Bali-based NGO takes to beaches and schools in environmental drive

By Stevie Emilia

JAKARTA (JP): Children often surprise people with their innocent curiosity. Environmentalists, however, see this curiosity as the perfect opportunity to teach them about the importance of protecting the environment.

And it was children's curiosity that inspired Wisnu Foundation, a Bali-based nongovernmental organization (NGO) focusing on environmental protection, not to abandon their environmental campaigns amid the public's cold response toward such campaigns these days.

Equipped with adequate information on the environment, some posters, stickers and brochures, the foundation's activists present the environmental problems facing Bali to elementary school students.

Among the problems addressed in the classrooms are the need to preserve protected animals, the serious waste problems affecting the island's coastal areas and the effect these problems have on people.

After the presentations, the activists involve the students in a discussion to answer any questions they may have.

The foundation's programs to raise the environmental awareness of children does not stop at classroom presentations.

With the support of several hotels on the holiday island, the foundation has developed other environmental activities, such as a clean-the-beach program involving students and hotel employees. After cleaning the beach, the students are then given a chance to explore outside and inside the hotel.

The foundation's executive director, Yuyun Ilham, said the foundation believed that such programs would eventually raise children's environmental awareness.

"The more exposure the children get to environmental topics, the more their awareness will be raised," she told The Jakarta Post. "Then, through the children, we hope parents and teachers will also become better informed."

The hotels which support the program have the same environmental concerns as the foundation.

"The hoteliers want tourist area to be pretty; not just the area of their hotels, but also the surrounding areas...," Yuyun said.

The foundation's active involvement in environmental campaigns garnered it the Environmental Company Award, sponsored by TravelNews Asia magazine, during the World Tourism Market held in London in November. The foundation was nominated by the magazine's correspondent in Bali for its many environmental programs.

Known as a paradise island for its beautiful landscape, Bali is, however, not free from environmental problems.

Yuyun said that the most serious environmental problem on the island was the lack of proper planning and control in the use of land and development.

Government agencies play their part in the problems as the island's planners. For example, when environmental problems result from mega-projects such as beach reclamation, these agencies blame each other but none of them decide whether the project should be halted or allowed to continue.

"And intervention from the central government in Jakarta is still very strong. Most of the mega-projects are approved by Jakarta, while the local government and the local community has to suffer because of the problems emerging from the projects," Yuyun said.

The foundation has also set up community recycling centers for the disposal of recyclable materials in order to prevent people from burning their trash.

Yuyun said that they introduced the program because of the limited land available in Bali, making it impossible to create more dump sites.

"Besides, burning trash sometimes produces carcinogenic pollutants. For instance, burning plastic can produce dioxin, which is a carcinogenic agent. The effect cannot be seen in the short term, but in the long term it can cause nerve damage or mental and physical retardation," Yuyun said.

Apart from setting up community recycling centers, the foundation also developed recycling systems within hotels on the island in 1995.

In establishing this program, the foundation not only cooperated with hotels, but also worked closely with local waste collectors.

Waste collectors who buy the hotels' garbage to feed their pigs used to dump the unused garbage wherever they found the space, even close to the hotels.

But with the foundations recycling system, the waste collectors only get the garbage they need and the hotels properly dispose of the remaining waste.

The foundation also reports the amount of waste generated by each participating hotel every month.

"Our report can be used to change the hotels' policies, such as using plastic or glass bottles," Yuyun said.

Some of the hotels' waste is separated, with some of the garbage being used to make compost while food scraps are recycled into organic pig food.

At present, nine hotels are participating in the foundation's program: the Bali Inter-Continental Resort, the Four Seasons Resort Bali, The Ritz-Carlton Bali, the Bali Hyatt, the Sheraton Nusa Indah & Sheraton Laguna, The Holiday Inn, The Oberoi Bali and The Hard Rock Beach Club.

However, compared to the around 60 star-rated hotels in Bali, the number of participating hotels is still quite low.

"But we are making progress by raising awareness... and along with Bapedal (Environmental Impact Management Agency), we will introduce an environmental rating system for hotels in Bali, and eventually in all of Indonesia, to encourage them to implement environmental management in their daily operations," Yuyun said.