Preservation Efforts to Mangrove Area with Digital Campaign
Preservation efforts to mangrove area are needed because a lot of people doesn’t realize how important mangrove forests are for the coastal area, such as West Kalimantan coastal area. Mangrove area is used for maintaining and stabilizing the coastline from sea erosion and protecting against waves and ocean currents. An action is needed to reach worldwide community and raise people awareness about how important Mangrove forests are, one of the action is to promote mangrove area to worldwide community using digital campaign through social media.
Social media is very useful nowadays to speak our minds, and spread important news in just a click. Now let’s start doing action to preserve our local mangrove area.
Keywords : Mangrove, Social Media, Campaign
Mangrove forests are forests that are located in coastal areas that are affected by tides, so that the forest floor is always inundated with water. Some common types found in Indonesia are Bakau (Rhizophora), Api-api (Avicennia), Pedada (Sonneratia), Tanjang (Bruguiera), Nyirih (Xylocarpus). Physically the mangrove forest is made as a protective fortress from the influence of ocean waves. Ecologically, mangrove forests provide habitat for a variety of species because of their function as a care area (nursery land), spawning areas (spawning), and scavenging area for the natural biota in it.
Mangrove forests in West Kalimantan such as, Mempawah Mangrove Park (MMP) and Singkawang Mangrove Park (SMP), are very useful for local residents such as maintaining and stabilizing the coastline, protecting against waves and ocean currents, sheilding the coast from sea erosion, as a place of recreation, agricultural area and foreign exchange earnings with industrial raw material products.
However, mangrove forests are unethically harvested for the production of charcoal hence are severely in need of conservation and restoration. The efforts of conservation have always been on the shoulders of conservation groups like Mempawah Mangrove Conservation Organization (MMC). Mangrove conservation can be carried out effectively with using support and energy from many sources.
Also these 2 Mangrove Parks also doesn’t have enough volunteer and dedicated conservationists. Local public are unaware about the efforts of mangrove conservation due to lack of information on the internet. The message of mangrove conservation can be conveyed through outreach on social media.
Awareness towards mangrove preservation can be spread through these methods:
1. Local Engagement
Working on mangrove campaign for the local people, so that they can raise their awareness over their local mangrove forests.
2. Media Influencing
Working on mangrove campaign through social media engagement, using platform such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Website, and YouTube.
During the 4 day excursion of Joint Summer Program 2018 that held by Tanjungpura University, Pontianak, participants travelled to do their research at Mempawah Mangrove Park and Singkawang Mangrove Park. West Kalimantan Mangrove Organization, also known as Mangrovekalbar.com conducted 4 contests which were two photo contests, an article writing contest and a video editing contest. Each of these contests had their own themes and all the participants of the Joint Summer Program 2018 were required to join in the contest.
These contests are part of Mangrovekalbar.com campaign to preserve mangrove forests and aimed for the community to spread awareness and the beauty of the local mangrove forests, such as Mempawah Mangrove Park and Singkawang Mangrove Park, through photo contest that needed 3 photos for 2 days, themed “Beauty of Mangrove” and “Harmony of Mangrove” respectively, to be posted to an Instagram account. An article writing contest was conducted where participants were required to write a short article regarding the history of mangrove conservation sites itself, the conservationist, the challenges faced, and types of mangroves that grow in those conservation areas.
They also have video contest that needed to be 1 minute and posted on Instagram, the video is about the experiences and feedback from the participants of the Joint Summer Program 2018.
Their campaign through social media to preserve the mangrove forests were going successfully. All the participants was so fired up to win these contests, because it’s one of their way to help preserve and helping people raise their awareness about the mangrove conservation sites.
There is no excused in using social media these days, either for people or for companies. Nowadays, it is impossible to separate social media from the online. The social media discussion is going on in homes, small companies and business boardrooms, and extending its achievements into the nonprofit, education and health sectors.
Mangrovekalbar.com are doing a very good job by creating their campaign through social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Website, YouTube. Their campaign to reach worldwide community and raise the awareness about mangrove forests by making photo, video, and article writing contest to make people realize how important mangrove forests to the coastal area.
Social media is a platform that enables society to speak their minds, reach other people, and for this case is to make efforts to preserve mangrove area that really needs our attention.
e-mail: farhanframadhan@gmail.com
