Jakarta – Agrarian conflicts in palm oil plantation areas – followed by the criminalisation of local residents who object to these palm oil plantations – have in creased two-fold in 2010 compared with 2009.

1st Man: Everything’s covered in dust...

2nd Man: But not the promises made to us, right?

Starting from November 5 2010, the national SBY-Boediono government decided that the Merapi volcano eruption disaster would be led by the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB).

1st Man: We live in a disaster prone area so of course we have to be responsive to disasters...

2nd Man: Their response is just a comparative study...

Alie: It’s your own fault for living in Mentawai, why didn’t you just become the speaker of the House!

Once upon a time in Wasior...

1st Man: By 2050 many of our islands will be under water.

2nd Man: What’s important is they’re safe till 2014, right?

While environmental groups have welcomed a promised moratorium on deforestation as part of a deal with Norway to protect Indonesia’s rain forests, they say the details remain vague and question whether it will have much impact unless it is extended to existing concessions.

1st Man: Tomorrow we commemorate the birth of Pancasila, remember?

2nd Man: When will it be put into practice?...

Hello hello Bandung, city of memories, long has it been since I last visited you, now you have become a sea of flood, brothers let us replant.

(Adapted from the 1945 revolutionary song Hello Hello Bandung by Ismail Marzuki)