Siti Aminah wins honor for environmental work
By Renata Arianingtyas
JAKARTA (JP): Siti Aminah, the 27-year-old who won a Global 500 Roll of Honor award for the environment, had considered joining the millions of Indonesian migrant workers in Malaysia in search of higher wages and instead she stayed at home.
She planted mangroves in Semangat Baru, a hamlet in Labuan Mapin village, Alas, on Sumbawa island, West Nusa Tenggara. Each morning, she sets out on foot, wading through mud, to plant saplings on an eroded beach.
Occasionally, she makes a three-hour sailing trip to Panjang Island to walk through the woods, climb trees and sometimes sleep there amid poisonous snakes all for the sake of finding and collecting good mangrove saplings.
She used to do it alone. Then a former playmate, Sumiati, joined her. And now, more and more people, even those who once ridiculed her, are joining her campaign to save the beach from erosion.
"She's got to be mad. Her friends have all married or are working abroad, she's getting old searching for mangrove saplings in the forest and planting them on the beach," was how some villagers had talked about the 1990 graduate from a local school for social workers.
Siti said she had become absorbed by her mission and that she did not even have time to help her mother cook.
"The only thing that motivated us was our wish to save the forests. That's why we continued working, even though people sneered at us," she said.
The fruits of her labor have begun to show. The mangrove forests are growing thicker, and the population of fish is increasing. Eighteen thousand mangroves have been planted along a seven kilometer strip covering 106 hectares.
"It is easier for people to catch shrimp, sea snails and crabs because their numbers have grown," she said. "They are the impacts felt by locals. Besides, the beach is now more protected from the sea erosion."
Not only have the residents of Semangat Baru stopped mocking her and her colleagues in the National Solidarity Foundation, they have become her ally.
They were obviously proud of Siti Aminah when she flew to Seoul to receive a Global 500 Roll of Honor award from the executive director of the United Nations' Environmental Program, Elizabeth Dowdeswell, on June 5, World Environment Day.
In Seoul, she stood proudly alongside 20 other environmental campaigners, including Jane Goodall of Britain, Jan van der Leun of the Netherlands, Lilian Corra of Argentina and Carolina Travesi of Mexico.
Siti became one of 654 individuals and organizations to have received the honor since it was established in 1987. Among them are Sir David Attenborough of England, former Norway premier Gro Harlem Bruntland, Anil Anggarwal of India and Jimmy Carter of the United States. Indonesians who have received the award include green consumer campaigner Erna Witoelar, environmental professor Otto Soemarwoto and singer Ully Sigar Rusady.
Proud
When asked how she felt about the award, Aminah said: "I'm proud, but I'm not yet satisfied with whatever I've accomplished.
"This award is not for me only, but for all of my friends at the foundation, especially Sumiati, who is now married," said Aminah, who is still single.
Aminah won another award Sunday; from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) during an exhibition on the environment at the Jakarta Convention Hall.
The award was presented by the State Minister of Environment's secretary-general, Soedarsono, who said that Aminah and her group had "become knights of the country's environment".
The UNDP is particularly pleased with Aminah's and the foundation's rehabilitation of at least seven kilometers of coastal mangrove forest in Sumbawa.
Aminah was born in 1970 in Labuhan Mapin, Sumbawa, into a Bugis family who had migrated from South Sulawesi. Aminah grew up in a community with strong Islamic values. Her family tilled the land, but one by one her family members left to work in plantations in Malaysia.
Her brother Sahabuddin, her younger sister Anita and her father have all gone to work in Malaysia. Aminah grew up to be an independent woman.
She was coming home from school one day when she noticed that three houses and the marketplace in her village had been swamped by the sea. She realized that over the past two decades, the mangrove forest in her village had disappeared because of illegal logging and sea erosion.
Aminah, the second of four children, began to act. At first, she wanted to build a wall to protect the beach, but it would have been too expensive.
She then established the foundation, and worked hard to raise local's awareness about the environment. She incorporated children into their program, collaborating with a local school.
The foundation then attracted funding from the Netherlands, Dana Mitra Lingkungan, Environmental Management Development for Indonesia and other sources.