Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, is there a more iconic accessory than the ubiquitous face mask?

On the website of Noesa, a Jakarta-based favourite among the sustainable style-conscious set, face masks made with beautiful ikat fabric are front and centre, as part of their Corona Survival Kit collection. 

But these colourful textiles are more than just a symbol of these unusual times: they are part of the tapestry of empowerment and cultural preservation woven by Watubo, a collective from Sikka regency in Flores, Indonesia. 

A traveller could once participate in a weaving workshop by Watubo in their village of Watublapi, which provided the weavers a vital source of income while safeguarding their craft. But the pandemic has ground these efforts to a halt. 

With a little help from customers looking for something special, Watubo weavers hope to restore not only some of their income, but also their platform for sustaining and reinventing their ancestral craft.

Meet Rosvita 

“Ikat represents a woman’s worth,” says Rosvita Sensiana, an ikat artist with more than 20 years of experience. “Our ancestors didn’t have clothing stores, [so] to clothe her children and husband, a Sikkanese woman toils with her body to weave ikat.”

Ikat means “to bind” or “knot” in Indonesian languages, and Sikka regency is one of the most reputable producers of fine ikat in Indonesia, with centuries’ worth of vegetable dye traditions. Born into a family of Sikkanese master weavers, 36 year-old Rosvita is the founder of Watubo. 

Before the pandemic, Watubo made most of its income from taking part in national and international exhibitions, as well as hosting travellers to its ikat workshop, where participants could learn the craft while enjoying the sights, sounds and stories of Sikka. 

All this changed when the pandemic struck in 2020, but Rosvita is confident that Watubo will find a way to prosper again. “Watubo means ‘breathing rock’ or ‘living rock.’ It represents our belief that no matter how hard a place is, we will certainly survive,” she says.

Introduction to ikat

I met Rosvita in 2019 before the pandemic when I took part in Watubo’s ikat workshop, a collaboration between Watubo and Noesa. 

“An ikat workshop would attract visitors, which would help promote Watubo and increase weavers’ earnings,” said Rosvita then, adding that participants’ respect for ikat is also the goal.

Noesa provided the funds to build a homestay for guests and handled the online bookings. The workshops also included a tour of Sikka led by Rosvita. 

But these workshops are on hiatus indefinitely, and for now, avid travellers can only experience the rich history of Watubo’s ikat through the wares sold on Noesa. 

Ikat  is popular worldwide, but my interest in it is personal. My maternal great-grandmother, originally from Roti island near Timor, was a weaver who clothed her family in elegant, handwoven ikat bearing intricate motifs identifying their surnames.

I never met her, but I still hold a sarong that she wove for my grandmother in the 1950s — an heirloom no one in my diasporic extended family can replicate.Since my family had lost this cultural knowledge, I had come to Sikka to learn from another weaving culture. But even in Sikka, where ikat is considered to be thriving and current, perpetuating the culture has neither been easy nor straightforward.

Many Watubo weavers are alumni of Bliran Sina, an older collective founded by Rosvita’s father, which focuses on the most traditional forms of Sikkanese ikat, and subjects weavers to a myriad of protocols and taboos. 

Although Rosvita supports preserving tradition, she believes that innovation upgrades weaver’s livelihoods because it opens up markets otherwise impenetrable by traditional ikat.

In 2014, she started Watubo with Noesa’s support. The collective allows younger weavers to explore creative innovations such as novel colours and contemporary motifs. These updated iterations of ikat can be applied to products such as camera straps and wallets. In contrast, traditional ikat bear sacred images and cannot be used in the same way.  

Watubo became Noesa’s first artisan partner, connecting its weavers to Noesa’s urban consumers, and becoming a success story of a woman-led rural creative enterprise.

Threads of a rich history

A former Roman Catholic  kingdom that ruled parts of central Flores from 1607 to 1954, Sikka may not have royal heritage sites matching Java and Sumatra’s grand royal palaces , but it can hold up ikat as one of royal Sikka’s biggest remaining testaments. 

It is a discipline that is not only arduous, but also easily rendered meaningless when divorced from a practicing community and their culture, which provide ecological and historic context to the craft. 

Watubo’s workshop, named Orinila (“House of Indigo” in Sikkanese), aimed to preserve this connection. Guests are welcomed with a ceremony involving dance, music, offerings to Watublapi ancestors, a formal introduction to express the guest’s intention for visiting, chewing betelnut, and a Holy Communion-like ritual of eating chicken and rice. 

Next, the weavers and I discussed our lesson plan. I produced a grid paper drawing of my grandfather’s Johannes clan motif, to be woven into a scarf.

No newbie finishes a scarf in three days, so the workshop involves a dozen weavers demonstrating works-in-progress at different stages, and allocating time for a guest to practice each stage. Watubo then completes the scarf and ships it to the guest later.

On day one, I recognised my instructor Maria Genisa, having previously bought her work. Though I had only seen her photograph and name on a Watubo label, it felt like I was meeting an old friend.

Genisa and I spun hanks of cotton thread into balls, and wrapped them around a warp frame. I learned that Genisa’s husband Yohanes Mulyadi is a Watubo colourist. Yohanes also grows cloves, but he and Genisa found weaving a better source of income.

Meanwhile, on another frame, Virgensia Nurak taught me how to translate my paper study into the right proportions for resist binding — binding yarn with a tight wrapping applied in the desired pattern.

It was hard. The shape of my resist kept skewing as though it was having spasms, and I needed Virgensia to pull them back into the motif’s normal shape. We spent three laughter-filled hours together, where I only managed to bind 8cm of resist over 5cm of warp.

The next morning, Virgensia had finished binding the resist for my scarf, and it was ready for dyeing. 

Rosvita explains Watubo’s commitment to vegetable dye: “Firstly, it preserves our ancestors’ cultural heritage. Secondly, it is safe for women, children, and the environment. Thirdly, it encourages us to regrow and conserve culturally important plants, and harvest them sustainably.”

Vegetable dyeing also allows weavers to experiment and be surprised by the results. “Soaking threads in experimental vegetable dye recipes makes my heart pound,” says Rosvita.

Morinda red is the trickiest colour. Threads need prepping overnight in an oily candlenut pre-mordant before colouring red. I was already breaking a sweat as I pounded the pre-mordant using a tall wooden pestle and a deep stone mortar. After that, I still had tough morinda roots to cut up and pound into a pasty dye.

When I was done, I felt like I had finished rowing cardio at the gym, but with an awestruck feeling as I watched milky white threads turn crimson with a touch of berry.

I started day three watching the vibrant threads we dyed dry in the sun. Opening the resist and rearranging the resist-dyed threads over the warp frame to form the intended motif is painstaking work. 

When I finally sat at the loom, I moved the weft to and fro through the warps and watched them transform into fabric. In two hours, I weave a mere 4cm.

My emotions brimmed over the goodbye dinner. I’d always thought my urban lifestyle and career made it impossible for me to learn ikat, but Watubo made my first step in this long journey possible, immersing me in a labour-intensive process that revived our ancestors’ creative spirits. 

A pandemic pause

Rosvita has been vocal about how Watubo has financially changed her life. 

“I had nothing before Watubo,” Rosvita had told me during my visit. “[After Watubo] I’ve bought a house and a motorbike. I am reaching prosperity. I have everything I need.”

Other weavers have used money earned from Watubo to send  their children to university, or to develop farms from which they can earn even more.

Because of this, Watubo had become a full-time livelihood for many weavers and their families, who would otherwise earn less as farmers, labourers or working for the government.

Now it’s a different story. “During the pandemic our finances haven’t been as great,” says Rosvita. “Earnings from ikat have been difficult to rely on, so weavers currently rely more  on agriculture.”

The few sales that happened during the pandemic were mainly from Noesa and “very few other visitors,” mostly Flores locals. For now, Watubo has to sustain the resources to resume full production in future. “We hope this pandemic ends soon, to resume our activities and join exhibitions again,” says Rosvita. 

Until then, a simple ikat mask remains to tell the rich history of this inspiring collective.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, tourism was emerging as a boon to rural communities seeking to supplement their incomes while preserving their way of life. With little tourism to rely on as the coronavirus rages on, two rural communities in Indonesia are finding other ways to cope. 

Virtual voyages: Lakoat.Kujawas 

Can the magic of a revered water source in the Mollo highlands be felt across a virtual video tour?

Perhaps not as much as Dicky Senda would like. But with the COVID-19 pandemic shutting his hometown off from tourism revenue, such experiments provide a way  to bring the sights and sounds of his hometown into people’s homes and a means to sustain his community’s way of life. 

Just a little more than a year ago, Dicky had debuted the M’nahat Fe’u Heritage Trail and was looking forward to welcoming guests regularly in 2020. Run as a monthly day trip in Taiftob, South Central Timor by local collective Lakoat.Kujawas, the guided tour introduces guests to Mollo ecosystems, cuisine and narratives. Like its namesake, the Mollo Timorese m’nahat fe’u ritual, it celebrates the harvest season by serving new food.

But the COVID-19 pandemic ground the heritage trail, as well as the many livelihoods it created, to a halt. While Lakoat.Kujawas cooperative members are mostly farmers who could continue with agriculture, they lost the valuable supplementary income they earned as guides and cooks for travellers. The revenue from these endeavours had also been intended to go into a collective savings programme to fund critical needs of members’ children. 

Sales for their produce such as coffee, condiments and jagung bose (puffed maize for porridge) also declined, as these were sold mainly on the heritage trail.  Without these sales, the farmers are vulnerable to middlemen who set prices so unfairly low that farmers often leave produce unsold — a system that creates the poverty and hunger common throughout Indonesian Timor. 

“Economically we are impacted,” admits Dicky, co-founder of Lakoat.Kujawas, citing logistical problems such as closures of the postal services and sporadic operations of shuttles leaving Taiftob for the provincial capital Kupang. At one point, it took a fortnight for a package to reach Jakarta.

Nevertheless, with the help of friends, Dicky found opportunities to reinvent the heritage trail. 

Enter Pasar M’nahat Fe’u (“new food market”), one of Lakoat.Kujawas’ digital initiatives. Via its social media channels, anyone in South Central Timor can now pre-order lunch boxes containing healthy, traditional Timorese dishes normally served on the heritage trail, prepared and delivered by collective members. “Our open orders promote no MSG, no palm oil, only local coconut oil, traditional dishes and recipes, and a plastic-free lunch packaged in banana leaves,” said Dicky.

Lakoat.Kujawas also debuted a digital version of the M’nahat Fe’u Heritage Trail as part of the Virtual Heritage series on the travel platform Traval.co. The free pilot was sponsored by the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism; currently it is still available for free, but participants are encouraged to "pay-as-you-wish”.

Featuring singer and activist Rara Sekar as a special guest, the virtual tour, in Bahasa Indonesia only, recreates much of the M’nahat Fe’u experience in a part-live two-hour Zoom Meeting format. Explaining the need to pre-record some portions of the tour, Dicky elaborated, “Patchy internet is a challenge: nudge your phone and you lose the signal.  It’s impossible to broadcast live from the wellspring, Napjam Rock, etc.” 

In the virtual format, Lakoat.Kujawas has also introduced new seasonal elements, such as a tour inside an ume kbubu traditional house, a demonstration of how jagung bose is made, and a showcase of new preserved products such as sayur asin (pickled mustard greens), guava wine, ginger beer, and roselle jam.  Husband-and-wife team Willybrodus Oematan (guide) and Marlinda Nau (head cook) also presented segments of the virtual tour.

Local demand for Lakoat.Kujawas’ digital initiatives remains modest in the South Central Timor region. “But at least there is demand and it helps,” added Dicky, mentioning plans to open a Lakoat.Kujawas shop in Kupang where hot lunches can be prepared on-site and gluten-free sourdough bread and preserved goods can be sold.  

In the meantime, community empowerment remains Lakoat.Kujawas’ priority. In July 2020 it restarted its Skol Tamolok learning initiative for locals, after a forced hiatus due to the pandemic. It currently offers workshops on food fermentation and preservation, documenting the local dialect, video filming and editing, and traditional music and dance.

Post-pandemic preparation: Decotourism

Meanwhile in Flores, RMC Detusoko is planning for a post-pandemic comeback of Decotourism, with co-founder Nando Watu confident that tourism will recover.

RMC Detusoko is a farmers’ collective that creates opportunities for young  farmers through ecotourism ventures like homestays and artisan food production, to help them diversify their livelihoods while staying grounded in their agricultural and spiritual traditions. COVID-19, however, has dampened those efforts. 

“Tourism revenues are in trouble, but then tourism is a supplementary income rather than a main income for us,” says Nando, who has started serving as Head of Village Government in Detusoko Barat Village.  “We are focusing on things we can do now: developing village products, creating jobs related to infrastructure, and distributing help for those who need it.”  

In collaboration with the Department of Tourism and Universitas Flores, Nando is investing in capacity-building for homestay owners, guides, farmers, and other professionals so that Decotourism is ready when travellers return. 

The government is also funding jobs in local infrastructure improvements such as for roads, irrigation, pools for hot springs, and villages displaying traditional homes, while providing social security to many of the villagers during the pandemic. 

Nando also still occasionally handles a trickle of guests for Mount Kelimutu National Park, which currently allows a quota of 200 visitors per day with strict COVID-19 protocols, and regularly schedules fortnight-long closings for clean-ups and disinfection of indoor spaces.

But hope in physical travel does not mean not using technology to innovate. Since the pandemic, RMC has been marketing local produce to customers in Ende and Maumere via WhatsApp. 

The village administration also runs a Decotourism online shop where guests can book tours in Detusoko and Kelimutu, and buy coffee and condiments. Launched in late 2020, the online shop is primarily designed for Indonesian consumers, but an English site enabling payment via major credit cards and PayPal is in the works.

Not everything in the Decotourism store is suitable for shopping; perhaps a testament to the fact that some things can only be experienced in person. And both Decotourism and Lakoat.Kujuwas stand posted to receive guests, when borders open once more.

Act 1: The audience goes quiet

On an ordinary day, Phare The Cambodian Circus’ big tent is filled with the excited cries of guests as they watch Phare’s artists perform gravity-defying feats, the rising music of the live band, the colourful lights that catch the graceful moves of the dancers. All in celebration of Cambodia’s rich artistic history, presented through a contemporary lens.

But 2020 is no ordinary year, and Phare’s big tent has stood silent for much of the past nine months. plunging its staff and artists’ livelihoods into deep disarray. 

No thanks to COVID-19, international travel had ground to a halt. The town of Siem Reap, usually bursting with over 2.5 million tourists a year flocking to the famed Angkor temples, is eerily empty, with boarded-up shop fronts and empty hotels.

“The atmosphere is devastating, a lot of people lost their livelihoods. Drivers, guides, hotels. No jobs. We don’t see the end in sight.”

Dara Hout CEO, Phare Circus

Phare circus, previously featured on Our Better World, is no ordinary circus. It is a social enterprise under Phare Ponleu Selpak, based in Battambang that has made art one of its pillars of improving life for the underprivileged. 

The circus’s acclaimed performances, which tell stories of Cambodian social issues and history through theatre, music, dance and modern circus arts, have drawn over 100,000 spectators over the years, helping to sustain Phare Ponleu Selpak’s non-profit work.  With performances halted, its reserves are stretched and its capacity to keep offering free education and training to Cambodian children and youth is under threat. 

Kitty Choup, a Phare artist, had performed nearly daily, specialising in contortions, jumps and other aerial performances. This ended abruptly in March 2020, when the Cambodian government ordered public performances to close, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. 

Although she is still paid a basic salary, the income from performing stopped. To make ends meet, Kitty sells clothes online and makes fruit and vegetable juices at home to sell in a makeshift stand on her street. She continues to rehearse and train at home with her husband (also a Phare artist), in order to stay in shape and ready for Phare re-opening.

Act 2: The curtains rise again

In August 2020, Phare was permitted to reopen for performances in a limited capacity on weekends. This was welcome news, but the situation remained perilous amid a near shutdown of international travel into Cambodia, as most of Phare’s usual audience were foreign tourists or travellers from Phnom Penh.

Undeterred, Phare decided to tweak their model. Previously, its steady revenue from tourism allowed it to offer free 100 tickets daily for Cambodians during its low season from April to October. Amid COVID-19, it is unable to offer free tickets, but it lowered ticket prices, and called for supporters — no matter where they were — to donate US$10 to sponsor a Cambodian family to watch a performance. 

“Cambodia as a nation has lost the culture of going to live theatre and patronage, we are trying to revive the culture of going to live performances,” says Dara. 

Complemented by street art displays and street food stalls, the revived programme was a hit. Though the audience size was a fraction of what it was before COVID-19 (about 70 to 100 nightly compared to 400), it still meant the artists were being paid for performances again. 

More importantly, it was also a morale boost to see the big tent lit up once more. “We are a beacon of hope for our community. They see that we are open, not closed, during this time. And people will try and persevere,” says Dara.

Act 3: The show must go on 

The path to recovery is not without speed bumps. In November, amid a rise in COVID-19 cases, the government ordered Phare to halt performances once more. It was only allowed to resume performances on Jan 15, 2021 and the outlook remains uncertain. 

Without performances to drive revenue, Dara says Phare will have to rely on its reserves built up over the years, and go into “sleep mode” in a few months and staff will only be paid a basic income. “We persevere, we try. We don’t want to lose our staff. We want to help everyone to survive, even on a pay cut,” says Dara. 

Donations are welcome while Phare develops new revenue streams and brings in potential investors to help the non-profit cope in future, and hopes for travel to open up in 2021. 

“We know Cambodia will be very reliant on tourists for a while,” says Dara. “I hope everyone who travels will take responsible travel seriously, and realise their money can impact the local community. There are grassroots, impactful organisations like Phare, and when you travel, you should do research and support these kinds of activities as tourists.” 

And even amid the severe challenges, he hopes the stories of resilience in Cambodia travel far and wide. “People continue to have hope in their lives. When people plan their holidays to Siem Reap, I hope they support activities that bring hope to people.”  Says Kitty, “I really love Phare, it is not just a business, it is a family. They have helped to keep us going, so that we can support ourselves and our family at this time. 

“I just keep working, keep rehearsing, and keep thinking about the future performances. I know I will be performing again.” 

Some members of Phare Ponleu Selpak are alumni of the Singapore International Foundation’s annual Arts for Good Fellowship, which fosters a community of practice that harnesses the power of arts and culture to create positive social change.

Meet Sanju

For Sanju Negi, life has come full circle. 

From opposing the creation of a national park in the western Himalayas — on grounds that it would destroy locals’ ability to live off the land as they have traditionally — Sanju is now a custodian of the park’s natural environment. 

First, recognising the potential of eco-tourism, he became a trekking guide and member of a cooperative committed to responsible tourism in partnership with Himalayan Ecotourism, a travel social enterprise. 

Now, with tourism income drastically fallen as a result of COVID-19, Sanju has joined hands with Himalayan Ecotourism to tap the power of carbon offsetting: allowing people all over the world to offset their carbon footprint by planting trees in the Himalayas.

The road to empowerment

With its never-ending pine and cedar forests, flowing streams and waterfalls, and snow-capped peaks rising grandly above it all, Tirthan Valley, which is part of the Great Himalayan National Park (GHNP), is the postcard-perfect destination travellers dream of. 

Himalayan Ecotourism grew out of a desire to divert the benefits of tourism towards the valley’s communities, for whom the creation of the park in 1984 had signalled loss. 

Many villagers had depended on the medicinal herbs and forest produce they foraged as a source of income, while the land was also important grazing ground livestock. “As locals, many of us were opposed to the national park because it cut off our right to the forest and our livelihood had depended on it,” says Sanju. 

With tourism taking off in the region, Stephan Marchal, a Belgian who had worked on sustainable development projects in India, hatched the idea of an ecotourism cooperative owned and managed by locals.

In 2014, he co-founded Himalayan Ecotourism, a joint venture with the GHNP Community-Based Ecotourism Cooperative, which comprises local guides who are also shareholders. Stephan handles management and marketing needs, while guides like Sanju — who is also the treasurer of the cooperative — take turns to lead treks, from which they keep 60 per cent of the revenue. 

“I was opposed to the model of ecotourism where locals are mere daily wage labourers while the business was owned by somebody else. From the beginning I was sure I wanted to develop and grow the business in the right way,” says Stephan.

Himalayan Ecotourism’s philosophy of inclusion, not exclusion, also extends to its guests. While the conventional image of trekking is one of outdoor gear ads filled with lean and fit-looking individuals, Himalayan Ecotourism also organises trips for guests with mobility problems, such as older hikers or people with disabilities. 

The trips range from forest bathing — camping in the wild and immersing oneself in nature — to nine-day treks, aided by equipment and specially-trained guides to ensure comfort and safety. 

In 2019, Himalayan Ecotourism won not one but two of the Indian Responsible Tourism Awards instituted by Outlook Responsible Tourism.

An unexpected turn

In early 2020, COVID-19 began its sweep around the world, bringing global travel to a halt and devastating communities that had depended on tourism for their livelihoods. 

Himalayan Ecotourism was not spared, with business plunging to zero overnight. “We had to find alternate sources of income for our cooperative members,” shares Stephan.

The response was one that would not only provide relief income to its members, but also expand on its eco ethos: a reforestation programme implemented by members which would repair land damaged by overgrazing, logging, and fires, supported by anyone who wishes to offset their carbon footprint. 

For example, someone making a return trip between Paris and Delhi by air will incur around 1,680kg in carbon emissions. To offset this, three trees will need to be planted and maintained for 40 years (Himalayan Ecotourism’s calculations are based on a tree removing an average of 15kg of carbon emissions from the air annually over 40 years). 

Through Himalayan Ecotourism, individuals can buy carbon credits, the proceeds of which will be used to plant and maintain the trees for a minimum of 20 years. Customers will be given periodic updates, including geotag-enabled reports. 

Although members would not earn as much from replanting efforts as they did from tourism-linked activities, they saw the long-term benefits in reforesting the land. 

Over a telephone call, Sanju, who was the first to suggest replanting trees in the eco zone, shares: “There have been a few COVID-19 cases around here. The lockdown changed things for us overnight but between the reforestation project and some work on our own farms, we’ve mostly been able to manage making ends meet.

“We spent a bulk of our time during the monsoon season replanting mostly deodar (Himalayan cedar), silver oak, apricot, and a few persimmon varieties. We will undertake a similar replantation drive during the winter and continue along the treeline in Pekhri.” In a challenging situation that might have seen them slipping into despair and frustration, Sanju notes that these activities helped keep them engaged and contributing to their communities.

With the future of tourism uncertain, the reforestation programme is Himalayan Ecotourism’s main avenue of providing a sustained, non-charity-based source of income to its cooperative members, and to “mobilise and strengthen the capacities of the local communities”. Over 1,000 trees have been planted so far in a 2 sq km area around Pekhri village.

Keeping true to its philosophy of community ownership, Himalayan Ecotourism has also mobilised women from and around Pekhri on a voluntary basis to manage the reforested areas.  

They are also being encouraged to organise themselves into self-help groups and set up microenterprises such as traditional kullu shawl making and bee-keeping. Himalayan Ecotourism will provide marketing support for the self-help groups and will share the initial capital costs.

And for children aged eight to 12 years old, Himalayan Ecotourism is offering free basic English speaking and computer skills, taught by two local women who will be paid a stipend for their work.

The future is green

Over my four days in the GHNP with Himalayan Ecotourism in October 2019, I learnt about the power of involving locals as shareholders in sustainability initiatives, turning them into conscious stewards of their land. 

Then, Sanju had shared his pride in Himalayan Ecotourism’s progress and the role of ordinary community members in achieving it. “It has been the ones most in need, the ones without any stable income or alternate means, who’ve given it their most,” he said. 

This community spirit is something Stephan hopes will live on as Himalayan Ecotourism navigates a “new normal”. “On the one hand, we will remain a local organisation organising treks and other activities in the national park, and on the other hand, we will be a regional organisation (Himalayas) who will be able to implement bigger projects for conservation,” he says. 

He is hopeful that tourism will return to the valley, though he stresses that safety and wellbeing of the entire community comes first. 

“The takeaway from the experience of the past eight months has been that it wouldn’t be wise to continue having all our eggs in the same basket. Tourism-based livelihoods are and will remain one of many avenues to support the local community, but we will continue to build on diversifying our approaches and efforts,” he says.

Two years ago, I spent a few days with members of the Akha tribe in the hills of northern Thailand, vegetable-picking in the jungles, enjoying a traditional meal in bamboo over open fire, and learning about their culture and traditions. Organised by social enterprise Local Alike, it introduced me to the concept of sustainable, community-based tourism aimed at empowering indigenous peoples.

Unfortunately, tourism came to a sudden halt during the COVID-19 outbreak. Many of Local Alike’s community partners saw their tourism revenue plunge — by about 10 million baht (approximately US$300,000) — with little recourse to alternative income sources. This put the very concept of sustainability to the test.

The solution? Bringing a taste of the hill tribes to city doorsteps, through a new food delivery service.

Culture at your doorstep

Local Aroi, which was set up by Local Alike to offer food experiences (aroi means “delicious” in Thai), launched Local Aroi D in Bangkok, a delivery service offering meals made from ingredients sourced from Local Alike’s hill tribe partners, to generate income for them.

The new initiative was a more than palatable solution, tapping on the tribes’ culinary strengths and the rising demand for food delivery due to people working from home amid a lockdown in Thailand. “Bringing food from the community to the platform, we built it for the reason that not every local community was successful in tourism,” adds Local Alike founder and CEO Somsak Boonkam.

Rawimon Mongkolthanapoom, who goes by Keaw, is Akha, from the Pha Mee region — one of the 15 communities who came onboard the initiative.

“There were no tourists and most shops were closed. So the community had to find an alternative way, and they distributed fruits such as lychees, oranges, and so on,” says Keaw. “We had to help farmers in our community to make income instead of relying solely on tourism. Local Aroi also supported our community by using our local ingredients to prepare their dishes.”

So far, about 1.8 million baht (US$57,000) has been directed back to the local communities, while community members have been hired for “chef’s table” experiences. Though the initiative ended in September, Local Alike plans to bring it back in future, while continuing to explore chef's table experiences. 

The initiatives are creating new awareness and appreciation of the tribes’ culinary traditions. Recipes handed down from generations like deep fried spring rolls Khlong Toei-style and kanom-tarn (or palm sugar cake) from Baan Pa Nong Khao, are given a fresh twist for events. Akha-style chilli paste, known as a palachong, is reinvented into a spaghetti dish [pictured below] available for delivery on Local Aroi D.

Building awareness for the long run

For Keaw, the experience is ultimately “more about culture-sharing and building awareness”. The hill tribes are proud of their abundant land and resources, and are eager to share it, she explains, but for years, they have had to bear with unwelcome notoriety from the region’s history as a trade route for opium. 

Though culinary exchange, Keaw is keen to move on from these outworn tales and help visitors see her people through a fresh lens. Sharing that her favourite meal is ku chi lu — crispy pork belly stir-fried with rakshu root — Keaw explains that rakshu is a local herb in the Akha kitchen that enhances taste. Although all parts of the plant are edible, the root is the most popular because of its crispy texture when cooked, and it is said to have anti-cold properties and helps reduce cholesterol.

The effects of COVID-19 have been dire, but it has also piqued the interest of Thais in the diversity of the culture within the country beyond their own. Through platforms like Facebook Live and Zoom, it has organised well-received virtual village tours in Thai, such as “From Local Chefs to Local Aroi” with Baan Luang Neau in Chiang Mai and Baan Khok Mueang in Buriram. Another virtual event, “A Mother Teaches Her Sons to Cook”, brings a new breed of audience-diners along on gastronomical adventures while sourcing local ingredients and re-creating recipes.

With the Thai government encouraging domestic tourism, the hope is that the interest in hill tribe cuisine will eventually lead people to visit the region in person. “We brought local food to people in the central region who haven’t yet had the opportunity to visit Pha Mee. We present these fabulous experiences from special dishes using authentic community ingredients. When tourists finally visit Pha Mee, they are familiar that this is its local dish,” says Keaw. 

Somsak holds a warm hope for this relationship with the indigenous communities to continue and to see the Local Aroi brand evolve into one that brings local traditions to the global stage. “It should be the centre of the community's signature recipes,” he says. “I will do my part in bringing these conversations to the dinner table - till the flight paths open up and I get the opportunity to recapture the flavours of Thailand’s hill tribes.”

Local Alike was one of the winners of Singapore International Foundation’s Young Social Entrepreneurs programme in 2014. Through mentorships, study visits, and opportunities to pitch for funding, the programme nurtures social entrepreneurs of different nationalities, to drive positive change for the world.

In February 2020, when we published our story on Batu Batu in Malaysia, travel seemed like a given for anyone with the means. Mere weeks later, COVID-19’s relentless spread brought global movement to a halt. 

In Malaysia, the government launched a Movement Control Order (MCO) to contain the coronavirus’ spread, and businesses across the country — including Batu Batu — shuttered.

This not only affected the island’s tourism, it also put the brakes on the conservation work of Tengah Island Conservation (TIC), which is founded and funded by Batu Batu. 

The urgency of this was not lost on Batu Batu. As TIC Programme Director Tanya Leibrick put it: “If we don’t continue to protect the coral reefs now… there won’t be anything for people to come and see in a few years. That will massively impact tourism. Conservation protects the biological assets that provide for the livelihood of many communities.”

What happens to an island paradise in a pandemic? And when it reopened after a three-month closure, what lies ahead for Batu Batu’s sustainability mission? Find out through first-hand accounts from Tanya, Batu Batu co-founder Cher Chua-Lassalvy and TIC Outreach Coordinator Mohammed “Zam” Alzam.

16 March 2020: The Announcement 

Zam: “It was so sudden. Malaysia’s Prime Minister appeared on TV in the evening to announce that a MCO would start on 18 March.”

Cher: “It also happened to be the Singapore school holidays that week, so Singaporeans who were holidaying in Malaysia immediately checked out of their hotels to return home. I found myself in a similar situation as my family is based in Singapore. 

The Causeway was jam-packed – I’ve never seen it like that! I decided to leave my car behind in Johor Bahru and walk across with thousands of people. I only got home at half past 1am!”

Tanya: “Besides Malaysians, TIC team has members from France, India, Italy, Spain and the UK. We were all really anxious and began to phone our embassies for advice. Given the uncertainty, we decided to stay for a while and see what happens.”

18 March – 9 June 2020: MCO

Cher: “Having to close the resort during the MCO was tough. The closure meant only a few teams needed to keep working throughout the period — Maintenance, Engineering and Finance. Imagine all the bookings that had to be refunded and the paperwork involved!

But the toughest part for me was having to put staff on unpaid leave. Around half of them returned to their hometowns on 17 March, but quite a number of them were unable to travel home in time.”

Zam: “Personally, the hardest part was helping my family in Sabah to manage their worries about me… while managing my own anxiety at the same time. I spent hundreds of dollars on standby tickets as the lockdown kept getting extended. It was financially tough as my livelihood had stopped, but airlines don’t do cash reimbursements (only credit reimbursements).

Tanya: “Most of us were on unpaid leave which was difficult, but we were aware it could have been a lot worse. Being on the island, we were able to still walk around and be outside in nature.

“It actually felt surreal being in this beautiful place while seeing how bad the pandemic situation was becoming worldwide. I felt guilty that I couldn't help or do anything about it.”

Tanya Leibrick Director, TIC

Tanya: “We didn’t get to patrol the other islands to see what was happening with turtle monitoring there, because we weren’t allowed to do that under the MCO. We didn’t get to do dive surveys either. 

Cher: “We also don't know what happened to the eggs, if they were poached etc. We suspect that hard times and lack of patrolling might have meant more opportunistic egg gathering. We know that there were divers in the reefs off Batu Batu late at night during the MCO, probably taking sea cucumbers or anything valuable from the reefs. We missed out a good amount of work on the PEDAS programme (school visits, community engagement) so we’re a little behind there as well.”  

Tanya: What we were able to do was to continue patrolling and cleaning the beaches on our island.” 

Zam: “And we also planted a lot of trees...we spent quite a lot of time planting coastal bushes and trees there to bring back some of the vegetation.”

Tanya: “One highlight during the MCO was spotting the rare sight of a green turtle nesting, and being able to release hatchlings from a few turtle nests into the ocean.

We also did an online fundraiser for TIC that was really well-received. I think up until then, I didn’t realise how many guests had taken our conservation work to heart. To come out and sponsor us at such a difficult time for everyone, meant a lot to us.”

1 July: The Reopening

Beginning 10 June, domestic tourism was allowed to resume in Malaysia

Cher: “Since the reopening, we have done better than we could have hoped. It definitely helps that the weather has been amazing! Morale is pretty high — the team is happy to be back, and guests seem really happy too. We have had some Malaysian celebrities coming and our staff are very excited about that.

As part of our ‘source locally’ ethos, we have been working with a seamstress in Mersing town to sew batik masks to give to all staff. It’s a work-in-progress to have Mersing locals own the project and scale it.

Our solar panels are also up now. The installation was delayed due to the MCO. Otherwise, [it] would have saved us quite a bit of money [during the shutdown].”

The Road Ahead

A lockdown was re-introduced in October in selected states and areas, including Kuala Lumpur 

Zam: “On the TIC community outreach front, it looks like our school [outreach] programme has to be postponed to next year. We did discuss some digital lessons, but a lot of the schools are currently focused on getting back on track with their curriculum.”

Cher: “The lack of a clear scenario makes it hard to plan ahead, the uncertainty of what might happen if there’s a second wave [of infections] and we have to close the resort all over again.”

Tanya: “I don’t think we realised until the MCO how much we depended on revenue from tourism, and how quickly that can be taken away. So it’s helped us to start putting other plans in place, to look at grants and other fundraising strategies.

People tend to wonder, ‘Why should we care about the turtles? Why should we care about coral reefs?’ Those are big questions and there are no easy answers when humans are suffering. But the ongoing pandemic highlights that the health of humans and the ecosystems around us are more connected than we think. Zoonotic diseases like COVID-19 are thought to be much more likely with humans encroaching on natural spaces.

Aside from that, protecting coral reefs not only guard coastlines against storms and wave impact, they also sustain fisheries as coral reefs support a huge percentage of the fish population. So if you don’t protect coral reefs, fisheries could collapse and that could impact food security.

What’s more, if we don’t continue to protect the coral reefs now… there won’t be anything for people to come and see in a few years. That will massively impact tourism. Conservation protects the biological assets that provide for the livelihood of many communities.”

Cher: “When you’re able to travel again, do your research, be aware of ‘greenwash’. If an entity says it supports biodiversity management, ask about their projects, how they carry out the work, what are the impacts, do they have reports? Hold businesses accountable...We all need the pressure. Then support the travel businesses that are doing the right things.”