Introducing Mangroves at a Speech Contest

The Mangrove Information Center Project (MIC) officially opened on 13 May 2003 by the Forestry Minister, held again a Japanese and English Speech Contest at the MIC Office, By Pass Ngurah Rai Street, Suwung Kauh, Denpasar. The contest involved school and college students lasted for two days, Friday (17/12) for Japanese Contest and Saturday (18/12) for the English Contest. It was aimed to realize consideration, expression, and appreciation on the environment especially the mangrove ecosystem, and also as an effort in introducing the existence, activities and facilities of the MIC.

This third contest was attended by 7 contestants in the Japanese section and 10 contestants in the English section taking the theme “Mangrove and Its environment”. Before the contest started, a few alternative topics were introduced like mangrove and time progress, mangrove and public economy, mangrove and the future, if you were rich what will you do with mangroves, and mangrove problems and challenges.
According to Hatori Hiroyuki, M.Sc., this is a cooperation project of the Indonesian Forestry Department with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). MIC is a national training center, education center, eco-tourism and also the information center about mangrove forest supervision. “For the Balinese public, besides giving the education about living environments, it also invites international observers to Bali,” he asserted.
Enhanced also, this contest was aimed as an effort in attaching information to students and the public about mangrove’s living environment. “We expected the participants can show their love, ideas, expressions and appreciation to our living environment, especially mangrove ecosystems as one important component. So, later on it’s able to develop the conservation effort on mangrove conservation,” he said.
In Bali, there are about 3.000 ha of mangrove forests. Mangrove’s conditions in Bali is well indeed and attracts tourists. Each visitor is always offered to view them. “We are always ready to conserve the mangrove. Annually, we carry out the replanting of mangrove seeds with the government, LSM and public. We only supply the seeds, and they plant them,” he explicitly said.
Meanwhile, the main problem is the rubbish that sticks on the mangrove’s root. Some action has been taken to collect the rubbish, but it’s not effectively working. “We also always discuss this with the people of Pemogan to the north of the mangrove forest so as not to throw any kind of trash into the river, but we got nowhere,” he said with a sulky voice. (BTN/015)