On an overnight visit to the picturesque and very rarely visited village of Deru on the south coast of Flores, my guide Harry* picked up a guitar and began playing a popular local song called "Tara Deru". The song tells of how the land around the village of Deru, on the southern coast of island of Flores, became greener over recent decades. In the past, the dry soils were only used to grow exhaustive crops like cassava for local consumption. The villagers now maintain tree plantations and harvest coffee, vanilla and macadamia nuts for export. The legend has it that the planting of trees helped hold water in the soil, improved fertility and reduced crop losses due to erosion.

The explanation is very plausible. The tempting question for a climate scientist is did some change in the weather, perhaps the timing and intensity of the rainy season, fuel this transformation of the landscape. I wish I could provide a thorough answer here, but the people barely spoke Bahasa, let alone English, and by the time Harry and I were able to sit down with the elders, we had been few two massive dinners, breathed in enough charcoal from the indoor fire to produce diamonds in our small intestines and inhaled four cups of molasses-thick, sugary coffee, the type of stuff you drink to prepare a bull fight.

The greening of Deru will remain a mystery for now. Instead, I leave you with this song:


Tana deru da pegu melu,
Usa mi nenge negta wali

Tana deru we took wolo,
Gole wolo kami bhai to'o

Tana deru we tolo ngaba,
Gote ngaba kami bhai hadha

Tana tutu se puju,
Wunu uta noa mara mutu

Raba wag ha seghaka,
Pare masa ne go uwi jawa

--

* To a westerner, Harry Due may not sound like a "typical" Indonesian name. In truth, there is no such thing as typical in Indonesia. The country consists of thousands of distinct islands spread across a massive swath of ocean. Unlike the better-known and more densely populated islands of Java and Sumatra, Flores is almost entirely Christian, a fact reflected in the names of many of the inhabitants.