JP/STEVIE EMILIA

A little thing can say a lot. For environment activist Yuyun Yunia Ismawati, a little thing - her business card - reveals the depth of her passion.

Where other people speak at length about the need to protect or conserve the environment but tend to mean those rosy words for others rather than for themselves, Yuyun lets her thin brownish card - made from recycled paper rather than thick luxury cardboard - do the talking.

"Everything is there," she said with a smile, unaware of the impact the card made.

It was past 6:30 p.m. between long sessions at the Poznan climate conference in Poland in December last year, but she showed not a hint of weariness.

"Time goes by so fast. Twenty-four hours seems too short. Maybe a day should be 36 hours instead. There are so many things to do," she said, before spilling "ridiculous" stories from a session she had just attended and then, as expected, offering her own opinions on the matters.

Four months later, she was named one of six winners of the 2009 Goldman Environment Prize - a prestigious award often referred to as the Nobel Prize of the environmental movement.

She is credited mainly for successfully pressuring big hotels in Bali to reduce their solid waste and improve recycling.

Yuyun, who earned her bachelor's degree in environmental engineering from the Bandung Institute of Technology, did not become an environment activist overnight.

Despite her solid background, she started out as a volunteer at the Wisnu Foundation, a nonprofit organization in Bali, soon after she followed her then husband to settle on the tourist island in 1996.

She left her comfortable jobs - lecturer at Trisakti University and consultant for a private company - out of her frustration at the gross disparity between theory and reality at that time - when collusion, nepotism and corruption were the norm under the New Order era.

"I was tired and kept on thinking what's wrong with the system," she recalled. "I just wanted to do something which would give me freedom."

After just three months, she was appointed director of the foundation, a position she held until she resigned in January 2000.

From the beginning, waste management has been her thing.

During her time at the foundation, she and her team successfully implemented a partnership pro-gram supported by The Asia Foundation which focused on waste management, working alongside seven hotels. The system, known as one of the Dubai Award and Habitat best practices, is still up and running.

She said waste was easy to manage but had become an issue because of poor management and the lack of political will.

"It's a public service like water. If you want an easy solution, privatize it. But it's expensive, complicated and might not serve the poor. There should be access and mechanisms for the poor. In dealing with waste, it should be decentralized, to the community level," she said.

"The solution might sound clich*d - recycling or composting. People might see these as the classic solutions but these people don't know how significant these methods are in reducing greenhouse gas emissions."

Leaving the foundation did not mean she gave up on dealing with waste. Neither did it mean she took a nice break.

Her eyes gleaming, she proudly related how in June 2000 she and four colleagues set up Bali Fokus Foundation, a nonprofit organization working on environmental management, pollution control and sustainable development.

"Many set up NGOs attracted by aid from donors but the five of us, two foreigners and three Indonesians, used our own money," said Yuyun, who was detained in 2007 with her three foreign colleagues for protesting against a proposed waste-to-energy plant in Bandung, West Java.

Other NGOs, she said, focused on environment advocacy or conservation but paid little attention to urban issues.

"I see this as an opportunity to show real work," Yuyun said. "And a challenge, *because* if we do something in the city center but then it doesn't work or is unsustainable, we will be in trouble. So we must do it right."

Working in Bali is a challenge on its own, especially because potential donors might see it as a popular tourist island that no longer needs assistance.

"Bali is an international island but is managed traditionally," she said. "There's a gap. Human resources capacity and governments should really be updated to respond to the international market."

Her success might also be the result of her considerable training. Yuyun was the Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD) Fellow and was selected as the Ashoka Fellow for her ideas and innovation in promoting the improvement of solid waste management in urban and tourism areas.

She promoted decentralized solid waste management to the community to reduce the burden on public services while practicing an environmentally friendly approach.

Many of her ideas became reality, with support from the government and international NGOs that shared a similar vision, not only in Bali but also across the country.

Last year, she went further. With nine Indonesian NGOs, she set up the Indonesia Toxic-Free Network; she is currently the network's coordinator.

The network aims to tackle wider issues surrounding waste, such as how to limit damage from burning waste, medical waste and the correlation with consumer rights and environmental health.

"When I tell my friends about toxic issues, they tell me that *You're successful in scaring us'," she laughed.

"The thing is, I realize that there's not much public awareness about these issues. And if us, who represent civil society, do not understand, how can we inform others?"

As night set in, it became clear that her concern and passion for environmental issues are mostly driven by her love for future generations.

At home, the single mother does not hesitate to speak her mind to her two daughters, Mayang, 20, and Kana, 14, and their friends about the little things they can do to protect the environment.

"I tell them over and over that *Your life will be much harder'," she said. "I'll tell them that *Someday you won't have any water'. And my little daughter will tell me to give her a break because she's still in junior high."

"But the more I know, the more I think, the more I'm concerned about my children's future," she said. "Can you imagine the next 20 years?"

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