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Yayasan Konservasi Pesisir Indonesia

Awareness

With increased awareness among students and communities, environmental restoration programmes have a greater chance of success and a positive impact on the environment.

Global warming is everywhere. Illegal logging and even forest fires often make headlines in different parts of the world. As a young generation, today’s children need to be taught the importance of living “green” from an early age. YAKOPI reaches out to the younger generation by creating planting programmes for children with the help of Voulentir. We try to create programmes that instil a love of the environment in children from an early age, because this is an attitude that is easy to shape. One of them is by teaching them to plant mangrove trees.

YAKOPI and the volunteer team try to instil this spirit in the children from an early age, teaching them the benefits and why we should plant and maintain mangrove forests, explaining that mangrove forests can protect settlements from sea storms, resist coastal erosion that threatens their homes, and are also home to wildlife and marine life, as one tree can provide oxygen for two people. And we don’t forget to remind them that “it took decades for the plants we planted to survive tidal waves and coastal erosion, and in just 5 minutes people could cut down mangrove trees”, so we need to protect and preserve mangroves.

Benefit

The benefits of educating students and communities in environmental restoration programmes are significant. Awareness helps to increase understanding and commitment to environmental protection. Some of the benefits include

  • Environmental understanding: Awareness helps students and communities understand the importance of the environment and the impact of human activities on ecosystems.
  • Active participation: Awareness of the need for environmental restoration encourages active participation in such programmes, whether through moral support or concrete actions such as planting trees or cleaning up areas.
  • Environmental education: Environmental restoration programmes can be an opportunity to provide better environmental education, shaping a generation that cares and takes responsibility for the earth.
  • Community wellbeing: A healthy environment has a positive impact on community wellbeing. Clean water, fresh air and a balanced ecosystem provide health benefits and a better quality of life.
  • Skills development: By participating in restoration programmes, students and communities can develop practical skills, such as plant cultivation or waste management, that can be useful in everyday life.

We make the children feel cool and have fun with the mangrove planting programme, planting may feel boring but if modified in a fun way the children will definitely get excited and this can be seen when the YAKOPI team sees the joy of the children together in the mangrove planting programme. . The tree planting activity aims to teach the correct way of planting trees and the importance of planting trees. “We want the children to be educated from an early age to know the functions and benefits of planting trees so that they are embedded in them to always protect and preserve their environment.

Introducing Mangroves to Children

YAKOPI also taught them how to plant trees properly, planting trees is not just ceremonial, once the trees are planted there is no more supervision and care, because if planting is just ceremonial we will not know if our plants can adapt to their environment or not. To evaluate the mangroves planted, the programme is designed with a maximum of three meetings and every two weeks the children can see the results of the plants they have planted.

At the end of the programme, Voulentir and the YAKOPI team always explain to the students that we cannot live without plants because we would lack oxygen and humans need a lot of oxygen to breathe in order to live. It’s time to thank the plants and we have to preserve the plant life by planting different plants around us.

We can conclude that the mangrove planting programme can give positive energy to children and parents who are involved in mangrove planting because the trees we plant and take care of will benefit our environment in the future.

 The best time to plant trees was 20 years ago. The second best time is now, so from now on we teach future generations to protect the environment from childhood.