Problem Statement: In the Bukit Barisan Selatan Park, in Indonesia roughly one-fifth of the park’s protected lands had been chopped down, nearly 150,000 lost acres. A definitive cause of the forest’s disappearance have been hundreds of small coffee farms, cleared an acre at a time from within the park’s boundaries.

​

Background: The environment of Bukit Barisan Selatan is worth protecting has long been evident. UNESCO added the tropical rainforests of Sumatra to its World Heritage List in 2004, citing in particular the remarkable biodiversity contained within. This was the last place Sumatran elephants, rhinoceroses and tigers lived together, where the world’s largest flower grew on the ground and gibbons sang into the distance. This forest, just north of where Krakatoa erupted 138 years ago, nurtured an ecosystem unlike any on earth. And it is disappearing.

​

Methodology: Whole View Map, POEMS, User terrains, Innovation levels and Value webs.

​

Outcome:  A major key finding was that the illegal coffee farmers lacked accessible alternatives to a livelihood sustenance in the region. So a major social safety net for the coffee farmers was missing without their illegal coffee farms. So various safety nets had to come from both state services as well as community efforts to bring a turn to the issue.Field research is still continuing in this project to redefine the issue and turn barriers into opportunities.

​

Whom: The case was being studied under the Harvard D- Lab, in finding solutions for this intractable problem

​

Role: Design Researcher.

​

When and Where: Indonesia (Remote). 2021 - present.

​

For more details please do not hesitate to contact me.

All image rights belong to the Harvard D-Lab.