In the turquoise waters between the southern Philippines and northern Indonesia, an elderly man from Watunapatto sits in a small wooden boat he built himself from trees felled from the island where his ancestors once migrated when the fishing season changed. The sea breeze caresses his face, wrinkled by time and salt. He doesn’t know…
Category: To the World
The Blood in Our Battery: How ‘Green Energy’ Re-fuels a Colonial Legacy
In the lush, biodiverse heart of Halmahera Island, Indonesia, an ancient way of life is under threat. The O Hongana Manyawa, a nomadic forest people, have lived in this rainforest for generations, their existence inextricably linked to the land. They are one of the last few remaining uncontacted Indigenous groups in the country, and their…
Mawale Turns Twenty: A Movement Without a Final Destination
We Came Back, but Not as We Left Two decades ago, we returned — not as heroes, not as the enlightened, and certainly not as experts. We were simply young Indigenous people who had wandered far from our homelands, drifted into cities, classrooms, online worlds, and in many ways, away from ourselves. Some of us…