Eko Prawoto’s Leng / Lung bamboo exhibition

Please excuse me for wandering off the topic of disaster response, but on the subject of bamboo I can’t resist posting a few images and a text from Eko Prawoto’s current Leng | Lung (Inside | Outside) exhibition, exploring space, soul and Javanese tradition. The exhibition is concurrently held indoors at Cemeti Art House, and outdoors at Bangunjiwo village, Bantul, south of the Jogyakarta. Leng | Lung is a celebration of Eko’s 50^th birthday.

Bamboo resource management: Ben Brown from MAP

Today I interviewed Ben Brown of Mangrove Action Project Indonesia, the Indonesian branch of the Mangrove Action Project (MAP). Ben’s background is in ecology and environmental education, with a focus on community-based watershed management, both upland and mangroves. We had an interesting discussion about post-disaster use of bamboo in the Jogyakarta earthquake shelter response. I was interested in hearing some perspectives from the Indonesian bamboo community. Within the international humanitarian community, there’s still debate about whether the Shelter Cluster’s decision to use bamboo across the earthquake response had any negative - or positive - or any impact on the bamboo ecology of Java. Ben and I had an interesting chat about bamboo clump management, community perceptions of bamboo, the impact of clearfelling, and mechanisms for sustainable bamboo harvesting.

Second fieldtrip to Bali: books, disasters and birthday parties

We’ve just had an incredible week in Ubud, Bali. I had the opportunity to chat to Petra and Lachlan of IDEP, Ben from Mangrove Action Plan, raid the library of the Environmental Bamboo Foundation, and on our last night, talked to a bunch of crazy people including Samuel and Lee of Fast Action Response, at Linda Garland’s magical 60th birthday party at EBF headquarters.

Jogya Bamboo Forum

The Jogya Consultative Forum on 26 June. Powerpoints from the speakers, notes from me, photos. Part of the Humanitarian Bamboo Project.

Humanitarian Bamboo

The Humanitarian Bamboo project led by Dave Hodgkin.

Environmental Bamboo Foundation

Environmental Bamboo Foundation’s website (EBF are based in Bali, Indonesia).

Fieldtrip to bamboo community in Ubud, Bali

Following on from the Jogyakarta Consultative Forum, Dave Hodgkin from the Humanitarian Bamboo Project, Sarbjit Singh from RedR India, Loren Lockwood from Caritas Swiss and I continued our fieldwork investigation into bamboo with a week of visiting bamboo organisations, NGOs and modern bamboo construction in Ubud, Bali (30 June - 6 July).

Rice fields in Ubud

Environmental [...]

Jogyakarta Consultative Forum

Bamboo is a local construction material in many parts of the world but remains under-utilised in disaster response, due to poor understanding of the material within the humanitarian sphere. Despite there being a great deal of literature available on the use of bamboo, there is little that is tailored to the unique needs of humanitarian workers. The Jogyakarta Consultative Forum was held as a crossover between humanitarian actors and bamboo specialists: a collaborative space for debate and discussion to develop some guidelines for use of bamboo in the humanitarian sector.

About

About me
I studied at the Australian National University in Canberra, Australia, a bachelor in Asian Studies (Thai) and bachelor in Arts (Honours). I majored in Human Ecology (in the Fenner School of Environment and Society in the College of Science), Development Studies, Asian Studies (Southeast Asia) and Thai+ languages. My family is Australian and Thai, [...]

Key dates of research and fieldwork

In amongst visits to exhibitions of environmental bamboo sculpture exhibitions and temples and rubbish dumps, we get some work done too. This post is to keep my supervisors and friends informed of my movements, and also for other research students interested in this particular research process.
5 January 2006. I moved to Thailand to live and [...]