Blue Forests (Yayasan Hutan Biru)

Blue Forests (Yayasan Hutan Biru) is an Indonesian non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Makassar, South Sulawesi, serving as an institute for a variety of environmental projects and programs. Blue Forests’ vision is: rehabilitation and adaptive management of critical watersheds in Indonesia with a priority on coastal areas in order to build social, ecological, and economic resilience. Blue Forests pursues this vision by working together with coastal communities, focusing on women, poor and vulnerable community members, to improve access to and control over their natural resources, restore and enhance critical ecosystems, and build community skills and knowledge in the sustainable utilization and management of their resources. Blue Forests works with rural, first hand natural resource users. These include fishers, farmers and foresters. We undertake rigorous participatory assessments in each work site, for each program, project, activity or sub-activity to ensure that at least 75% vulnerable and poor community members are involved in each activity. Blue Forests also ensures equal participation of women in all programs and activities, as well as having several all-women’s programs and activities. The following program areas inform our work: - Restoration of community access to, and control over their coastal resources - Ecological Mangrove Rehabilitation - Social-Economic-Ecological Resilience Building, from Coastal Field School to Adaptive Management, from Livelihoods to Good Business Processes, - Educating Youth to value resilience while building experience to achieve that end.