Indonesia Clinic Seeks to Save Patients, Forests
04 October 2011
New Madrid Earthquakes 1811-12. One side of fault trench or "fissure" near banks of St. Francis River, Clay County, Arkansas. 1904.
This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
A clinic in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, works to support the health of people and forests. Kinari Webb is an American doctor who helped start the nonprofit group that operates the clinic. The group is known as ASRI. Dr. Webb says most communities value the local forests, but illegal logging is often their only way to earn money to pay for health care.
KINARI WEBB: “Even if you know that if you protect the forest that’s good for your long-term well-being, if you’re short-term well-being, like you have to get health care and you have to be able to pay for it, you’re willing to do illegal logging to do that."
The clinic is in Sukadana, a village outside Gunung Palung National Park. Each month someone from ASRI visits the surrounding villages to see if they are actively logging or burning land within the park. Communities that do not take part in illegal logging pay about forty percent less for health care than those that do.
Also, the clinic uses a barter system. Patients can pay with things like handmade baskets, labor exchanges or young trees.
Patients learn about environmental conservation as they wait to register at the clinic. Many of the seventy staff members also help communities learn about organic farming and other ways to earn money.
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