Press Release: Marapu Band Campaigns For Wildlife Protection

(10/15/2009) ProFauna's wildlife protection campaign in Indonesia has gained more support. The Indonesian celebs like SLANK, a group band that has more than three millions fans in Indonesia, and Melanie Subono, a female rock star, have joined ProFauna and supported its campaigns. There is a new celeb supporter that comes from Yogyakarta, Central Java, supporter is a reggae band named MARAPU. The band's support for ProFauna was shown from its involvement in one of ProFauna's public campaign held in front of Yogyakarta's post office on 15 October 2009.

In the campaign held in the city that has many of Javanese cultural and traditional heritages, MARAPU and ProFauna's activists stretched a banner saying "Wildlife is More Beautiful in the Wild". One of ProFauna activists wore a bird costume to get more attention from the public. The reggae band invited the public to keep wildlife in the wild by the simplest way they can help, by not buying wildlife in the markets. ProFauna's records show that wildlife trade has threatened wildlife survival because most of the traded wildlife are caught from the wild.

Indonesia is known as the country that has long list for the threatened wildlife. According to IUCN, the world Conservation organization, the threatened species in Indonesia include 183 mammal, 115 bird, 27 reptile, and 111 fish species. If there is no effort to save and protect those species, they will be extinct like the Balinese tiger that has been extinct in the 70's.

Rosek Nursahid, chairman of ProFauna Indonesia, stated,"Without the public support, it will be difficult to tackle the illegal wildlife trade. By not buying the traded wildlife and actively reporting wildlife crime is the ways that the public can do and help ProFauna to protect and save wildlife in Indonesia." ProFauna will always engage more support from the public to be the organization's volunteers and supporters to spread the conservation message wider. ProFauna's volunteers and supporters come from many parts of Indonesia and vary from different backgrounds like celebs, businessmen, students, and many more.

For further information please contact:

• Swasti Prawidya Mukti

  (International Affairs Officer, ProFauna Indonesia)
  Email: international@profauna.net