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GRASSROOTS ACTIVITIES AND FUNDRAISING TO SAVE OUR NATURE

Environmental damage and climate change are among the biggest threats the world faces today. Just imagine what the world would be like if continuous tangible environmental protection is not undertaken!

The Nature Conservancy (TNC), the leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important land areas and waters for nature and people, addresses the most pressing conservation threats on the largest scale. The organization has been active in environmental protection programs in Indonesia since 1991, working in close collaboration with governments, local communities, civil societies, private sectors and academia.

Indonesia has the richest biodiversity on Earth. Its combined tropical rainforests covering 98 million hectares of land, rank third among the world’s largest. Its oceans are home to 75 percent of the world’s coral reef species and the second biggest producer of fish in the world. Furthermore, six out of seven turtle species in the world is found in Indonesia. Indonesia’s forests are home to the world’s largest population of orangutans and the unique Komodo dragon is endemic to Indonesia.

Unfortunately, Indonesia’s environment, both sea and land, is currently facing challenges. From 1990 to 2012, some 21.3 million hectares of land has been deforested. About 78 percent of these cases happened in Sumatra and Kalimantan because of land conversion and illegal logging. Meanwhile, only 6 percent of Indonesia’s wealth of coral reefs are still in excellent condition, while the rest is being damaged by non-sustainable fishing and mariculture practices.

So, what we can do to address these challenges?

#sayaSIGAP PROGRAM FOR ENVIRONMENTAL VIGILANCE

The #sayaSIGAP program seeks to involve locals in safeguarding their environment. The land program #sayaSIGAP Darat supports sustainable forest management, the protection of about 3.7 million hectares of forest areas and the conservation of orangutan habitat covering 310,000 hectares of land. The ocean program #sayaSIGAP Laut, meanwhile, involves empowering coastal communities to achieve sustainable fisheries, in the effective management of marine protected areas covering 5.6 million hectares and to promote turtle habitat protection.

TNC also seeks to involve the wider public to participate in environmental preservation efforts through its membership program. This is one of the organization’s efforts to raise the public’s awareness about the issue, which currently remains low. The program also gives a chance for people eager to be nature heroes and to actually engage in concrete actions. In order to promote the initiative, the organization has been involved in a number of canvassing activities, including office-to-office and mall-to-mall activities.

The program membership has three donation options: Rp 300,000 (US$22.50) for both the ocean and land protection program, Rp 200,000 for the ocean program alone and Rp 150,000 for the land program.

Bela Muhalimah, one of the conservation officers (fundraisers), said the challenge of promoting the fundraising program was to convince people who previously had negative experiences with environmental conservation fundraising efforts. Another conservation officer, Ginanjar Adi Priatna, meanwhile, said the main barrier was trying to convince people skeptical about environmental problems of the urgency of the issue.

Despite the challenges, however, they both find the experience to be beneficial.

“With an educational background in fisheries, I get a chance to obtain practical learning experiences through fieldwork to complement theory. Engaging with people from different walks of life, I also learn to convey my messages to them,” Bela said.

According to Adi, the experience also taught him that the reason why it was essential for us to protect the environment was because we were going pass it on to our children and grandchildren.

To become a TNC conservation officer (fundraiser), send an email to membership.indonesia@tnc.org. For further information about the organization’s programs, check sayasigap.org and nature.or.id. Social media accounts include Instagram account id_nature, Twitter handle ID_Nature and Facebook fanpage The Nature Conservancy Indonesia, as well as YouTube channel, The Nature Conservancy Indonesia.

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