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| Karolin Margret Natasa secures ASEAN Energy Award, pioneering sustainable Borneo tourism. Image credit: dayaktoday.com |
LANDAK, borneotravel.id | Karolin Margret Natasa won the 2026 ASEAN Energy Award for an innovative micro-hydropower project in Landak, West Kalimantan. The achievement highlights Borneo’s potential for sustainable tourism, including Stiin Waterfall, while showing how clean energy and community-led conservation can work together to support eco-friendly travel across the region.
Landak Regent Karolin Margret Natasa has clinched the prestigious ASEAN Energy Award 2026 in the Philippines, propelling this remote corner of Indonesian Borneo into the international spotlight for sustainable ecotourism and green development.
The National Strategic Excellence award, presented Tuesday, honors Natasa’s sweeping redevelopment of the Tenguwe Micro-Hydro Power Plant (PLTMH). For Borneo Travel readers tracking the intersection of tribal heritage and modern conservation, the project offers a stellar blueprint for how the island’s interior can electrify without sacrificing its world-renowned rainforests.
"Interior communities must have the same opportunities to enjoy electricity," Natasa said in a statement. "Power is no longer just about lighting up the night—it is the engine of regional welfare."
Overcoming Disaster in the Deep Canopy
The journey to the award was forged through crisis. First built in 2015 with a modest 50-kilowatt capacity, the Tenguwe facility was completely destroyed by catastrophic flash floods in 2019. Rather than abandoning the grid, Natasa launched a high-stakes coordination campaign with the central government’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources.
Between 2024 and 2025, engineers successfully quadrupled the plant's capacity to 200 kilowatts, safely tapping the roaring currents of the Pade River at the site of the Stiin Waterfall.
For the modern eco-traveler venturing into West Kalimantan, the project transforms Landak from a mere transit point into a showcase of resilient, green infrastructure. Today, the facility provides uninterrupted, 24-hour electricity to 617 homes across nine isolated hamlets, enabling local eco-lodges and indigenous Dayak artisans to power their livelihoods reliably for the first time.
The Economics of Conservation
What caught the attention of ASEAN adjudicators—and what makes the region a compelling case study for Borneo Travel is the project's strict reliance on community ownership. Managed locally by the village enterprise BUMDes Maju Bersama, residents are legally incentivized to protect the environment. Because the turbines require a steady river volume, the community actively patrols the jungle to halt deforestation and protect the watershed.
The operational shift away from fossil fuels delivers stark environmental and economic dividends:
• Fossil Fuel Reduction: The hydro plant eliminates the consumption of 68,036 liters of diesel fuel per year.
• Carbon Mitigation: The project prevents an estimated 183.7 tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually.
• Financial Windfall: Local energy spending plunged from $80,000 to $31,000 annually, keeping roughly $49,000 (IDR 750 million to IDR 800 million) inside the community economy each year.
As global travelers increasingly demand destinations that respect the planet, Natasa’s award demonstrates that Borneo's future lies not in exploiting its natural wonders, but in guarding them.
Landak has proven that the roar of a waterfall can power a community, preserve a rainforest, and rewrite the rules of sustainable travel in Southeast Asia.
Reported and written by Masri Sareb Putra
