The atmosphere at the Youth Camp Wonogiri Classis was extraordinary on Friday (26/6). In this unity, a simple question arose to kickstart the talk-show of Yayasan Yekti Angudi Piadeging Hukum Indonesia (YAPHI). "How urgent is the earth situation that we need to awaken the young people?"

That question constituted the entry point to the key theme "Wake-Up Guardians". "Wake-Up" meant to arise, while "Guardians" meant to be the keepers. The theme encouraged participants to understand that protecting the earth was no longer a matter of choice, but a call to the young generation.

The activity started with a prayer. Yaphi asked all participants to let God guide the learning process so that the presentation had God’s blessing and encouraged people to take real actions.

The talkshow featured three resource people from YAPHI - Haryati Panca Putri, Yohanes Handharu, and Yosi Krisharyawan. The three resource-people asked participants to see environment issues not simply as nature’s issue, but as justice, culture, law, and faith issues.

"Our earth is not in a good condition," said Haryati Panca Putri in her opening presentation.

Through simple language, Putri presented earth as someone crying because of human actions.

"The earth is sick because humans are simply greedy. It is sick because humans did not protect and care for it."

Putri emphasised that many people did not feel the environmental crisis because the latter happened slowly. The crisis was "silent", not always visible, yet the impacts was discernible.

She asked participants to remember about the increasingly difficult-to-predict seasonal change. The rainy season came late, the weather became extreme, while a variety of ecological issues happened more often.
"The earth is our home. If this hose is damaged, all of us will feel the impacts," she said.

Putri said that the biggest problem was not nature, but the way people treated nature. Natural resource exploitation happened continuously for economic profit without regard to the impacts on the people and the future generation.

"Greedy means that people are not happy when they get a small amount, so they take more and more. At the end of it, only a small number of people enjoyed the profit, while communities become the victims," she said.

She showcased mining activities and a variety of resource exploitation activities that left environmental destruction in other areas.

For that reason, young people had to be the generation to protect the earth.
"If the young people do not rise, the earth will simply become destroyed."

Putri believed that the young generation offered hopes because they had the energy, creativity, and ability to use technology more efficiently than the older generation.

She appreciated the Youth Camp décor’s use of local symbols as a form of respect for nature.

"The future belongs to the young generation. To be critical does not mean against the government. It is a form of citizen’s participation."
She believed that the apathy was the biggest threat. Young people could not remain silent when they see the problems around them.

Yosi Krisharyawan gave the same view. The former Church youth activist started his presentation by asking participants to become individuals with high sensitivity to local environment.

"Everything starts with a sensitivity. Let us not become apathetic."
He also stated unambiguously that information was the key to environmental protection. Yosi asked participants to imagine when a person liked somebody.

"What would a person do when he/she likes somebody? First thing first, find information – stalking first," he emphasised with a big laugh amongst participants.

He believed that such simple example showed that information was always key to decision-making.
"The same happens when we want to protect the environment. We must have the information."

Yosi then explained about the importance of understanding public policy, particularly district regulations on Spatial Plan. He said that we may be able to anticipate environmental conflicts if the community understood the direction of development program in their area.

"If our region is designated as industrial zone, we must know it in advance. Then we could monitor whether the development will damage the environment or not."

He highlighted that criticism directed at the government had to be based on data and knowledge, not simply opinions.

"If we have the information, we are one step ahead because we know the situation of what is happening."
YAPHI made available joint learning space should churches wanted to understand more in-depth about spatial issues and environmental policies.

Beyond the law, Yosi reminded participants of the importance of lifestyle change. He asked participants to not throw rubbish anywhere and to start reduce consumptive habits.
"We are standing on top of rubbish," he said.

He reminded that people maintained a culture of shopping for things just to follow social media trend that would eventually add waste.

"Many things we buy are not really necessary, other than to satiate our wants."

He encouraged participants to re-use things that are reusable or exchange them with other products in order to reduce waste.
Environmental problem, according to Yosi, was closely related to people’s ability to shift through information.

"Now there is not only air and water pollution. There is also information pollution."
In the midst of information overload through social media, people needed to choose information that they really think was useful so that they did not lose sight of the real problems.

Meanwhile, Yohanes Handharu asked participants to see the relationship between law and environmental justice.

He started his presentation by showing a video about micro-plastics found in fish that people consumed.

In 2022, YAPHI accompanied and worked on a research project with fishing communities along Juwana River.

"Microplastic never completely disappear. Plastic only disintegrates into smaller parts, and enters human body through food, water, and air."

He reminded that throwing plastic waste meant keeping pollution chain alive which eventually would end up in human body.

"If we let pollution continue, that would be self-defeating."

Handharu emphasised that it was not sufficient for environmental law to be a paper tiger. Law had three key pillars – regulation/rules, implementation, and culture.

"When there is already good regulation but the culture remains fixated on throwing rubbish/waste anywhere, then the environmental problem will persist."
For that reason, he asked participants to start the change from simple actions they could do consistently.

Putri continued the discussion by presenting practical examples of what had been done in her church – from sorting organic and nonorganic waste, making compost, making use of biopore holes, to setting up waste banks as part of the Church’s services.

She also said that in her church, plastic bottles and cardboard boxes were collected as “waste offering” to be sold to generate funds for the church’s activities.
"We have this waste offering. This helps reduce household waste, while we can make maximum use of the results."

She said that big changes always started from small actions done continuously.

"If we are not consistent with small things, God will not use us to change big things."

She also asked participants to reflect on local wisdom, such as use of banana leaves or teak leaves as food wraps rather than using single-use plastic wraps.

"Our parents taught us environmental-friendly lifestyle."

At the end of the activity, the moderator asked participants to reflect what they had learned during the discussion. The answers were quite uniform: put rubbish in the designated place, sort waste, reduce plastics, live a frugal life, and have confidence to find information about local condition.

For YAPHI, to be a Guardian did not necessarily start from big actions. To protect the earth, one could start from home, church, family, even daily habits.
A strong message to all participants constituted the last message from the resource person. Participants were reminded that the biggest fear was not environmental destruction itself, but young generation who chose to keep silent and to not care.

For that reason, they asked each participant to become guardian of life, with confidence to read the situation, to monitor policies, to protect the environment, and to build a culture that respected nature as God’s creation.

"The confidence to protect the ecology must continue. To be guardians means to start the change from oneself, before asking others to come along," said the resource person. (Ast)