West

The Orang Rimba lands in the foothills of the Barisan Mountains lie in the western part of Jambi province, which is transected by the Sumatran Highway. The road was built in the early 1980s; it has had a drastic impact on previously remote areas, which were previously inaccessible to developers.

The Orang Rimba’s dilemma is particularly dire in western Jambi, where the forest has been severely depleted. Not only have they lost their forest-fringe agricultural land, but their forest-core homeland as well. As a consequence, many marginalised western Orang Rimba are living in the six transmigration settlements along the highway between the borders of South Sumatra and West Sumatra.