Igianto 1 Thierry Henry Igianto Hannah Meeuwse Humanities + Biblical Studies 9 26 March 2014

The Relationship of West Sumatra People to their surrounding Environment

As a visitor to West Sumatra, I can observe how do the local people treat the local environment. West Sumatra with its beautiful notable breathtaking scenery such as Ngarai Sianok, or Lembah Anai, attracts tourists from all over Indonesia to explore its natural beauty. It is also infamous for West Sumatra to have its local people being indifferent and careless for its surrounding environment. With every city has a flaw to it, the Padang area certainly has flaws to it, and the West Sumatra peoples attitude of being indifferent has impacted the environment of West Sumatra. There we see a large amount of trashes scattered throughout the cities we went to, and we also realize the animals in the local zoo were not taken care of carefully. We perceive wisdom from what we know and understand. Based on Proverbs 1:2 for gaining wisdom and instruction; for understanding words of insight, I understand that we are subjected to taking care of what is given from God to us. We have a responsibility to take care the environment as they apart from our daily lives. We live in an environment where we all can enjoy being in. In Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction, I understand that being wise is to have the knowledge good enough so then we can know what we are we doing right or doing wrong. In our recent excursion to West Sumatra, we came to see what the local people have been doing with the environment.

Igianto 2 It is sad to see that people do not pay attention to the environment and do not take a good care of it. God has created such place in such a grand way, but the locals do not think it as that way. As tourists I am awed with the natural scenery such as the valleys, waterfalls, densely thick forest, etc. The locals wouldnt be as awed as we, tourists because they think it is a common view and they can see it everyday. What they do not think is if they keep damaging the environment by littering or something more serious like burning forests, our future generations wouldnt be as astonish or they might not even see what we saw during the excursion. In this trip we see a lot of sad moments with the peoples interaction with the environment. But we did see some beautiful scenery in the area. The positive interaction between the people and environment is well shown on the amount of thick forests still exist in West Sumatra, while contradicting to West Sumatra, the people of the Province of Riau destroy their forests to grow oil tree plantation. So the people of West Sumatra care about their forests. The province of Riau suffered a bad forest burning and it certainly affects our travel. But in West Sumatra we saw some spectacular view of thick and untouched forests. The negative interaction between the people and the environment is highly shown through the amount of trash or litter mostly anywhere where we are in West Sumatra. The care of trash care taking is so low that the animals in the local zoo eats plastic bag. Factors affecting the care taking the zoo would be because of the lack of human resources in the local community. As we were exploring the zoo, I did not see any zookeepers on duty. I did not see even one zookeeper. It is also a concern that during the excursion, it is not that easy to find trash bins. Littering is a serious issue in West Sumatra. The psychological factor causing littering in that area is that people didnt learn the importance of throwing trash in

Igianto 3 bins. We know that it is also the mindsets driven from decades ago that drove the local people causing litter to the local environment. As a result for this matter more and more signs and banners are encouraging people to not litter. But it is going to be a challenge because these people simply dont care. I remember what people like to say about the environment. It says to do something big, we have to start small. I can see how this connects to wisdom and sustaining the environment because starting something small means that we have a drive or we also have good judgment of what is going to happen in the future. Sustaining the environment impacts long-term effect by managing well our resources or managing well the environment. Sustaining the environment connects to being wise because being wise is we will know what will happen in the future if we do not take care of the environment. On the second day of the excursion we went through a bridge and under the bridge is a river. The river is badly polluted with piles of trash. What occurred to me is that the bridge is really high from the river and the nearby terrain is steep, what occurred to me is that the trashes dumped into the river cannot be taken because the river is between steep valleys and it is very hard for people to get to the river. It means that the trash dumped into the river is going to stay there for as long as no one would come down there. It is sad to see this because the people passing on this bridge does not realize that the trash they are dumping are not bio degradable and it needs a proper disposal. Littering is a big issue in West Sumatra community. Peoples choice of littering and harming the environment has something to do with their economic situation. With people having less finance, they lack understanding on the impact of littering and the causes to the environment. They dont know and dont care on what the impact is going to be in the future because of this. With people that received

Igianto 4 education, they tend to know the bad impacts of littering. In certain parts of Jakarta, like the elite communities, trash is taken care of carefully because the wealthy people has an awareness of the impacts of trash building up in their community, whilst the people of West Sumatra dont have the better understanding of the matter. The forest fire is another serious matter. Everywhere we go everything is covered with smog. It is believed that the smog comes from the forest fire in the province of Riau. It is a concern because it destroys the riparian zone there. What the people do not think about is the long-term effect of the forest fire. The forest fire might be good now, but it will look awful in the next few years. As it destroys the entire riparian zone there, they have damaged most of the water system, and aquatic ecosystems. The causes of this forest fire are not determined yet. But I believe is something to do with the economy of local people wanting to make more out of clear lands. The long-term effect of clearing lands will create less space for trees. So, I think that the people do not think of the long-term effect that will also impact to their economy state because it is not well managed. When we were at the beach we saw some large amount of trash piling up. Plastic wrappers, plastic bottles, cans were all mixed into a pile and end up at the Padang Beach Coastlines. The beach itself is pretty, but with the trash piling up it gave us a sense it is not well taken care of. At the Padang Airport I overheard some surfers who come from a western country talking about how the waves in the Padang area a good place to surf. But they also talked about the beach being dirty. It is sad to hear these matters because I can know that Indonesia is a beautiful place and hearing that the effect of the carelessness of the locals makes Indonesia looks bad. The environment is not sustainable when we dont have a waste management. In remote areas like Padang, the local government has a struggle to accommodate

Igianto 5 infrastructures such as the waste management because of the financial circumstances. Therefore the less money they reserve, they use it on something more prioritizing. The common problem in our excursion is litter everywhere we go. It will not be sustainable if the government is not taking this matter seriously. In a documentary shown in class, the mountain of trash in a Middle Eastern country is already a problem because the trash is flowing to Mediterranean Countries. We do not want that to happen in our country because it will not be a good reputation for our country. The majority of West Sumatran population is Moslem. The teachings of Islam have adapted to the local culture, and Islam teaches people to be clean. It teaches for our soul, and mind to be clean, and the environment that we live in to be clean. We are not fulfilling cultural mandate as our approach towards the environment not what the Koran encourages us to. West Sumatra is filled with its beautiful scenery. But without the proper care the environment there wouldnt be sustainable. From the places we visit like the zoo, the beach or other places we went, we realize that the understanding of the locals to the environment is very limited and it can be a concern towards the future.