This article is a product of a long struggle to share experiences with friends at Stube HEMAT Yogyakarta since living in Tarakan, North Kalimantan. I am Marihot GT Sihombing, from North Sumatra, but now I live in Tarakan with Sofiya Atalia, my wife. Both of us studied in Yogyakarta, having graduated from the study, we worked and got married and moved to Tarakan.
Apart from working in legal field, I am also involved in social activities in church and community, one of them is mobilizing young people in Tarakan through the Kabar Baik community. The starting point of the community started from the potencies that exist in North Kalimantan, and it became a gathering group for young people for self-development, developing awareness to optimize potencies, both natural resources and human resources, especially those in North Kalimantan. North Kalimantan (Kaltara) is a strategic area because it is located on the Indonesia-Malaysia border. Kaltara has natural potency but is not be known yet by many people and is important to be explored and introduced to the public.
The motivation to share experience came out in the dialogue between Sofie and me because we learned with the same experiences we get from training activities organized by Stube HEMAT Yogyakarta. In Tarakan, we and young people from various regencies in North Kalimantan discussed many topics and visited some locations, such as the Mangrove and Proboscis Monkey Conservation Area (November 2, 2021). The community visited the area to get to know mangroves and gain insight into the importance of conserving mangrove forests and their habitats. Mangroves themselves are part of international issues related to global warming. Accompanied by environmental activist, Teguh Karya, the visit reminded us all that the existence of a well-maintained mangrove area can produce oxygen and become a habitat for other animals such as mangrove crabs with economic value and various types of fauna. Even President Joko Widodo also visited North Kalimantan to plant mangroves in Tanah Tidung regency.
In
addition to activities in Tarakan, several students and I in Tarakan
participated in an online discussion of Stube HEMAT Yogyakarta about Water
Security on November 5, 2021. It must be admitted that the communication
network in Tarakan was not so smooth however, some students tried to
participate in discussions and share experiences of cases related to clean
water in Tarakan and North Kalimantan in general. Some of the topics were the
cloudy fresh water and how to clean it, as well as the Malinau area which is
getting flooded frequently.
Through these activities, there is a hope that the awareness of young people in Tarakan will grow so their knowledge will increase, including their competence to care and preserve the environment around them.***
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