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Speaker: Joe Lamb, Founder, The Borneo Project

View film: Development Without Destruction

Development in the Borneo rainforest based on rapid industrialization comes at a high cost; to species diversity, to the global climate, and to the welfare of indigenous peoples. Indigenous activists in Borneo, in close cooperation with scientists from the University of California Berkeley are working together to redefine development. They have demonstrated that development based on alternative energy sources can end rural energy poverty while protecting Borneo’s species-rich forests and allowing Borneo’s indigenous peoples to chart their own path forward.

Joe Lamb, founder of the Borneo Project, is a writer, filmmaker, and arborist who lives in Berkeley, California. His poetry and essays have appeared in Earth Island Journal, The Sun, Caliban, Wind, and other magazines.

Joe has degrees in biology, ecology, and film. He has taught biology and ecology in the United States and in Mexico. In 1991, under the auspices of Earth Island Institute, Joe founded the Borneo Project, an NGO that helps the indigenous peoples of Borneo secure land rights and protect their forest. Honored by the Goldman Foundation as an “environmental hero,” Joe was featured in the San Francisco public television program, “Green Means.” Joe co-directed and co-produced the Borneo Project’s recent mega-dam film series. Damming Our Future, one of the films in the series, won the Jury Award at the 2015 Kuala Lumpur International Eco Film Festival.

For almost 25 years the Borneo Project has helped indigenous peoples map their lands, tell their stories and press for the preservation of their forests through legal action. Learn more about the Borneo Project