Virtual Summit Submission

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Global Environmental Science and Botany

Biography

Gabi studies Global Environmental Science and Botany at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. She is also president of the university’s Environmental Justice club, working to spread awareness of and contribute to movements that address exploitative systems. For work, she restores the native flora in the mesic forests of the Waiʻanae mountains. In her free time, Gabi volunteers at sustainable food systems. Looking forward, she hopes to blend her passions for environmental justice, forests, food systems, and fieldwork into a career that creates a more just future for both ecosystems and people.

Project

Restorying Forest Biographies Through Oral Histories in Sulawesi
We traveled to Indonesia, a country with one of the world’s largest tropical forests, to research how state authority shapes the ways forests are managed. Our project aims to document what we call environmental biographies — stories that tell the relationships between people and forest landscapes. The guiding question we sought to understand was how state-imposed forest boundaries impact local communities and their connections to land. Guided by decolonial methodologies, my team worked in Sulawesi, outside of Bantimurung Bulusaraung National Park, using participant observation, singgah ki dulu (stop and talk), and semi-structured interviews. We learned that policies framed as conservation often overlook the knowledge and livelihoods of rural communities. Many people were displaced when their land was reforested, leading to long-term effects like migration, commodity production change, and forest encroachment. By restorying the forest from a local perspective, our project highlights the need for conservation and development policies to value community knowledge and recognize the inseparable ties between people and their environments.