Community‑Led Health and Livelihood Programs Shield West Kalimantan Rainforests During COVID‑19

When the World Health Organization declared COVID‑19 a pandemic in March 2020, most of the world’s attention turned to hospitals, vaccines and lockdowns. Deep in the rain‑covered hills of West Kalimantan, Indonesia, a quieter story was unfolding: villagers who had been part of community‑run health and livelihood projects were, almost by accident, protecting the very forest that cradles their homes.

Skylar R. Hopkins, an assistant professor at North Carolina State University, and a team of international collaborators set out to understand why. By pairing a household survey of 1,016 families with satellite‑derived forest‑loss data covering more than 700 villages, they could compare what happened in villages that hosted NGOs—Yayasan Planet Indonesia, Health In Harmony, ASRI and a few others—to villages that did not.

The numbers speak loudly. After the pandemic was declared, overall forest loss across West Kalimantan shrank by roughly 39 %. But the story diverges when you look closer. Before COVID‑19, villages with NGO programs already saw about 52 % less tree loss than their neighbours. During the first pandemic year, that gap widened to a striking 68 %.

What’s behind the difference? According to respondents, the NGOs kept a steady flow of cash‑for‑work, small‑scale agriculture support and health‑service visits when markets stalled and travel bans disrupted ordinary income streams. “When the world shut down, the money we got from the health‑livelihood program was the only thing that let us stay put and not cut down trees for quick cash,” said one farmer in a remote village.

Beyond the hard data, the study also captured softer, human‑centered outcomes. Residents in program villages reported higher perceived health security and a greater sense that they could plan for the future. Those feelings, the authors argue, translated into tangible conservation behavior—people were less tempted to slash forest for short‑term gain.

The research, published in Lancet Public Health (DOI 10.1016/j.lanplh.2026.101455), was funded by the Packard Foundation (grant #2020‑70906) and the National Geographic Society (grant NGS‑91292R‑21). Co‑authors include Stanford professor Giulio De Leo and UC San Francisco social scientist Ashley Hazel, underscoring the interdisciplinary nature of the work.

While the pandemic was undoubtedly a global health crisis, this study reminds us that its ripple effects can reach even the deepest forests—sometimes in ways that help protect them. Supporting community health and livelihoods may be as vital to climate goals as any high‑tech carbon‑capture scheme.