By Dyah Eka Rini

Lampung (20/01)-Afrizal Khaidir gave his whole heart to conservation. Afrizal, or Af as he was usually called, joined WWF as an assistant analyst for socio-economics in a WWF project in Sungai Penuh, Jambi Province. In 1997, Af became district coordinator and worked with 15 other facilitators who traveled in and out the targeted villages of World Bank-funded ICDP project in Curup and Bengkulu Utara Districts in Bengkulu Province. The project continued until 2002. After that, Afrizal joined other organizations including Greenomic and WALHI with a broad scope of work in Java, Sumatra, and Kalimantan. In 2004, Af returned to WWF and was stationed at the WWF project in Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park (BBSNP).

At WWF-BBSNP, Af worked as the Sustainable Land Use Coordinator. Along with the team, Af pushed for the cancellation of new road development inside the BBS conservation area; for existing road management to accommodate the National Park's priority as wildlife habitat; and to promote the establishment of habitat areas for rhinos, tigers and elephants outside conservation areas as special protected areas of habitat. He also built a conservation constituency around the buffer zone of BBSNP to support conservation activities.

Af continued to learn about conservation after joining WWF-Indonesia. For years, he braved the ups and downs in field works in order to understand the true mission of conservation. Af loved the beauty of nature and big trees, yet he was lucky to work with all sectors, from communities in remote areas to high level governmental actors and the World Bank.

""Evicted from village meetings, defamed by other NGOs or local communities has been my daily life in the field,"" said Afrizal last September at the WWF office in Bandar Lampung. ""I remember when we were protested by other NGOs and community organizations at the launch of Coffee and Conservation campaign in Bandar Lampung. They threw at us these harsh words and even threatened us. But in the end, they asked for an apology because they were too harsh and they didn't understand the problem exactly.""

For Afrizal, building community trust and participation is the real process of conservation work. ""They have to understand the benefits or the loss of developed activities,"" he said.

Nurchalis Fadhli, the project leader of WWF-BBS, also confirms that. ""I've been working with him for 14 years. Afrizal was a very patient person and was full of passion regarding conservation. One of the examples is the Sanggi-Bengkunat road management. When everybody was quite pessimistic, Afrizal never surrendered. After 1,5 years, he succeeded to ensure to focus on the important of road management. Now, the Ministry of Forestry even put the road management of Sanggi-Bengkunat as one of the minister's 100 days program.""

Afrizal did enjoy his time at WWF-Indonesia. He worked hard until he had to surrender with his health condition. On Saturday, January 16th 2010, Afrizal passed away. He left his wife, two pre-teen daughters and his entire colleagues a legacy to keep fighting for the nature he loved. Rest in peace, Afrizal.