<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2026/sep/16/indonesia-fires-borneo-el-nino-women-haze>
"Irma puts on her heavy rubber boots as she prepares for a volunteer
firefighting shift in her village of Sungai Putri, on the Indonesian side of
Borneo island.
Dressed in full safety gear she heads into fire zones on her motorbike, the air
thick with toxic smoke.
The 39-year-old is a member of the Power of Mama, Indonesia’s first-ever all
female firefighting team, formed to protect one of the most biodiverse regions
on the planet.
“Because we are housewives, we are the ones that feel its effects most,” Irma
says of what motivated her to join, “I thought I had to do something about it.”
The group is made up of 146 women, aged between 20 and 58, from 10 villages in
her area of West Kalimantan, in Indonesian Borneo. Formed in 2022 by an NGO
called YIARI, the group’s members receive rigorous training, from firefighting
to operating surveillance drones, and conducting essential community outreach.
From 10am until 4pm the group’s volunteers patrol high-risk areas, recording
locations and alerting the Manggala Agni forestry brigade, a specialised
brigade under the forestry ministry, when they identify hotspots.
They scour plantation and forest boundary areas, record coordinates, take
photographs, and enter the information into the special monitoring app.
It’s sometimes gruelling work in tough conditions.
But members say the hardest part has been convincing people in their community
not to “slash and burn,” or illegally clear the land by burning it, a common
practice in Indonesia, and a cheap and effective way to clear land for crops
such as oil palm.
That, and breaking down the village patriarchy.
Irma says the group faced criticism from men at first, but now they work
hand-in-hand with the community."
Via Susan ****
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
