ProFauna's Recommendation on Earth Day Celebration: Time to Change, for Our Forests and Lives

Environmentalists and activists celebrate the Earth Day every 22 April, which was founded by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1970. In many countries, people commemorate the Day in many ways: holding seminars, street campaigns, exhibitions, music concerts, etc. It will be ironic, if we remember and concern about the planet we live on only on the Earth Day.

With the support of its 500,000 supporters (volunteers) all over Indonesia, ProFauna urges Indonesian people to start taking action on Earth Day to save the forests which remain only 120 millions hectares. ProFauna's theme for the 2010 Earth Day celebration is the same with the title of this article, "Time to Change, for Our Forests and Lives". ProFauna thinks that it is time to stop the discussions, seminars, and debates, and start taking real actions to prevent the increasing deforestation.

The organization recommends some following actions to help save the forests. The first one is saving the paper because it is produced from the forests. It is estimated that 70% of the produced paper consumed the woods from wild forests. The record shows that from 120 millions hectares, 70 millions hectare forests are degraded. Every year, the trees in 1.8 million hectare forests are cut down. This deforestation pace is tragically fast and threatening the existences of humans and wildlife depending on forests.

The second point of the recommendation is to reduce the consumption of palm oil products. Palm oil plantations have been proved to threat wild forests. In addition, the government's plan to reclassify palm oil plantations as forests will allow massive deforestation to grow the industrial plant. ProFauna suggests that the public should change from using palm oil products to other substitutes like the coconut oil.

Another lifestyle that needs change is the hunting and poaching for wildlife as hobbies or sports by modern civilizations. The facts show the close correlation between wildlife hunting and forest fires in some regions in Indonesia where poachers intentionally set fire on the forests to make the wildlife come out from the nests and some others unintentionally burn the forest by recklessly leave their unextinguished cigarette butts and campfires.

ProFauna as a wildlife and forest protection organization in Indonesia also invites the public to pay more attention to and be critical of the policies and actions destructing the forests. ProFauna's co-founder stated, "It is time for the public to speak up for wildlife and forest protection because the natures can't. Forests protection is for better lives for humans too. It is time to change and take action!"