Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto and Silverius Oscar Unggul

Telapak

Skoll Entrepreneur(s): Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto and Silverius Oscar Unggul
Award Year: 2010
Focus Area(s) Addressed: Smallholder Productivity and Food Security

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Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto (Ruwi) and Silverius Oscar Unggul (Onte) have led efforts to shift Indonesia from illegal logging to community-based logging. Ruwi co-founded Telapak in 1997, pioneering reporting on illegal logging in Indonesia’s national parks to raise awareness of the issue, both internationally and domestically. In 2006, Ruwi, together with Onte, a community organization expert, transitioned Telepak’s focus from raising awareness about the problem to rolling out solutions via community-based sustainable resource management. The first organization in Southeast Asia to help achieve group forestry certification for logging cooperatives, Telapak is scaling its model nationally, with goals of helping local communities to eventually manage millions of hectares of forest across Indonesia.

IMPACT AS OF JAN. 2013:

In July 2012, Ruwi won the Ramon Magsaysay Award, considered Asia’s Nobel Prize.
Telapak has established 6 territorial offices actively engaging with 8 communities to create sustainable logging cooperatives that have the potential to collectively certify more than 200,000 hectares of forest land.
With the help of a UK-based environmental group, Ruwi exposed illegal logging and smuggling, sparking public outrage which pressurized Indonesia to tighten regulations on the timber trade. He was threatened with death, assaulted and once kidnapped by a timber company in central Kalimantan but never gave up.
Telapak worked with a community partner NGO to facilitate the first-ever Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) group certification in Southeast Asia, which has been renewed every year since. Over the past 3 years, this single community cooperative has cut 3,000 trees and planted 2 million new ones. The 2,106 members of the cooperative now earn more than 3 times as much for their wood. In 2009, this community was granted the first state timber concession to a community cooperative, allowing it to manage and log from state forests — a significant accomplishment that represents a gateway to the protection of far more forest lands beyond those that are privately owned.
Before Telapak started working in a Sulawesi district, there were 75 illegal sawmills. Now there are none.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THEIR WORK:

Tonight we honor nine individuals representing seven organizations, doing work in environmental sustainability, economic opportunity, community development and conflict resolution.

They work throughout the world and the US, Africa, Indonesia, Latin America, Afghanistan and beyond. Jeff would you come join me?

Telapak. Ambrosious Ruwindrijarto and Silverius Oscar Unggul, they go by Ruwi and Onte, have lead efforts to transform logging in Indonesia to a community based system.

One with the capacity to bring down powerful economic interest and stop the continued scourge of illegal deforestation.

As many of you know, Indonesia is the third larges emitter of global greenhouse gases.

Result of massive deforestation. Ruwi co-founded Telapak back in 1995, to raise awareness of the issue.

Onte's insight was to transition Telepoc's focus from promoting awareness to enacting a new paradigm, that of community logging.

Telapak is the first organization, in Southeast Asia, to help achieve group forestry certification for logging cooperatives. Having proven the model in, of variety of local areas, Telepoc is now scaling nationally.

Helping local communities manage millions of hectares of forest across Indonesia, Ruwi and Onte. Good evening, good evening everybody, everyone. I'm celebrating this with my wife, Debbie, and my wife, Reedy. So, one village in Istava, it's in Lamongan , where we are walking now, is the village where Amrossi was burned.

Amrossi and his brothers, who are the ones that bombed Bali in 2002, and their relatives are the ones who bombed GEWMarisata in Jakarta in 2006 in recently.

So we walked there, and we met with the parents of all those people. And we talk to them about, we are going to organize cooperatives. We're going to manage the forests and the land. And then we're going to do this whole value chain, and maybe build furniture and export and everything.

Oh, and it gives hope to those people, to the parents and everybody.

And then, there is one particular study, because we are in talks with Marriott hotel chain actually. Mariott hotel wants to buy furniture, sustainable furniture , from us. So we talked to them also.

Oh, yeah. Also in this parent association with Marriott. And the parents say, oh my God, why my boys from Marriott hotel.

Now I think the study here is that we came very late , too late to this feelings.

Maybe if we came earlier he talk and organize and do all the things that we all do.
Maybe different situations will happen , maybe there will be no bomb in Bali and Afghanistan.

So, we came very late, and this award and all of you working together. What we want to get out instead now we can do everything faster.

So we can do faster.

Faster pace. so we can go to all villages and maybe there's nothing in-consequent till you're speaking.

Every action is test consequent. there's nothing inconsequential, so maybe With this we can do things faster. Faster pace.

Thank you Jeff and Sally.

Thank you all Skoll Foundation.

Edwin and Pretoni and they came to Indonesia and survived many flights every day.

Survived Durian, survived our strange English and survive the temptation of beaches and night life in Bali.

Oh yeah.

Thank you, thank you also to Julian and Faith some were there from the Infaram Investigation Agency.

They've been with Lapac from Phenom Penh and fighting against illegal logging.

You want?

I need the paper.

And I, and I, I need your help.

Yes and thank you for my wife especially because sometimes my, our home is it's very crowded. When the farmer and the farm, the villages, and the forest come to Jakarta.

And they all living in our home. We already have three kids.

A new one and my wife, I think, is very patient. Thank you very much.

I would thank you for Bill Drayton and Ashoka. All Ashoka members.

Without Ashoka... I think without Ashoka who can fund us, we cannot stay at this stage.

I want to thank you to Miriam and Fifi Anji and all foundation too. Thank you for all time you give to us.

And, thank you for Trisakti University, the reformation university in Indonesia. Only one university can we challenge to make social entrepreneurship.

They help us was to make this plan. What is this plan? We don't know, we only stay in the villages but now we know.

And thank you very much for all the the guide. I think this very much for us, thank you very much.

Very happy to be here Jeff and Sally. Thank you very much.

Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto and Silverius Oscar Unggul