What was supposed to be a key environmental speech from West Kalimantan Governor Cornelis in the increasingly deforested district of Kubu Raya, which is suffering from alarming levels of deforestation due to land conversion for palm oil plantations, turned to embarrassment when the occasion was repeatedly interrupted by trucks carrying freshly f

1st man: How come no political party disaster relief coordination posts have appeared?

2nd man: Wait for the 2014 elections.

Thousands of families are still homeless in Padang, West Sumatra, two weeks after a 7.9-magnitude quake hit the province.

Kid: How come your political party isn’t setting up disaster relief coordination posts like before?

Man: What for? The elections are over don’t you know.

Kid: Dad! There been another mud outflow in Sidoarjo.

Man: Yeah I’m thinking bout it (Quick count, recapitulation, election commission, electoral roll)

Kid: How come there’s no election campaign in the mud dad?

1st man: From here we can learn about other dams...

2nd man: Aren’t you going wait till it bursts first?

Man: Why don’t you make a meal out of him?

Sign on truck reads Illegal logging

Deforestation as a result of rampant illegal logging and conversion of rain forests for palm oil plantations is resulting in an increased frequency of human-animal conflicts – often fatal for both species.

Kid: After we vote in the mud we won’t have to live in it anymore right Dad?

Sign sinking in mud: Lapindo

Placard: Basic Commodities Party

Sign on right: Presidential election

Andi Saputra, Jakarta – Hundreds of environmental activists from several different non-government organisations held an action at the Hotel Indonesia roundabout in Central Jakarta on December 6 in which they painted a miniature globe on a 20 metre length of white cloth symbolising a bomb that is about to explode.

Kid: Lucky we don’t have to bother about visiting our home village at the end of the fasting month, right Dad!

Sign in mud: Lapindo – referring to the Lapindo mud disaster in East Java that has now inundated 700 hectares and displaced some 36,000 people.