By: Primayunta and Natalia Trita Agnika

On Sunday (25/10), a group from WWF-Indonesia's Panda Mobile team and Kili Kili Adventure visited communities living in Marunda Flats, North Jakarta, to conduct environmental education and mangrove planting activities. This activity is a routine program organized every year by Kili Kili Adventure. This year, the theme is "Save Jakarta with Mangrove".

Located on the coast of Marunda Beach, North Jakarta, this collaborative program between Kili Kili Adventure, Panda Mobile WWF-Indonesia, IMARF, and Pesona Indonesia consists of various interesting activities aimed at people of various ages, from children to parents. WWF-Indonesia's environmental education truck carries various activities, such as storytelling, coloring, 3R activities (reduce, reuse, recycle), soil erosion simulation, watching movies, ecosystem games, and coaching clinic on mangroves.

The children were very enthusiastic listening to the storytelling from Mr. Ryan about plastic waste. Through interesting stories, children are made aware that plastic waste can have a negative impact on the surrounding environment and endanger animals that live on land and in the sea. In the coloring session, children were invited to learn more about mangroves and love the coastal environment around them through pictures of mangroves and beach scenery. They decorated the pictures with various beautiful colors.

Through 3R activities, people in Marunda Flats gain knowledge to turn unused objects into more useful items. Volunteers from Panda Mobile taught them how to make bags from used t-shirts and make pots from used bottles and unused CDs.

As a community that lives near the beach, it is only right that people in Marunda understand the importance of mangroves for the environment. Therefore, Primayunta from WWF-Indonesia's Supporter Engagement explained to them about the mangrove ecosystem and its function for the environment. Knowledge about mangroves was further solidified with information on mangrove planting techniques by Dian from Yayasan Mangrove Indonesia (YMI).

The highlight of the environmental education activity was the planting of 1,200 mangrove trees. The planting was done simultaneously by Kili Kili Adventure, WWF-Indonesia, IMARF, and the Marunda Flat community. Despite the scorching sun, everyone involved carried out this activity with great enthusiasm. What was special about this mangrove tree planting was the installation of geotags on the planted trees. This serves to make it easier to monitor the development of the planted trees. Thus, the activity does not only stop at planting trees but also monitoring so that it can be accounted for. Jerry Q. Mentang from WWF-Indonesia's NewTrees team provides training on geotagging trees to Kili-Kili Adventure who will be monitoring the trees that have been planted.