of the net zero goal and recommended a “climate-neutral” target be adopted instead, which would theoretically be achieved by reaching a point where the sector no longer causes any additional warming to the planet.

Australia’s peak cattle body, Cattle Australia, has also called for a shift to climate neutrality. But both Eckard and Wootton say the industry shouldn’t change course.

“I fear that if the industry fiddled with the metric what they would be effectively saying is ‘methane is no longer an issue so we don’t have to worry about it’,” Eckard says.

The director of the Australian National University Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions, Mark Howden, says that unachievable or “false [climate] targets” are ineffective and can alienate both industries and the public.

He says the red meat sector’s goal is “in a sense the wrong target”. “We do need to go net zero in terms of C02, but in the case of methane we need to reduce it by about two-thirds in the long term to effectively meet the Paris agreement,” he says.

Wootton says the benefits of their regenerative approach to farming persist even if the farm’s carbon accounts are now in the red.

They did not initially set out to be carbon-neutral. The timber plantations were established on Jigsaw Farms to offer an alternative source of income. They planted permanent native vegetation to encourage biodiversity and shelter belts to protect livestock, and dug deep dams so they would always have a secure water supply.

A bird survey in 1996 found 46 bird species on the land. Today, there are 174. The land is healthier – that is, ironically, why carbon sequestration has stabilised.

“People come to us and go, shit, if they can’t go carbon-neutral, what does that mean for us,” Wootton says.

“It means you’ll have to do some of what we’ve done, do things differently from what we’ve done, and do some other things that we don’t even know we can do yet.

“There’s no silver bullet here, but there’s some silver buckshot, hopefully.”

[vanamindiafoundation]

Vanam India Foundation, established in 2015, is a Tamil Nadu-based NGO focused on environmental conservation. With a team of over 1,000 trustees, it aims to combat global warming and climate change by promoting tree planting and increasing green cover. The foundation has planted over 7.5 lakh trees across government and private lands, ensuring proper growth through periodic care. Vanam promotes organic farming, water management, and sustainable practices. Its flagship project, Vanalayam, is a 18-acre eco-park in Palladam that educates the public about nature conservation. The organization also conducts seminars and collaborates with various institutions to further its mission. To know more : https://vanamindiafoundation.org/

[tracksterman]

It's two years since, poking round in plantation woodland on the tops above Calderdale, I stumbled on drifts of litter and unsightly wooden constructions. It kicked off a protracted series of walk-ins to clear out both the initial find - and the escalating mountain of trash that I uncovered as I moved deeper into the trees.

The abandoned tents:

The multiple 90l rucsacs full of bagged up detritus dumped in furrows between the pines:

The chaotic junk left behind by 'wild campers' or the homeless:

And the sporadic, random fires started on bare patches of forest floor, with associated litter:

I think there have been multiple sources for this stuff over a period of time: Covid-era party wankers, the homeless, the clueless, estate/forestry workers, the people who walk by tutting but not doing anything about it. Anyway, it's now done and seems broadly under control. I left just one artifact in place: the firepit next to the log construction that kicked off the project, hoping it'd contain and localise antisocial activity - which I think has been at least partially successful.

[townpostin]

Army Camp Goes Green: Major Plantation Drive in Sonari

BJP leader Shiv Shankar Singh leads environmental initiative with army personnel A significant plantation drive at Sonari’s Army Camp marks a step forward in local environmental conservation efforts. JAMSHEDPUR – Shiv Shankar Singh, an emerging leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Thursday led a significant tree-planting initiative at the Army Camp in Sonari to encourage environmental…

[cognitivejustice]

“There is no good restoration if we neglect the role of local communities,” he said. “For this reason, we worked very hard on the ground to synergize in developing business models. We cannot restore the peatlands if we don’t improve the livelihoods of the people.”

The project employed ‘Augmented PAR’ methods that involved phases of reflection, planning, action, and monitoring. “As it is action research, we do not only give recommendations but we give results that can be used for evidence-based policies,” said Purnomo. The process showed the value of PAR for cost-efficient restoration and impact monitoring.

“We hope this research leads to digital transformation for scientists as well as communities at the grassroots, and can be used to build business models together.”

Within the project, she noted, possibilities arose for building businesses in peatland areas, fisheries, plantations, and eco-tourism, but their development requires more research.

CIFOR-ICRAF senior research officer Beni Okarda said that the research contributed towards enhancing community-based restoration monitoring systems, whereby communities were encouraged to participate in compiling data by monitoring peatland water levels and tree cover – including through setting up groundwater monitoring points, and preparing and installing dip-wells and subsidence poles.

“The most important thing is to nurture more bottom-up initiatives,”

[aahwahan]

Growing Green: Aahwahan Foundation's Tree Plantation Initiative

Join us as we embark on a journey to make our planet greener and healthier! Aahwahan Foundation is proud to launch its tree plantation initiative, aimed at fostering environmental sustainability and combatting climate change. Through collaborative efforts and community engagement, we aspire to plant thousands of trees, creating lush green spaces and promoting biodiversity. Together, let's sow the seeds of a brighter, greener future for generations to come. Join hands with Aahwahan Foundation and be a part of the movement towards a more sustainable world.

[fatehbaz]

[A] team of technicians [is] working under sub-contracts for the National Mapping Agency [of Indonesia] to draw squares and rectangles around vast swaths of building and property across the archipelago. [...] [They] draw a perimeter [...] on the island of Kalimantan, a region that has witnessed the world's fastest forest clearing rates since 2012, as the oil palm [plantation] sector has expanded across rural Indonesia. [...] Even if state agency scientists demand that every building is drawn, his supervisors are afraid that the technicians will interpret too much. [...] [Bureaucrats] shrugged [...], reasoning that maps are crucial for Indonesia’s “pembangunan” (development), an ever-shifting ideology that has haunted the nation since [...] the 1950s. [...]

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The contract employing the technicians stemmed from an incident in December 2010, when former Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono compared two conflicting maps of Papua Island. The two forest maps, one published by the Ministry of Forestry and the other by the Ministry of Environment, were presented in a cabinet meeting regarding [...] nationwide [...] plantation permits in primary forests. Each map showed primary forests of different sizes and boundaries. [...] A scandal broke out, with environmentalists claiming that these discrepancies are an example of how corrupt officials manipulate maps and issue plantation permits on protected forest land. Earlier in 1998, Indonesia’s timber and oil palm industry became increasingly decentralized and privatized. [...] Under a 2016 Presidential Decree, Indonesia’s National Mapping Agency [...] accelerate[d] the remapping of Indonesia’s 18,309 islands. [...] The base map [...] [is] conventionally understood as a “ground truth” to physical reality [...].

Yet, senior bureaucrats of the National Mapping Agency have always been aware that maps could never represent the real world. The agency’s Deputy Director recently stated to the Indonesian press that data on palm oil plantation ownership is “secret.”

Herein lies a tension between desires to conceal deforestation and the official appearance of attempts to reveal what’s happening on the ground. The accuracy of forest maps [...] [and a] map’s legibility can also be understood as part of a measured and managed public revelation and the concurrent concealment of information, narratives, and images of the trees that still stand. [...]

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[S]ocial orders are based on "public secrets": forms of knowledge that are generally known insofar as they must not be overtly acknowledged. Simply put, one has to know what not to know.

Public life, its discourse, and practice, then, depend upon the management of transgression.

In Indonesia, it was understood that forest maps contained inaccuracies. From the fixed borders that enabled industrial plantation expansion to the inconsistent mapping standards, state maps were dissimilar all the way down. [...]

The pursuit of different versions of correspondence between territory and map segregates who gets to see and who gets to know what makes a forest. [...]

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Bureaucrats have advanced data science projects to automate the delineation of forest borders, to know the forest in precise ways that crowd out what for others is actually there. [...] [Previously, technicians] had spent hours determining what pixel makes the cut. Perhaps drawing in this green pixel matches the vegetation nearby; perhaps adding a brown pixel grants more property for the house owner. The blur in the images makes for a deliberation that also implicates his wrists and fingers that grow sore from his tactful eyes. [...] Indeed, “there are no straight lines” on the edges of Kalimantan’s forest; someone feels these borders into vision. [...]

Data science initiatives, on the other hand, draw borders without explanation to remove this interpretive labor. [This process maps land by taking satellite photos, and then letting the automated model predict the extent of forest, removing the human interpretation and confirmation.] [...] Points are converted into labeled pixels and fed into models that in turn label points anew: points feed points. Unlike the field survey, with data science, ground truth is found within the image, not in the forest.

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Indonesia’s forests are seen and known by different techniques. [...] Yet in keeping with the public secret of how forests are seen and governed by the state, each of these techniques also cultivates a willful not knowing.

Against the backdrop of the decades-long expropriation of indigenous land by patronage networks between timber and palm oil firms and central and district officials, broader shifts to institute efficiency and automation in mapping enable bureaucrats to relinquish their knowledge of such inconvenient truths. These technical initiatives recast the mapping of Indonesia as a preemptive activity [...]. The task of knowing what not to know emerges not only from the discursive theater of public human affairs, but out of the contest between the design and deployment of various mapping systems [...].

Is it possible to capture the world without seeing it? Or, who’s watching when a tree falls? Perhaps it doesn’t matter who, but how that watching is designed into a system that preempts a forest [...].

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Text by: Cindy Lin. "How to Make a Forest". e-flux Architecture (At the Border series). April 2020. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]