TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - After years of living off the riches of the tin-mining boom, Edo Martono can barely recognize the legacy of his ancestors from the Lom tribe. The 30 year-old man recalls only fragments of childhood memories. "I used to go hunting mousedeer. We caught a lot of them," Edo said when met in Mapur village, Riau Silip subdistrict, Bangka Regency, Bangka Belitung Islands, on Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
Mapur village lies about 55 kilometers north of Pangkalpinang City. The village consists of three hamlets: Mapur, Puntik, and Tuing. When Edo was born, mousedeer—locally known as pelanduk or kancil—were still abundant in Mapur. At that time, Mapur was still rich in natural forest.
MapBiomas Indonesia, a land-cover identification platform developed by the Auriga Nusantara Foundation, recorded that in the early 1990s forest formations covered a quarter of Mapur village, which spans around 7,900 hectares. Two years ago, forest cover had shrunk to just 660 hectares. Most of it had been converted into mining pits and oil palm plantations.
Before disappearing from Mapur, Edo said, mousedeer were among the animals hunted for consumption. The community caught them under strict customary rules. They applied the principle known as mengukur badan—literally, "measuring the body"—when setting perpas, their term for mousedeer traps.
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