"May this difficult period not make you forget your dreams!" - Nadège Lanau in Sumatra, Indonesia
- Razali
- Feb 25, 2021
- 10 min read
Updated: Feb 26, 2021
I had the pleasure of interviewing Nadège Lanau (Nad) recently. Nad set up and runs Rimba, an ecolodge and non - profit association, in Sumatra, Indonesia.
I was privileged to stay at Rimba back in 2014 after my wife Sarah and I had completed our internships in Jakarta, and also in 2019.
Having spent months working at UNDP and Greenpeace in the heaving, sweltering metropolis, being able to gaze out towards the Indian Ocean, with the sound of swelling waves crashing just a few metres from our lodge, and musical psithurism from the forest all around was simply sempurna!
Nad shared with me what she's been getting up to and her reflections on her journey to where she is today. Read on below for the full interview in English. The original French version is here.
Nad with a Padma raksasa (Indonesia's national flower and the world's largest, globally known as Rafflesia) in her 'back garden'
Please introduce yourself to our Bona Fide readers and tell us a bit about your background.
"My name is Nadège Lanau, I am 39 years old and I was born in Montpellier, France.
After having lived in Grenoble, Lyon, Guadeloupe, Guyana, among others ... I finished my studies in Toulouse with a degree in "Plant Biotechnology", and finally came back to my hometown.
I worked for 9 years at CIRAD (Center for International Cooperation in Agronomic Research for Development), in Molecular Biology of Rice. At the same time, I volunteered for 5 years for the Kalaweit association, both in France (events, derivative products, communication ...) and in the field in Borneo.
In 2010, I took a sabbatical to go live for 1 year on the island of Java in Indonesia. After a last year in France, I came back to settle permanently on the island of Sumatra in 2012 to create the RIMBA project which brings together an Eco-lodge and a non-profit association. Since then, I have always lived in Rimba with my 4-year-old daughter, Inéa."
Why did you move to Indonesia?
"I came to Indonesia for the first time in 2007 as a volunteer for a French NGO located in Kalimantan (Borneo). I fell in love with Indonesia and in particular with its cultural riches, its incredible fauna and flora biodiversity, its exuberant tropical forest and its contrasting landscapes between sea, volcanoes, jungle, mangroves, lakes ... After spending 2 months each year during 5 years in this country, I decided to live there first for 1 year by integrating in an university programme dedicated to foreigners for learning Bahasa Indonesia. I took the opportunity to explore the country and knew that I wanted to settle there permanently. During this year, I travelled regularly to the island of Sumatra where I met my husband, Reno. So, I returned to France to complete all my current affairs (apartment, work, administration, etc.), then I returned to settle permanently in the province of West Sumatra."
Why did you start the Rimba project?
"When I was very young, I dreamed of setting up a non-profit association dedicated to the conservation of the natural environment or the protection of animals. My dream was to live in the forest among the monkeys. Then, during my many stays in Indonesia between 2007 and 2012, the idea gradually materialized in my head until I could touch it with my finger.
Before returning to settle permanently in Indonesia, I therefore created and declared the Rimba association at the prefecture of my city in France, Montpellier. But a problem persisted. Indeed, the Rimba association is a non-profit association governed by the 1901 law. This means that no member of the board or the administrative council can be an employee within the association. We therefore had to find another project that was both lucrative in order to allow us to live and at the same time in line with the association, while creating a link that unites the 2 structures. We quickly came up with the idea of creating an ecological tourist accommodation, the Rimba Ecolodge.
The Rimba association therefore aims to preserve natural forest and marine habitats in West Sumatra while helping to develop and raise awareness among local populations. The Rimba Ecolodge welcomes tourists to a natural site protected by the association, and allows us to make them aware of local socio-environmental issues as well as the practice of more responsible and sustainable tourism. Our main donors are former customers who have stayed at Rimba Ecolodge."
What are you doing with the non-profit and its missions?
"The Rimba association aims to protect natural marine and forest habitats in West Sumatra, while helping to develop and raise awareness among local populations. The projects carried out by the association are:
- THE CONSERVATION OF THE TROPICAL FOREST through the acquisition of forest concessions, the establishment of protection for these new acquisitions and the Muaro Duo nature reserve, and the reforestation of degraded plots.
- THE CONSERVATION OF THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT AND THE PROTECTION OF SEA TURTLES thanks to the protection of the reef of the bay of Muaro Duo, and to a team of guards who watch and protect the main nesting sites of sea turtles against poaching.
- SAFEGUARDING CALAOS thanks to the establishment of artificial nests to compensate for the loss of their nesting sites.
- THE RECYCLING OF PLASTIC WASTE in our recycling center equipped with a machine that allows us to transform plastic into fuel.
- AWARENESS OF ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES thanks to our Environmental Education Center, through educational materials (books, games, etc.), the dissemination of documentaries, the organization of thematic days and concrete activities in the field (collections plastics, mangrove restoration, etc.)"
Life at Rimba
What do you miss about life in France, if anything?
"What I miss the most are my friends and family. It will sound very cliché but of course, I also miss cheese and wine! I have lived in Rimba for 8 years. Rimba is a very secluded place, so I rarely go out. Going for a coffee or a beer at the end of the day on the terrace of a café for example are little things that I miss a lot too!"
How has it been as a French, white, female entrepreneur and now a Mum in Indonesia?
"Honestly, I didn't think my project would be so well accepted. Admittedly, the villagers around do not show me great enthusiasm, but conversely, no one has ever tried to "hinder me". When people ask me if my project is well tolerated here, I always answer that if an Indonesian landed in France in the Pyrenees and founded an association to save bears, he would be kicked out with "butt kicks"! Whereas in my case, the Frenchwoman who arrives in Sumatra to protect the forest, primates, sea turtles ... with the full support of the Ministry of Forests and generally a benevolent look on the part of the villagers.
It has happened to me in 8 years to find myself in physically dangerous situations 3 times, but I had prepared for it and always managed to defuse the situation before it escalated.
Indeed, we protect the reef of the bay of Muaro Duo that we have delimited with a line of buoys. In this protected area, all fishing activity is prohibited regardless of the method used. We specifically fight against illegal fishing methods such as compressor spearfishing and / or poison.
A few times I have encountered very aggressive people who greeted me with a harpoon aimed at my head or who tried to intimidate me by trying to hit me with a stick. But this kind of extreme situation is fortunately rare if we take into account the 100 or so interventions carried out. Because surprisingly, each time we have to intervene to ask fishermen to leave the protected area which represents 5Ha, my team, which is entirely local, sends me. Indeed, if locals come into confrontation with other locals, the situation is likely to degenerate into a fight. Because I'm female and white, in their words, I scare them (in my words, I think it's more that I impress them). So they listen to me and leave most of the time without making a fuss."
How has the Government (Indonesian and French) treated your organisation?
"As our field activities are 100% carried out in Indonesia, the Rimba association is in contact only with the Indonesian government. As I said previously, the government fully supports us in our projects. It even happens that the local forestry department makes official visits to us accompanied by people from the same ministry in other regions or people who want to get into tourism to show us as an example.
Local politicians are also very interested in our project to recycle plastics into fuel and have visited our recycling center several times, accompanied by media. Locally, we feel a real desire to do better, to protect better, to turn to tourism that is cleaner and more respectful of the environment.
Unfortunately, we also feel the frustration and the difficulty of getting there because of the lack of the necessary means to put them in place (lack of subsidies, knowledge, support to educate local populations, etc.)."
How has your sector evolved since you started Rimba in Indonesia?
"After settling in Muaro Duo, many other tourist accommodation "sprouted" around our bay. Tourism has literally exploded in the region. According to the latest figures, local and international tourism has increased by 400% over the past 5 years in our region. This is a good thing in itself, thus providing many villagers with new work opportunities through the creation of a new economic sector.
On the other hand, these villagers who improvise themselves as guides, manager of tourist accommodation, boat driver ... have no experience or training in this area and therefore have little or no ecological awareness. They are therefore not able in turn to sensitize local tourists for whom the notion of ecology remains very vague, the latter being absent from school programs.
We are therefore witnessing relatively destructive tourism with a strong impact on the environment (plastic waste thrown into the sea or into nature, trampling of corals, boat anchors thrown anywhere, construction materials from deforestation, etc.).
From my point of view, the first thing to do would be for the government to invest and invest much more in environmental education on a large scale. At the same time, and faced with the inaction and absence of the government on all these environmental issues, more and more young people are creating associations in our region to take over. Some will be specialized in the issue of plastic, beach cleaning, mangrove restoration ... while others intervene more broadly in education and awareness.
Even if all these associations exist because of a government that is withdrawing from its role, it is also very encouraging and exciting to see all these young people getting more and more involved in the protection of their environment, by creating and by integrating local associations, or by joining large foundations such as Greenpeace Indonesia or WWF.
When you also see thousands of students and young people taking to the streets when the Jakarta government wants to pass laws that directly threaten Indonesia's forests, it makes you optimistic for the future."
What do you wish you knew before starting Rimba?
"That the tourists would be so time consuming, leaving me less time than expected to take care of the association :-)
That a global pandemic would arrive, putting the ecolodge in a critical situation, but thus leaving me more time for myself to take care of the association! ;-) "
What would you tell your younger self before leaving France?
"Absolutely nothing. Having volunteered in an NGO in Borneo for about 1 year and lived 1 more year in Java, before coming back definitively and setting up the Rimba project, I was, I believe, psychologically ready to be confronted and to deal with just about anything. the situations. I also believe that the current Covid crisis, which no one could have foreseen and which I could never have imagined when I left for Indonesia, puts me in perspective on even the most difficult situations experienced here."
Where do you see yourself and Rimba in the next 5,10 years?
"Personally, I always have a hard time projecting myself into the future. When I lived in France, if someone had told me "in 10 years you will be living in Sumatra, you will have an ecolodge and an association", I would not have believed it!
I like to have several lifetimes in a lifetime without ever knowing which will be the next. So I am unable to answer.
Professionally, however, I know the association will always exist, because this association is my "baby"! I dreamed about it, I did it and I will make it last. I protect a forest of 430Ha and I do not see myself "abandoning" it one day. It will be tantamount to saying that I only gave her a few years' reprieve, and all the wildlife that live there. It’s inconceivable to me. It is not a reprieve that I want to give to all these trees, but a real chance to be able to stay upright forever and to be a perfectly safe home for all the fauna that lives there (gibbons, pangolins, tigers, tapirs, porcupine…)."
Are there any major challenges you are facing right now? If so, how do you seek to overcome them? How has the pandemic affected your life?
"The first challenge that arises from the creation of the association is to find funds to set up our projects and make them sustainable. It is the "sinews of war" of any association. The start is very difficult because endowments only want to help you if you have already set up a successful 1st project. However, to have a successful 1st project, someone has to give you funds at some point. It's a bit like "the snake biting its tail." But with a little perseverance you get there, and opportunities emerge. Despite everything, fundraising remains both very time consuming and essential for the proper functioning of the association.
The second challenge is the current pandemic. Compared to the ecolodge, it affects the association to a lesser extent except for the lengthening of administrative procedures and on the ground as well as the decrease in the number of donations from individuals. The latter is explained by the fact that many people are currently in financial difficulty linked to the Covid crisis. Regarding the ecolodge, the situation is catastrophic. We haven't had a single customer for almost 11 months and we are living on our savings which are dwindling day by day. We have so little visibility that we don't even know if we will have enough money to hold out until tourism returns. The problem is that if at some point we no longer have the means to support ourselves, we will have to close the ecolodge and leave it, forcing us to give up the association at the same time. It would be really terrible and I think I will have a really hard time getting over it."
We all have days that could be better. What helps you get up out of bed each day, and especially on days when you may not be feeling your best?
"I am fortunate to have always done a job that I enjoy doing. In France, I worked for 10 years in molecular biology of plants in a public research center (CIRAD) and for 8 years I have managed an ecolodge at the same time as an environmental protection association in Sumatra. In both cases (or in these 2 lives), I worked and worked with passion. I never had a hard time getting up for what I was doing or what I'm doing now (except maybe the day after a party!). I have always managed to combine my passions (science and conservation of the natural environment) with my work. And I realize that is really lucky."
If you could say something to everyone around the world right now, what would it be? (In 280 characters / in no longer than a tweet).
"May this difficult period not make you forget your dreams!"
To learn more about Rimba visit here.
Comentários