Timor-Leste, told by the people who know it
28 subjects — crocodiles to coffee, tais to the resistance — each with short filmed interviews from the people who live them.
Nature & Wildlife
The saltwater crocodile as ancestor, neighbour and real risk — field knowledge from people who live…
One of the planet's great cetacean highways runs a few kilometres off Dili — twenty-plus species,…
Reefs you can walk to from the road, inside the most biodiverse marine region on Earth.
Two hundred-plus species and a handful found nowhere else — Timor is a birder's unfinished map.
Six of the world's seven sea turtle species pass through this region — and some of…
The nurseries of the coast — and the country's cheapest defence against erosion, storm surge and…
Culture & Belief
A backstrap loom, a family's motifs and a UNESCO-listed tradition carrying identity thread by thread.
Not a building but a lineage — the sacred house holds a clan's ancestors, objects and…
Dance here is not performance — it is welcome, mourning, harvest and the return of warriors.
Babadok drums, bamboo strings and unaccompanied dahur singing — plus the resistance songs that became a…
A community hangs a prohibition on a post — and a forest, a reef or a…
Springs you don't drink from, stones you don't move, forests you don't cut — the map…
Marriage here joins two houses, not two people — and the exchange that seals it is…
Two official languages, two working languages and around thirty mother tongues on an island you can…
Craft & Livelihood
The crescent headpiece on the national coat of arms, the moon-disc on a chief's chest, the…
Everything a household needs, made from what grows within walking distance — and the carvers keeping…
Dugout hulls with bamboo outriggers, hand lines, and a strait that drops to a thousand metres…
Food & Farming
Corn and cassava as the real staples, fish grilled in leaves, budu on everything, and a…
Shade-grown arabica from Ermera and Letefoho, organic mostly by default, and the Hibrido de Timor that…
Sunday market days, the hungry season, and the first-harvest rites that decide when corn may be…
History & Faith
Painted hands at Ili Kere Kere, 42,000-year-old tuna bones, and the earliest deep-sea fishing evidence on…
Four hundred years of sandalwood, forts, missions and a colonial border that still shapes the island.
Twenty-four years, three fronts — armed, clandestine and diplomatic — and a referendum that ended in…
From ashes in 1999 to restored independence in 2002 — and the unfinished work of a…
One of the most Catholic countries on earth, where the Church sheltered a resistance and where…
Places & Journeys
An island in sight of Dili with the most fish-diverse reefs ever surveyed, community-run guesthouses and…
The road runs out at Tutuala, the cliff drops to Jaco, and no one sleeps on…
Just under three thousand metres, a pre-dawn climb to a statue of Our Lady, and a…
Photos: Ministry of Tourism & Environment, Timor-Leste