What do you expect when you are visiting a climate protection project, supported by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)? I was pretty sure to find some supporting staff members who are well payed to do their green jobs. But what I found at Pangandaran, a bathing resort at the Southern coast of Java, was a lot more – a large number of Indonesian people are taking action themselves, as volunteers in the project. The motivations may be different, but all of them agree that something has to be done, sooner, not later.

Apip Winayadi is an activist for Sundanese Culture, he sees his task hidden in history:

Apip Winayadi, Environmental Activist from DW_Global Ideas on Vimeo.

When a terrible Tsunami rolled over the region in 2006, leaving more than 600 people dead, almost everything was destroyed. Mangroves had been ripped of the ground, coral reefs where smashed by the power of the wave. But also the livelihood of the whole population layed down, without any infrastructure or hotels tourism collapsed completely. But the catastrophe caused a new dawn with a lot of opportunities for the future, Encih Sarsih says. She is the principal of an elementary school here:

Encih Sarsih, Elementary School Principal from DW_Global Ideas on Vimeo.

The STREAM Project (Sustainable Tourism through Energy Efficiency with Adaptation and Mitigation Measures) focuses mainly on the support of renewable energies (in hotels or restaurants) and a rebuilding of the destroyed environment (reforesting mangroves or building up coral reefs). This is where most of the volunteers are involved, like Bapak Iwa, a fisherman and today also an environmental activist:

Bapak Iwa, Fisherman and Environmental Activist from DW_Global Ideas on Vimeo.

Author: Kerstin Schweizer /ke

Iranildo de Sousa Ferreira is a 16 year old student who has been working  in the environmental area for several years. He is a student and lives in the city of Ibiapina, Ceará in Brazil. Protecting the environment is his passion. Iranildo is writing for the GLOBAL IDEAS Blog about his experience with climate change and about projects he’s working on.

Part I

I am very concerned about climate change as it has progressed in recent years from mere conjecture to suspicion, and finally to reality – backed by real data. Now we know for sure that around the world, year after year, decade after decade, the world’s temperature is rising.

In 2010 I was selected to be a British Council Climate Champion by the selection process of the Climate Generation Programme in Latin America and the Caribbean. As a Climate Champion, I’m doing several actions in my city, my state and country to increase public awareness about climate change. My aim is to change habits and encourage mitigation and adaptation. I initiated and am involved with the Brazilian Government’s first Young Brazilian delegation to the United Nations Climate Change Conference where I will exercise the role of president.

To legitimize the performance of my actions and my work as a Climate Champion got great support from the people at the British Council in Brazil, with whom I keep in touch through the Project Manager, Ana Paula Bessa, who accompanies and guides me in the execution of my actions.

When we work on the issue of climate change, we must remember that climate change will affect all living beings on our planet, and so we can minimize the effects, not only by using clean energy technologies but we need something much bigger – we need everyone’s help. We must act now and start from our homes, our schools, our institutions. We will prove that the human beings are not what they say but what they do.