Skip to main content

Utility

  • Admissions
  • Exploring Grad School
  • Current Students
  • Community Impact and Engagement
  • Faculty + Staff
  • Alumni
Give
Intranet
Report Sexual Misconduct
Home

Main navigation

  • Academics
    • Master of Science
    • Master of Landscape Architecture
    • Doctoral (PhD)
    • Dual-Degree Programs
    • Graduate Certificate Programs
    • Undergraduate Program
    • Courses
    • Online Learning
  • Research + Impact
    • Sustainability Themes
    • PhD Profiles
    • Student Research
    • The Centers, Institutes + Initiatives
    • Faculty Profiles
    • Labs
  • Prospective Students
    • Why Michigan?
    • Application Information
    • International Students
    • Financial Aid + Tuition
    • Visit Campus
    • Faculty Profiles
    • Admitted Students
    • Exploring Graduate School
  • Student Services
    • SEAS and PitE Student Center
    • Career Services
    • Financial Aid
    • Academic Advising
    • Student Organizations
    • Student Development
    • Forms, Handbooks + Policies
    • Quick Links
  • News
    • Community Highlights
    • In the Media
    • Stewards Magazine
  • Events
    • Co-Sponsorship Form
    • Submit Event
    • Admissions Webinars
    • Gallery
  • About
    • Who We Are
    • SEAS Values
    • Collective Impact Committee
    • Leadership
    • Demographics
    • Faculty Profiles
    • Administrative Departments + Staff
    • Facilities + Locations
    • Community Impact and Engagement
    • Art & Environment Gallery
    • COVID-19
    • Land Acknowledgement
    • History
    • Email Sign-Up
Search search icon

Utility

  • Admissions
  • Exploring Grad School
  • Current Students
  • Community Impact and Engagement
  • Faculty + Staff
  • Alumni
Give
Report Sexual Misconduct
search icon Search

Alumni Stories

Image
seas neon sign
  • Admissions
  • Exploring Grad School
  • Current Students
  • Community Impact and Engagement
  • Faculty + Staff
  • Alumni
    • Get Involved!
    • Alumni Stories
      • Share Your Story
    • Strategic Alumni Network
    • Contact Us
    • Submit a Class Note
    • Alumni Career Services Resources
    • Stewards Magazine
    • Update Contact Info

Alumni Menu

  • Admissions
  • Exploring Grad School
  • Current Students
  • Community Impact and Engagement
  • Faculty + Staff
  • Alumni
    • Get Involved!
    • Alumni Stories
      • Share Your Story
    • Strategic Alumni Network
    • Contact Us
    • Submit a Class Note
    • Alumni Career Services Resources
    • Stewards Magazine
    • Update Contact Info
back to all alumni stories

Health in Harmony: Linking conservation and affordable healthcare in rural Indonesia

Image

On Indonesia’s island of Borneo, illegal and environmentally destructive logging is fueled not by corporate greed but by intense poverty. Desperate villagers turn to logging tropical forests to pay for basic and immediate needs like health care, and the impact is devastating: habitat for rare and endangered species like orangutans is destroyed, fields are flooded and crops lost, increased standing water spreads disease, and air quality degrades across the globe.

Indonesian nonprofit Alam Sehat Lestari (ASRI) aims to reverse this trend by integrating health care and conservation. The clinic’s innovative structure accepts non-cash payment options such as seedlings and manure to pay for medical bills, and offers massive discounts on health care to villages that agree to not illegally log in Gunung Palung National Park.

The organization became a perfect fit for Jesse Turner, a medical doctor with a background in environmental justice. Turner studied the impact of environmental change on vulnerable places and vulnerable people at SNRE, where he was inspired to pursue further multidisciplinary training in medicine. In med school, he was drawn in by ASRI’s mission and began volunteering at its clinic when he completed his residency at University of California, San Francisco, in 2013. He later had the privilege of serving as ASRI’s medical director until family needs brought him home to the U.S.

Turner says his most satisfying role at ASRI was both building capacity in and learning from Indonesian physician colleagues at the clinic. “It was amazing to witness the buy-in of the broader community to this whole different framing of health,” comments Turner. “Caring for the wilderness around us is caring for ourselves and our children.” Turner now serves in the ER and inpatient wards of four UCSF affiliated hospitals and will work in Saipan this spring. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_Wv4Rt6WP8[/embed]

seas logo
University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability
Dana Building
440 Church Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
(734) 764-6453
Email us
facebook
twitter
instagram
linkedin
youtube
flickr
planet blue global impact logo

Footer

  • Contact us
  • Intranet
  • Contact Web Team
  • Email Sign-Up

© 2025 The Regents of the University of Michigan | Privacy Policy

Produced by Michigan Creative