ABSTRACT
Stories of pollution and indiscriminate destruction; of short sightedness, irresponsibility and implicit disrespect; of circumstances which no human being should ever have to experience. The destruction continues year by year, through the fires and forced relocations used to clear the way for new factories and plantations, through the seas of rubbish that surround our 17,000-plus islands, and through the deadly smog, which killed nearly 100,000 Indonesians last year alone, and many thousands abroad. The Braille-and-tactile form of Indigenous Species is an effort to emphasise one form of such discrimination, which persists in the publishing industry. Its contents, however, were created in a haze of anger and bewilderment at what has been happening in my own and other countries. The decimation of women’s lands and indigenous women’s knowledge matters, and it’s a crisis with many struggling to protect rainforests, coral reefs, and innumerable habitats for humanity’s sake.
