Cerita dari Lapang — Stories from the Field

This collection of sixteen field stories is produced under the ICCA-Global Support Initiative (ICCA-GSI), a project funded by the German Government and implemented through the UNDP-GEF Small Grants Program. It captures how Indigenous peoples and local communities across the Indonesian archipelago — from Papua to Maluku to Java — drew on their customary knowledge and governance systems to adapt to and withstand the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic while continuing to protect their territories.

The stories span a remarkable geographic and cultural diversity. Communities describe how customary rules around forest use, fishing, and agriculture were mobilised to maintain food sovereignty, how local healing knowledge compensated for restricted access to health facilities, and how communal solidarity networks proved more effective than state aid in reaching the most remote areas. Each story is a microcosm of the broader argument that ICCAs function as social-ecological systems with innate resilience.

The book makes a compelling case that grassroots community governance, rooted in Indigenous values of reciprocity with nature, is not a relic of the past but a living adaptive strategy with vital relevance for the 21st century's overlapping crises of biodiversity loss, climate change, and public health.