Patrick Anderson

Patrick was a strategic advisor to WALHI, Indonesia’s premier environmental lobby group, when the film was made. He continues to live and work and Indonesia and is assisting Indonesian groups to make sure that REDD schemes, whether based on carbon trading or funds, respect indigenous peoples’ rights. Based in Jakarta with his Indonesian wife, Avi, and two young daughters, Patrick has been committed to forest protection for three decades. The couple have a special interest in the land rights of Indonesia’s Indigenous people, such as the Orang Rimba, who live in or beside the forests.

Patrick explains, “One of the crises in Indonesia from a human rights or a poverty perspective is that tens of millions of Indonesians are effectively indigenous peoples. They have their own language, culture, their own ties to the land, their own systems of governance, traditions and laws, customs and forest management. And although their rights exist in Indonesian law, they don’t exist in practice… Ideally, any deal on carbon would provide support to their rights. Without the government recognizing those communities having rights, it’s hard to see that those funds – any carbon funds – could help at the bottom... but we can try.”

The fires also have personal consequences for Patrick: his wife Avi and Aruna, the elder of his two daughters, suffer from asthma. The air pollution from last year’s fires made Aruna very sick. She already knows that we need the forests “for oxygen so we can breathe.”