OBJECTIVES
The objective of the project is to build a virtual community with the idea of creating a space where information can be reported, gathered, and shared. The aim of this virtual community is to create voices against the more influential authorities from people across the world who share similar issues. This will intervene within the process of illegal activities by pressuring the government to transform the law.
The initial idea comes from when Indonesia faced massive forest fires across Borneo. The root causes of fires start from the problem of legal land rights. It is related to the land that the government grabbed from communities and granted to corporations. When the land falls to the state due to being destroyed by fires, the companies always get the first rights to it. Burning activity is actually a conversion of land use. The land is intentionally burnt to expand the concession. This transformation is an illegal activity because the forests cannot be owned by private property. However, the new owners of the land after burning involved local government officers, so it is likely that the government will ignore this illegal activity.
Therefore, to stop the burning activity, it is necessary for the design proposal to try to intervene in the process of this illegal transformation. The less complicated and stronger legal framework is needed. The only way for the more powerful authorities to carry out the matters is the pressure from the public. An online platform is the most suitable method because it has the ability to gain a large scale of audiences. It also has the potential to transform the law by creating social movements and sharing powerful narratives. This virtual community which can create momentum against the more influential corporations.
Environmental Panorama is created with the purpose of building the community by using media activism, information maps, online reports, and informal blog posts from members as activities for people to participate. The platform acts as a space where different types of users and information can be gathered and this space will eventually become the virtual community which will have more power to confront the authorities.
ONLINE PLATFORM CASE STUDIES
The rise of online platform offers activists an innovative way to reach their goals. They encourage people to share their ideas, and offer an outlet for users to write and share their stories by posting pictures about anything they have seen or heard with others. While, many people intend to share their stories with only their friends, many also share the stories publicly, hoping to change the perceptions and opinions of larger social networks.
One of the biggest benefit of an online platform is the ability to reach larger audiences in a short time and gain a large scale of watchful eyes. It also has the ability to unite a group of people with different backgrounds around a cause. Therefore, online activism has the potential to transform the law by creating social movements and sharing powerful narratives.
The aim of this platform is to gather people together to form a virtual community creating voices against the authorities. To create a faster and bigger connection, online platform is the most suitable way to perform the action.
I decided to look into several online platforms and did precedent studies. I tried to find the most suitable features which can be applied to my platform so my project can achieve the goal. The case studies that I looked at are ;
1. Earth Law Center
2. Petabencana
3. Yakkaw association
PHYSICAL STRUCTURE
A fire lookout tower provides housing for a person known as a "fire lookout". Their duty is to search for forest fires. The fire lookout tower is the most commonly method used. It is actually the most reliable and fastest tools when compare to others.
The fire lookout tower is a small building, usually located on top of a mountain in order to maximize the viewing distance and range. From the bird eye view perspective, the fire lookout can see smoke, determine the location by using device called "Osborne Fire Finder" and call fire suppression organisation.
The combination between physical structure and other monitoring tools can enhance the efficiency of the monitoring system.
MONITORING TOOLS
The objectives of fire detection are finding and reporting fires in initial stages. The sooner the fire is reported, the better the information involving its precise location, accessibility, sizes, intensity, the risks, etc. It is easier for the fires to be contained while they are still small. The information produce from monitoring can help the firefighters to understand the fire behaviour such as point of ignition, the spread speed and the direction of maximum spread.
TESTING SITE
Tanjung Puting National Park is a national park in Indonesia located in Southeast part of West Kotawaringin Agency in Central Kalimantan. The park is famous for its Orangutan Conservation, and ecotourism.
I chose the national park as a testing site because of its popularity and conflicts. According to the map of fires, almost every year, the fires burn inside the national park and still left the scars on peatland despite being a national park which is aimed to be protected.
After the President Suharto resignation in 2000, the park was overwhelmed by illegal loggers and still remain threatened by illegal logging, mining, and land clearing for agricultural purpose. Illegal logging was thought to have increased in this area because the park was no longer a forbidden zone. Local people started to move into these areas since the areas contained valuable commercial species. Moreover, they felt they were taken advantages by the government during the Suharto era, and this was their turn to gain some benefit from their surroundings. This is the result of uncertainty land rights which have accumulated for a long time.
Although local government had made several attempts to eliminate illegal logging, it had little impact. Funding from the national government had also declined because of the economic crisis. The policy of decentralization has also brought up land use disputes between the national and local government.
ONLINE PLATFORM
Environmental Panorama is a virtual community with the idea of an online information-sharing platform. The aim of this platform is to create voices against the more influential corporations who have the ability to transform the law. This platform using media activism, information maps, online reports, and informal blog posts from members as activities for people to participate. Media activism becomes part of the platform since if the fire issues have been published, the acknowledgement of the government will be seen in response to the media demands.
However, focusing on only forest fires cannot keep the platform active, so this is where online reports, and informal blog posts come into the space. Those two will allow people to participate in the platform by informing us not only forest fires but also of other issues to keep the conversation going.
The reason for using online platform as a proposal is the ability to reach large amount of people in a short time and the ability to act as a medium between people from different background who face similar problems to have a conversation together.