Today Christ Jacob Belseran received the Oktovianus Pogau Award for courage in journalism from Pantau Foundation. The citation is usually reserved for reporters who continue their work despite adversity and, at times, direct threats. Belseran is a contributor to Mongabay Indonesia and the editor and founder of Titastory, a local outlet he established in Ambon in 2020. His reporting has tracked how mining, land claims, and state decisions land on the lives of Indigenous communities across the Maluku islands and North Maluku— where forests underpin livelihoods and culture. Pantau credited him with explaining how large companies seize land, degrade forests, and pollute coastal waters, and with covering protests and community aspirations that some would prefer remain unrecorded. In Pantau’s telling, the work is not performed from a safe distance. Belseran travels by boat and on foot, sleeping where he can—sometimes in village houses, sometimes alongside the communities he is covering. He has described it, with a characteristic understatement, as “nomadic journalism.” In practice, it involves carrying a machete to clear paths, foraging for food, setting small fires to keep biting insects at bay, and sleeping on makeshift beds of branches. The greater dangers, as he notes, come from people. Pantau recounts an episode in East Halmahera in which police tried to prevent him from filming a meeting between an Indigenous community and local officials. The community responded by threatening to walk out if the journalist was expelled. For Belseran, it was a practical lesson about the role a reporter…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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