Who signed up for Marine Buddies yesterday? Let's get to know more about this community of young people working on marine conservation issues.

Marine Buddies is a community formed by the WWF Indonesia Foundation in 2008 and became active in 2016. Currently, Marine Buddies has been established in 11 cities across Indonesia. In 2024, WWF-Indonesia collaborated with Marine Buddies in four cities namely Denpasar, Surabaya, Jakarta, and Tangerang to conduct activities related to environmental issues in coastal and marine areas.

In addition, this volunteer-based community is also active in educating about marine issues such as the importance of being responsible for maintaining the balance of marine ecosystems, from various factors such as fisheries activities, aquatic tourism, protection of protected endangered marine species, marine ecosystem health, to the issue of plastic waste. The activities carried out are varied, such as education through workshops, webinars, campaigns, watching together, and other activities.

Through these activities, it is hoped that they can spread the message of conservation to more young people, the surrounding community, or other communities to change their mindset to care for the environment and start an action starting from themselves, for example by not polluting the sea, such as not leaving litter when visiting the beach. Marine Buddies also hopes to invite people around the coast to keep the environment clean,

Ashma Hanifah, Coordinator of Marine Buddies Jakarta said, "Thank you to WWF-Indonesia for reviving the spirit of conservation that may have been buried. It's great to see the enthusiasm of our friends to protect our Earth. Hopefully, the spirit will never run out forever."

Following the vision and mission of Marine Buddies, namely, "Engaging young people throughout Indonesia to contribute to various activities related to marine conservation", the main target is tourists, especially young people. The role of the younger generation is very important as a driving force in marine conservation activities.

In November 2023, WWF-Indonesia again opened recruitment for Marine Buddies volunteers specifically for 4 major cities namely Jakarta, Tangerang, Surabaya, and Tangerang. In a fairly short time, WWF-Indonesia received several 1700 young people who were interested in joining the Marine Buddies. After the selection, a total of 344 people were accepted as members of the Marine Buddies community. Hopefully, with the increase of members of this community, they can play an active role in every activity and become a pioneers in bringing changes to the lifestyle of the community, especially the younger generation.