Women rangers hugged a tree while collecting data during a forest patrol near the village of Damaran Baru, in Aceh Province, Indonesia. Ulet Ifansasti for The New York Times

We thank Muktita Suhartono for the story and  Ulet Ifansasti for the photographs:

Female Rangers ‘Don’t Go All Alpha Like the Men’ to Protect a Forest

Rather than take a confrontational approach with trespassers looking to farm or log in a tropical rainforest in Indonesia, teams of women rangers try dialogue first.

Asmia, one of 15 rangers whose job is to protect nearby forests from squatters who want to clear trees for timber or to farm the fertile soil.

Riding her motorbike while balancing a backpack, a wok and a sharp cleaver, Asmia expertly maneuvered her way up a dangerous cliffside: a three-mile trip along a precipitous dirt path, barely 40 inches wide, to reach the mouth of the forest.

Asmia is one of the 15 members of a team of rangers — 10 of whom are women — whose job is to protect their village forest in Aceh Province in Indonesia from the squatters who want to clear the trees for timber or to farm the fertile soil.

Two teams of rangers, each consisting of five women and two men, take turns each month on five-day forest patrols.

“Here, we once fought with a squatter, asking him to stop the encroachment,” Asmia said, pointing as she walked beneath the thick canopy of trees that shadow her rounds. “He insisted on clearing the land, as he wanted to grow coffee. He was persistent. But we talked him out of it.”

Dressed in headscarves, green uniforms and rubber boots, Asmia and the other female rangers on the team ventured deeper into the tropical rain forest they are charged with guarding, part of the Leuser ecosystem on the island of Sumatra.

The rangers’ laughter was accompanied by bird chirps and the buzz of insects as they patrolled, observing trees and moss as they looked for signs of banned human activity. As much as the rangers enjoy their work, they need to be careful, and not just because of the squatters.

The Leuser ecosystem’s 6.5 million acres is home to orangutans and many other primates, elephants, rhinos and tigers. While a lot of those animals are not found in this part of the forest, there are sun bears, which, though small and generally timid, can be fierce when surprised or protecting their cubs.

“There are new bear scratches!” exclaimed one of the rangers, Rezeki Amalia, or Lia to her friends, as she examined a tree trunk. Other rangers immediately gathered around the tree and started to measure the size of the paws, take pictures of the scratches and fill out their patrol sheets while marking their GPS with the location of the tree.

The field reports from the rangers are eagerly anticipated by the researchers who monitor the Leuser ecosystem, one of the planet’s least studied tropical forests…

Read the whole story here.