In Damaran Baru, Aceh, women patrol the forest each month with GPS devices, maps, and notebooks. They check tree cover, record plants, look for wildlife signs, work with farmers to replant trees, and report suspected violations.
Their first official patrol took place in January 2020. The Associated Press later reported that deforestation had dropped sharply after several years of patrols, although it did not give a figure.
These women don’t simply assist with a conservation project. They lead the patrols themselves.
Farwiza Farhan supports this work through HAkA, the Aceh-based organization she co-founded. HAkA helped the group obtain a social-forestry permit and trained prospective rangers in map reading, GPS use, wildlife signs, and shared forest-monitoring methods.
It’s a clear example of community-led conservation in Aceh: people who live alongside a forest helping to monitor it, care for it, and speak up when it’s under pressure.
Who is Farwiza Farhan?
Farwiza Farhan is an Aceh-born Indonesian environmental activist and forest conservationist. She is the co-founder and current chairperson of Yayasan Hutan, Alam dan Lingkungan Aceh, known as HAkA or the Forest, Nature and Environment Aceh Foundation.
Her work is closely tied to the Leuser Ecosystem, one of Sumatra’s largest remaining forest landscapes. After earning a master’s degree in environmental management, Farhan returned to Indonesia and worked with the Leuser Ecosystem Management Authority. When that authority was abolished in 2013, she helped found HAkA.
Today, HAkA’s stated approach includes community support, land-use monitoring, public campaigns, and policy and legal advocacy. The organization also uses satellite images and drones to monitor forests.
Farhan’s work brings together two kinds of knowledge. Maps and satellite images can show where forest cover is changing. People who know the forest can help explain what those changes mean for water, farms, wildlife, and daily life.
Why community forest protection matters in Aceh
Forests are more than wildlife habitats. For nearby communities, they can affect water supplies, farming, food, safety, culture, and income.
When a forest is cleared or divided into smaller pieces, the effects can reach beyond the area that was cut. Water flows may change, wildlife may lose connected habitat, and communities may feel the impacts in their fields and villages.
That’s why community forest protection involves rights as well as skills.
In Damaran Baru, the social-forestry permit gave the community a formal role in caring for its forest. Training helped patrol members turn what they saw on the ground into records that could be shared with authorities and other decision-makers.
The patrol members’ work includes:
- checking tree cover and forest conditions;
- recording plants and signs of wildlife;
- spotting possible threats;
- working with farmers to replant trees; and
- reporting concerns through official channels.
This approach won’t work in exactly the same way everywhere. Communities face different laws, land pressures, resources, and relationships with government agencies. Damaran Baru does show what can happen when local people have both the right to participate and the tools to act.
From local patrols to Leuser Ecosystem conservation
The Leuser Ecosystem stretches across Aceh and North Sumatra. It includes lowland rainforest, peat swamp, mountain forest, rivers, and other habitats. The landscape supports Sumatran orangutans, elephants, tigers, and rhinos, as well as communities whose water, livelihoods, and safety are linked to healthy forests and watersheds.
The wider Leuser Ecosystem isn’t itself one UNESCO World Heritage Site. Gunung Leuser National Park is one of three national-park components of the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra World Heritage property. The other two are Kerinci Seblat National Park and Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park.
That World Heritage property has been on UNESCO’s List of World Heritage in Danger since 2011. In 2025, UNESCO said forest loss inside the property was continuing faster than restoration work and raised ongoing concerns about roads and development pressure.
This is why Leuser Ecosystem conservation can’t rely only on patrols. A community may notice a new clearing, a damaged riverbank, or a change in wildlife activity. Larger threats, however, can come from decisions about roads, plantations, mines, or energy projects made far from the villages affected by them.
That’s where environmental advocacy in Indonesia becomes part of practical conservation. HAkA says it uses field reports, maps, satellite images, drone monitoring, and public communication to examine land-use decisions and make community concerns visible where decisions are made.
What the Tampur-I case shows about collective advocacy
The proposed Tampur-I hydropower project shows why forest protection sometimes moves from the field to the courts.
UNESCO records that the project’s forest-area borrow-use permit covered about 4,407 hectares. The Banda Aceh Administrative Court annulled the permit on August 19, 2019. The Medan High Administrative Court issued a further ruling on January 7, 2020, followed by Indonesia’s Supreme Court on July 28, 2020.
Farhan and HAkA were part of wider civil-society advocacy around the proposed project. The result wasn’t a one-person or one-organization victory; it came through court decisions and the efforts of many concerned groups and citizens.
In 2025, UNESCO reported that proposed hydropower and mining projects near the Gunung Leuser National Park component had not been implemented. That doesn’t mean the wider Leuser landscape is free from development pressure. It does show why public-interest advocacy matters: communities can document what’s happening, while advocates can bring that evidence into public decisions, policy discussions, and legal cases.
Recognition and the next phase of the work
Farhan received a Whitley Award in 2016 and UCLA’s Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award in 2021. In 2024, she received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership for her community-driven conservation leadership in the Leuser Ecosystem.
On April 29, 2026, the Whitley Fund for Nature presented the Whitley Gold Award to Farhan and HAkA.
The award supports a planned watershed-protection initiative in the Tamiang and Jambo Aye catchments. The proposed work includes satellite and drone monitoring, evidence for policy decisions, and community stewardship. It represents support for future work, not proof of results already delivered.
A model of support, not a lone-hero story
The women of Damaran Baru lead their own monitoring work. HAkA supported the permit process, ranger training, and wider advocacy that can help community knowledge carry weight beyond the forest.
Farhan’s leadership is best understood in that wider context. She has helped connect local knowledge, technical evidence, and a stronger voice in decisions affecting forests.
Patrols, protected areas, and awards don’t remove every threat. They can help communities build the skills, relationships, and confidence needed to respond over time. That idea sits at the heart of community-led environmental conservation. Readers who want to help can also volunteer for environmental conservation in their own communities.
Frequently asked questions
What does a social-forestry permit mean for a community?
In Damaran Baru, the permit gave the community a formal role in caring for its forest. That legal standing worked alongside ranger training and regular patrols, allowing residents to document conditions and raise concerns through recognized channels.
Why combine local knowledge with GPS and satellite monitoring?
Technical tools can show where forest cover is changing, while residents can interpret what those changes mean on the ground. Together, they can provide stronger evidence about wildlife, water, farms, and land-use pressures.
What does the 2026 Whitley Gold Award support?
The award supports planned watershed-protection work by Farhan and HAkA in the Tamiang and Jambo Aye catchments. The initiative includes satellite and drone monitoring, policy evidence, and community stewardship. It shouldn’t be described as completed conservation impact.
