Every August 7 is commemorated as Indonesian Forest Day, with the goal of making people more aware of and protect forests for the future of life. The Indonesian Forest Day Consortium in 2024 has the theme “Protect the Forest, Protect the Climate”.
Forests are like the lungs of the world, producing the oxygen we breathe every day, absorbing the carbon dioxide that causes global warming, and being home to millions of living things.
Forests are not just a collection of trees. Forests are complex living systems. Apart from producing oxygen, forests also:
Regulate the climate: Forests help keep the Earth's temperature stable and prevent natural disasters such as floods and droughts.
Store groundwater: Forests absorb rainwater and store it in the ground, thus maintaining the availability of clean water.
Protect soil: Tree roots help prevent soil erosion.
Provides food and medicine: Many plants in forests have medicinal properties and are a source of food for humans.
However, the beauty and benefits of forests are threatened by deforestation. Data from Forest Watch Indonesia from 2017 to 2021 shows that Indonesia loses an average of 2.54 million hectares of forest per year, equivalent to 6 football fields per minute.
Forest degradation not only impacts the environment, but also human life. Increasingly extreme climate change, such as more frequent and intense heatwaves, is one result of deforestation. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) notes that 2023 will be the hottest year on earth and the WHO predicts an additional 250,000 deaths per year in the coming decades due to climate change.
So, we all have an important role to play in preserving forests. Some of the things we can do include:
Raise awareness: Encourage your friends, family, and neighborhood to care about forests.
Support pro-forest policies: Convey our opinions to the government to pay more attention to environmental issues.
Start from yourself: Reduce paper usage, save energy, and choose environmentally friendly products.
Participate in conservation activities: Join tree-planting activities, forest clean-ups, or forest-saving campaigns.
One way to raise public awareness is through campaigns, both offline and online/digital. Rangkong Indonesia, has conducted a digital campaign through comic strips. This comic tells the point of view of a small family of hornbills who live in trees and forage for food in the forest. Imagine if the forest disappeared, where this hornbill family would live. The hornbills and the forest are mutually dependent. Hornbills are a type of fruit-eating bird that can spread fruit seeds, which will then become the forerunner of new forests.
With cooperation and higher awareness, we can protect forests and the sustainability of life on Earth.
