The New York Times Covers Local Partner HAkA’s Women Forest Defenders

The New York Times highlighted The Asia Foundation’s local partner in Indonesia, HAkA, for their efforts to protect, conserve, and restore the Leuser Ecosystem using a women-led forest defender initiative. Through our environmental governance unit, the Foundation supports HAkA to empower women traditionally excluded from forest protection. This support equips them with essential tools to engage in conservation, restoration, and the community governance efforts necessary to uphold the initiative.

Even though, most often, women are the ones who feel the direct impact from environmental loss and climate change, there was a lot of resistance when we brought up the idea of creating a women ranger team,” said Rubama, a community conservation officer for the Forest, Nature and Environment Aceh Foundation, which funds the ranger initiative. “Women are often left out and not allowed to do many roles in Aceh, especially at the village level.