[PRESS RELEASE] Kalimantan Climate Strike September 20-27 2019

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Palangkaraya, October 9 2019. Climate Strike is a global movement to demand climate justice - Millions of young people take the streets and "skip school" because we are aware that the climate crisis needs to be taken seriously by the world's leaders. Students who are supposed to be in class are willing to sacrifice their time to voice this issue, why don't leaders who have the authority and power also address the climate crisis as an urgent matter that needs to be solved immediately?

Kalimantan Climate Strike [Palangkaraya] youngest participant is a 7 year old Noor Anisah, her poster says “Icah doesn’t want forest being burned”

Kalimantan Climate Strike 20-27 September 2019. EIGHT days of strike for climate to voice the emergency crisis of smoke haze and forest fires in Kalimantan. All provinces of Kalimantan is being burned, giving a total of 30,000 hotspots for the whole island as of September 2019. All experienced the same hardship due to the haze. Within 8 days of the Kalimantan Climate Strike, 319 young people in Palangkaraya, Ketapang, and Pontianak united to voice Climate Justice for Kalimantan: End the 22 years of Borneo Forest Fire now!

Sakolah Adat Arus Kualant (an indigenous-knowledge-based customary school) student striking in Dayak attire.

In Ketapang, a village in West Kalimantan (September 21), as many as 28 students from the Sakolah Adat Arus Kualant went to the streets carrying their posters. These children are the guards of indigenous traditions and wisdom of Dayak, they stood by the streets wearing complete Dayak traditional clothing. In Sakolah Adat, these children studies about protecting the forest from a very young age for the source of life that is in it. They understand that the forest is to be protected not destroyed. "Save our planet, our home is on fire!" their message to the whole world. Coordinator: Plorentina Dessy.

The youths of Pontianak striking in the midst of thick haze.

In Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan (22 September), 46 Kalimantan youths marched with mask and posters as attributes. After a long march from the STAKATN Campus to the Digulist Monument, they continued with silent action in front of people passing by without wearing any masks. The haze situation in Pontianak is also horrible, even one strike participant fell unconscious during the march. After the situation got better, our friends from MaskerForUnity group distributed free masks to the people on the streets. Coordinator: Timotius Petrus.

Kalimantan Climate Strike [Palangkaraya] Day 1

In Palangkaraya, the capital of Central Kalimantan (September 20-27), For eight days of strike every morning, we got a total of 245 participants. Long march in the thick haze while saying "Woke up early in the morning only to have smoke haze to breathe in, Kalimantan is burning again." were done by youths from various circles; highschoolers (PKBM-Candra Kirana), university students (UPR, IAIN, Muhammadiyah), local communities, volunteer firefighters from KATUYUNG Squad (Youth Act Kalimantan), TimCegahApi (Greenpeace Indonesia), WCD volunteer team (World Clean-Up Day of Central Kalimantan). Every day we walk together to the ISPU (air quality information machine) which shows the status of the air we breathe is at a dangerous level for health. With our megaphone, we urge the people that pass by the state of emergency for this forest fire and smoke haze crisis, everyone should be wearing N95 masks. We also distributed free N95 masks while giving awareness on the dangers of smoke haze - to construction workers, street cleaners, drivers of passing vehicles, residents around the kahayan bridge, also the police and securities who escorted us. Coordinator: Marsela Arnanda.

FINAL Kalimantan Climate Strike: Last strike - 27 September 2019.

Kalimantan Climate Strike [Palangkaraya] Day 8

Greta Thunberg is only 16 years old and she dares to face the leaders to convey that there is something wrong in the government system which only talks about money and longs for economic growth but does not uphold justice, humanity and destroys nature. We, Kalimantan youth don't just complain about the crisis, we also have a solution to end this - by demanding the government to give climate justice for Kalimantan! Fifty Kalimantan youths walked to the DPRD office bringing our posters then conducted speeches and teatherical action to deliver our demands directly in front of the "people's representatives", showing posters questioning #dimanaDPRD (where’s the parliament) for 22 years of forest fire and smoke haze, then we sang “Ibu Pertiwi” in front of them. The parliament members that came out to see invited us for discussion in the meeting hall.

“Where’s the parliament when our elders are dying in the age of only 40-60 years old because of inhaling haze for 22 years since 1997?”

Hearing with DPRD - 3 of 45 members of the Central Kalimantan parliament heard our demands and we had a 45-minute discussion on solutions that could be done by the parliament in solving forest fires and haze crisis. We demand real contributions from the parliament to fulfill our demands. The three members present agreed and we were promised to meet with the Governor. After we finished the discussion, members of the DPRD only stated their agreement, not yet signed the petition, with the reason that they will do it later at once after meeting the Governor.

Hearing with the Governor - We were promised by DPRD members for a meeting with Mr. Sugianto Sabran at the Central Kalimantan Governor's Office at 1 pm. We arrived on time and were made to wait for more than an hour outside the building while the haze is still thick. The Governor finally came and we were invited into the office. After almost 3 hours tough discussion, the Strike which was held from 8 am to 5 pm ended with the result: Parliament members agreed and Governor signed the paper with official stamps to state that they will fulfill the demands of "#ClimateJustice4Kalimantan: End the 22 years of Borneo Forest Fire now!"

Central Kalimantan’s governor, parliament representatives, head of provincial health department and Kalimantan Climate Strike members in the governor’s office.

The next step - WE WON in getting agreement from the executive, but the struggle is not over yet because what we demand is REAL ACTION, not agreement nor promise. We must continue escorting the demands. At the time the governor is facilitating us to coordinate with relevant government officials for each points of the demands.

1. Release the NAME LIST OF THE COMPANIES that are responsible for fires to public and hold them to account. They are ENVIRONMENT DESTROYERS!

Kalimantan Climate Strike strikers met the Head of the Central Kalimantan Provincial Plantation Department on Monday, 30 September at 2 PM to request data from companies that have been proven to be suspects in the Kalimantan forest fires that have taken lives and thousand hectares of Kalimantan forests to immediately be published given the most punishment. We met Mr. Rawing Rambang, Head of the Central Kalimantan Plantation Department and he stated the companies that has been revoked its permit as claimed by Mr. Sugianto Sabran (Central Kalimantan Governor) has no correlation with the forest and land fires. The Plantation Department does not have data on companies that are suspected of fires, they only owns data of palm oil plantation companies - the latest data is in the police.

2. Protect our education and health by providing Haze Shelter in schools.

Kalimantan Climate Strike strikers met representatives from the Central Kalimantan Provincial Health Department at the same time, Monday, September 30 at 2 PM during a visit to our Haze Shelter that has been qualified by UNICEF and asked for Health Office’s contribution to the next stage in the establishment of Haze Shelter in schools. We communicated with Mr. Suyuti Syamsul, Head of the Central Kalimantan Health Department, who stated, "We also have our own haze shelter standard. I admit that not all 199 of Central Kalimantan's ‘haze shelter’ are all up to standard.” - We are trying to make them understand that their ‘oxygen houses’ are not the same as a proper Haze Shelter that we are demanding. Mr. Suyuti also stated that to create haze shelters in hundreds of schools in Central Kalimantan is not an easy matter, there must be a budget to be appealed and so on. There has been no initiation by the Department of Health to make at least one haze shelter pilot project according to international standards in schools.

3. STOP blaming the local farmers as the causes of fires

Kalimantan Climate Strike strikers met the Head of the Central Kalimantan Provincial Police Public Relations Department on Tuesday, October 1st at 10 AM demanding the Public Relations Police Dept. to clarify and publicly apologise for publishing photos and names of individual suspects and alleged suspicion of forest fires on the basis of the right to privacy and as the cause of negative stigma towards indigenous farmers as the main cause of the whole forest fire, masking the fact that corporations take the biggest share. We met with Mr. Hendra Rochmawan, Head of Central Kalimantan Police Public Relations, who stated that the publication of the suspect and the alleged forest fire suspects was something to be done to give 'deterrent effect'. Mr. Hendra Rochmawan gave us complete data on the suspects in Central Kalimantan karhutla as of September 2019 (CENTRAL KALIMANTAN FOREST FIRES LAW ENFORCEMENT DATA). From this data we get the complete origin and profession of the suspects - the majority are not local farmers. The Head of Central Kalimantan Police Public Relations then gave us clarifying statement recorded on camera that it was not farmers or local farmers as the main cause of forest and land fires.

Meeting again with members of the DPRD.

Kalimantan Climate Strike Petition Agreement Letter signed by the governor, left blank by the parliament members.

Kalimantan Climate Strike strikers were promised for a meeting with all members from each of the 7 Central Kalimantan DPRD factions Monday, September 30 at 11 AM. Until now, 10 signature slots for the legislative parliament have not been filled. Three of the parliament members we met previously (Mr. Muhajirin, Mr. Sirajul, Mr. Purman Jaya) stated that all members had agreed but it would be better if all the factions signed the agreement instead of just them. In nearly two weeks, we visited the DPRD office many times and met other members of the council. Even though in the statement of Mr. Purman Jaya, Chairman of the PKB Faction, "it has been conveyed and all have agreed in the whatsapp group", not all board members understand our petition which was approved by the Governor is about. We explained repeatedly to each of the other DPRD members namely Mr. Hendri Yosef, Mrs. Rusita Irma, and Deputy Chairman of DPRD Mr. Abdul Razak - all stated their agreement (documented on camera by us), but there was no official signature given, with the reason of waiting a related commission (“Commission B”, for the environment) is formed.

Our next task is to continue guarding the fulfilment process of our demands. To all young people of KALIMANTAN, let’s guard together the promise of the Governor and the Central Kalimantan Parliament. Let’s guard the realization of Climate Justice for Kalimantan!

Even though all of our meetings with related bureaucracies did not produce the outcomes as we expected, we will continue to fight for climate justice for Kalimantan. Central Kalimantan forest fire emergency response status is still running until 30 October 2019, we Kalimantan Climate Strike youths are still continuing the fight for the haze relief in our own way: be in the frontline as volunteer firefighters, distribute masks to areas are still blanked by smoke haze, provide free health services and haze shelter, also the publication of the real situation in Kalimantan to national and international media.

We hope that the victory achieved by the Kalimantan Climate Strike [Palangkaraya] will motivate Kalimantan youths in other provinces, so that the other governors, as well as the President and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry agree to work together in the realization of climate justice for the whole Kalimantan, 22 years forest fires must be stopped!

TABE! From the ground of Kalimantan with “Isen Mulang” spirit!

("Never Retreat" in Sangen, ancient Dayak language)