Author: Nara Wisesa (WWF-Indonesia)

The first village visited on this expedition was Ustutun Village. This village is located on Lirang Island, one of the outermost islands in Indonesia that borders directly with Timor Leste to the south. On the way to the coast of the village, the Land Team saw a ship that was making an access route to the Ustutun pier through a coral dredging process. The Land Team arrived in Ustutun Village at low tide, so they had to walk a bit on the muddy village beach. Fortunately, we were immediately escorted by the villagers to visit the Ustutun Village Head (Kades).

Based on information from the village head, Ustutun Village already has access to solar-based electricity (PLTS) which is taken care of by technicians from Makassar. This technician also trains local residents to carry out PLTS maintenance. In addition, the village also has access to clean water from boreholes. A survey team from one of Indonesia's leading providers had also come and had plans to build a base transceiver station (BTS), but unfortunately this has not yet happened. Meanwhile, the main problem faced by the villagers today is the difficulty of marketing the fish they catch, so they are forced to sell their catch to Timor Leste, a distance of only 2-3 hours using a fast boat.

Village head Ustutun gathered the community at the village hall. Unexpectedly, there were quite a lot of people who came, about 24 people. Therefore, rather than conducting one large focus group discussion (FGD) and several interviews, the Land Team decided to conduct several small group discussions simultaneously. Unfortunately, for the team members who wanted to conduct a fisheries survey, it was difficult to find fish samples to measure because the fishermen were at sea. The fishermen only returned to the village when the Land Team had to return to the boat.

The village head of Ustutun was quite cooperative in facilitating the activities. However, there is still a misunderstanding among the community, that the Land Team came to conduct socialization or provide assistance. This led the community to convey complaints to the Land Team, with the hope that they could be conveyed to the central and regional governments. This condition seems to be experienced by almost everyone who comes to conduct research in remote villages. People who feel that they have been forgotten by the government seem to get hope when they see a bunch of people from big cities coming, without seeing the real purpose of the visit.

In addition, the Land Team was also asked by the community to be a guest at the Ustutun Village Fisheries Vocational School by providing an explanation of the activities and motivating the students to study harder and continue to the university level. During the question and answer session, the students were still shy, until finally there were two students who asked questions. The questions asked were quite critical, one of which was about the impact of the dredging of the dock on the condition of the sea around their village.