On what's working

The No-Go Zone is the most urgent and concrete protection mechanism available.

For Dewi, the most pressing immediate priority is the establishment of a no-go zone for O'Hongana Manyawa territory, a formal designation that would prevent extractive industries from operating in the community's traditional lands. As mining companies continue to expand, the uncontacted O'Hongana Manyawa are pushed deeper into the forest as their territory is diminished. A no-go zone would not resolve all the challenges they face, but it would establish a legal boundary that currently does not exist.

Bringing journalists directly to the territory, with community consent, is one of the most effective tools for generating international pressure.

Dewi describes a methodology built around responsible journalist access: bringing reporters into O'Hongana Manyawa territory in a way that respects the community's boundaries and requires explicit consent from contacted community members before any meeting takes place. Since 2022, she has facilitated access for journalists from major international outlets, enabling firsthand coverage of the environmental damage caused by mining and its impact on O'Hongana Manyawa livelihoods. That coverage has generated significant international attention and pressure (as well as attacks on her physical safety). Collaboration with Survival International has amplified the reach of that coverage, connecting Dewi to a broader network of global NGOs advocating for the community's rights.

On barriers

The personal risks facing frontline defenders are severe, and largely invisible to the international organizations that depend on their work.

Dewi's account of her advocacy work must be seen in the context of the personal danger it has put her in. She has been physically attacked three times, each time in the days following the publication of a major journalistic investigation she helped facilitate. She now takes precautionary steps around each journalist visit, including temporarily relocating when a story is about to go live and using encrypted channels of communication. The risks she describes are the lived reality of doing this work where advocacy is severely constrained and where the economic interests are enormous.

On the intersection of climate and PIACI rights

Climate and conservation frameworks can work for PIACI, but only if the people entrusted with implementing them understand the community and work with integrity.

The Indonesian government created a national park in Central Halmahera to protect the forest, and in doing so has banned O'Hongana Manyawa community members from entering land they have depended on for generations for hunting, medicinal plants, and agarwood. They are barred from practices that have never damaged the forest, while state-sanctioned mining operations continue to operate, causing massive deforestation. Government sponsored conservation policies must take into account and protect the PIACI communities living within those territories for generations.

The O'Hongana Manyawa themselves offer a different model. They take only what is needed, know when to harvest and when not to, and have maintained the forest without any external intervention. That knowledge, and the right to practice it, is what conservation initiatives should be protecting. not undermining. Dewi sees potential in linking conservation and climate initiatives to O'Hongana Manyawa rights, particularly as a way to attract funding and build cross-sector coalitions. But the people entrusted with that work must be trustworthy, genuinely understand the needs of the O’Hongana Manyawa and, as she puts it, "work with their hearts."