Bandung & Jakarta -- Today (9/3), WWF-Indonesia together with Earth Hour communities in Bandung and Jakarta held the third Car Free Day (CFD) in the framework of EARTH HOUR Indonesia 2014 campaign. The CFD events in both cities today still aim to call the public to the importance of adopting environmentally friendly lifestyles that are easy, cheap, and can be done starting from themselves in their daily lives. The theme of this third CFD event is #BijakKertas, aimed at encouraging people to use paper more wisely and recycle paper waste.

EARTH HOUR activities in CFD Bandung and Jakarta today also marked the simultaneous community mobilization under the flag of SERENTAL COLLABORATION: "This is my action! Where is your action?" by EARTH HOUR Champions in 26 cities across Indonesia, namely: Aceh, Padang, Palembang, Pekanbaru, Tangerang, Jakarta, Bandung, Cimahi, Bogor, Semarang, Solo, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Sidoarjo, Kediri, Malang, Batu City, Mataram, Samarinda, Balikpapan, Banjarmasin, Palangkaraya, Pontianak, Makassar, Sorowako, and Palu.

"The #BijakKertas action that we are launching today aims to invite communities across Indonesia to take action and create change at the local level because each individual actually has the power to help preserve the environment," said Nyoman Iswarayoga, Director of Communications and Advocacy of WWF-Indonesia. "This simultaneous action shows that awareness of the importance of reducing the use of paper and recycling paper waste can be realized, and this community that moves in 26 cities across Indonesia emerges from that awareness. We hope that this simultaneous action can encourage other individuals in each city to join in the action to support the EARTH HOUR movement.""

The use of paper is part of the daily activities of modern and especially urban life, whether in the form of copy paper, tissue, packaging, or other paper products. The raw material for paper comes from the wood fibers of trees. Unfortunately, sometimes paper production is carried out by taking wood fiber raw materials from natural forests, not from plantations or cultivation, thus threatening natural sustainability. Imagine if globally, the use of paper reaches 1 million tons every day, how much pressure on natural forests in the world? Therefore, the wise use of paper such as reducing the use of paper and recycling paper is part of environmental conservation efforts.

"Consuming paper wisely means helping to reduce pressure on natural forests and the environment. The more natural forests that are cut down, the worse the impact on our earth's climate. Everyone has the power to be a wise consumer. Being wise in using paper can be done in many ways, including using paper efficiently such as printing back and forth, recycling unused paper, and choosing paper products that come from environmentally friendly production processes," Nyoman continued.

In cities that have CFD activities, the SERENTAL COLLABORATION: "This is my action! Where is your action?" is carried out along the CFD location. A number of cities that organized this action at CFD locations were Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Solo, Surabaya, Samarinda, Balikpapan, Banjarmasin, Makassar, and Palu. The main focus of today's action is Bandung and Jakarta.

So far, the SERENTAKE COLLABORATION: "This is my action! Where is your action?" in the framework of the EARTH HOUR 2014 campaign has been carried out three times. The first action was carried out on February 16, 2014 with the theme of supporting public transportation, and the second action was carried out on February 23, 2014 with the theme of plastic waste management titled #PlastikTakAsik, which successfully mobilized 25 cities to participate in researching potential waste for an average of two hours at CFD activities and managed to collect 502.34 kg of waste. The fourth and final action will be held on March 23, 2014 with the theme of energy saving, which will also be held in commemoration of World Water Day which falls the day before.

The culmination of Indonesia's EARTH HOUR Campaign will be the global Switch Off or turning off the lights for 1 hour on March 29, 2014, from 20.30-21.30 local time in 154 EARTH HOUR participating countries around the world.

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For more information and resource needs, please contact:

Jakarta:

• Nefa D. Firman

Email: ndfirman@wwf.or.id

Bandung:

• Syevira Citra

Email: syeviracitra@gmail.com

Indonesia HOUR HOUR Campaign social media network:

• Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/earthhour2011indo/

• Video: http://www.youtube.com/user/EarthHour2011Indo

• Facebook fanpage: http://www.facebook.com/EHindonesia

• Twitter: follow http://twitter.com/EHIndonesia hashtag #IniAksiku #BijakKertas

About WWF- Indonesia

WWF-Indonesia is the largest and oldest non-profit nature conservation organization in Indonesia that has started its activities since 1962. To date, WWF-Indonesia works in 28 regional offices from Aceh and Papua and has more than 400 staff. Since 2006, the organization has been supported by more than 67,000 supporters from across the archipelago. For more information, please visit www.wwf.or.id.

About EARTH HOUR Indonesia

EARTH HOUR is one of WWF's global campaigns that invites individuals, communities, business practitioners, and governments around the world to care about climate change caused by human activities, by doing something simple but will have a tremendous impact if made into a lifestyle: turning off lights and electronic equipment that is not being used for 1 hour, on every Saturday in the 3rd week of March every year. It was first practiced in 2007 in Sidney, Australia, and started in 2009 in Indonesia. From just Jakarta, by 2013 Earth Hour Indonesia had expanded to more than 30 cities. For more information, visit http://earthhour.wwf.or.id