Thursday, April 22, 2010
By Bustanuddin
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Earth Day 2010 which falls on April 22 is an important momentum for the Indonesian "7 Summit" expedition team to remind all parties about the critical problems of the earth.
The team consisting of six young mountain climbing athletes, namely Ardeshir Yaftebbi, Iwan Irawan, Martin Rimbawan, Fajri Al Luth, Nurhuda, and Gina Afriani, a medical practitioner and three advisors had decided that their first mission would be to climb the Carstenz Pyramid Peak which is locally known as Ndugu Ndugu.
The team would launch a campaign about environment issues such as the consequences of forest destruction and the threat of global warming, said Endriarto Sutarto, chairman of the Indonesian "7 Summits" Expedition Team, recently.
The expedition team left for Papua on Tuesday (April 6) to start the long process of climbing the seven highest peaks in the world.
The Carstensz Pyramid is one of the snowy mountains on the equator other than Kilimanjaro. It is the highest peak of the Jayawiwijaya mountain range.
According to Bambang Hamid, the public relations officer of the Indonesian "7 Summit" team, the team had gone through a training process because they had never before climbed the "mountain of ice", said Bambang Hamid.
The team`s trip was planned to come to an end in 2012 by climbing the world`s 7 highest mountains, namely Ndugu Ndugu (Papua), Kilimanjaro (Africa), Elbrus (Europe), the Vinson Massive (Antarctic), Denali (US), Aconcagua (South America), and Everest (Tibet).
Bambang said the "7 Summits" expedition was a great one, involving many parties, so it needed moral and material support.
"This expedition requires support from the various components of the nation to achieve its goal," he said.
The "7 Summits" expedition was the brainchild of the community of nature lovers, mountaineers and explorers set of jungle "Wanadri" house of culture and community of the archipelago.
He also said Earth Day 2010 could be a turning point to advance climate policy, energy efficiency, renewable energy and green jobs.
The team originating from the Wanadri mountaineers, comprising the Alpha team and the Bravo team.
The Alpha team will spend the night at Nggapulu, an altitude of 4,700m above sea level, on Thursday (April 22), said Andri Joanhan, secretary of the team on Wednesday.
A day earlier, Iwan Abdulrachman, an environmental activist who participated in the expedition, held a concert at Lake Valley.
"It`s called a concert even though the audience was only the climbers on the mountain," Andri commented.
The Six other peaks which will be climbed in one year`s time are Kilimanjoro (5892m) in Tanzania, Elbrus (5642m) in Russia, Vinson Massif (4897m) in the Antarctic, McKinley (6194m) in Alaska, Aconcagua (6962m) in Argentina, and the last Everest (8850m) in Nepal.
In addition, the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) has called on the Aceh provincial government to use Earth Day 2010 on April 22 as a good momentum to rehabilitate the region`s environment.
TM Zulfikar, director of Walhi`s Aceh branch, said in Banda Aceh on Wednesday that Earth Day 2010 was a pivotal opportunity for individuals, corporations and governments to join more than one billion people in 190 countries in taking action to create a global green economy.
He said forty years after the first Earth Day, the world was now in greater peril than ever.
While climate change was the greatest challenge of our time, it also presented "an unprecedented opportunity to build a healthy, prosperous, clean energy economy," he said.
He also said Earth Day 2010 could be a turning point to advance climate policy, energy efficiency, renewable energy and green jobs.
An Earth Day Network was galvanizing millions of people to make personal commitments to sustainability, according to Zulfikar.
Development in Aceh, he said, should have an environmental background, because the province was located in a natural disaster volatile area.
"Natural disasters such as floods, landslides, and earthquakes frequently hit Aceh because development in the province is ignoring environmental preservation efforts," Zulfikar said.
He added that in conjunction with Earth Day 2010, the regional government should make a new breakthrough to save the environment in Aceh from forest degradation.
"From Aceh`s medium-term development plan (RPJM) we see that the local government is paying serious attention to the risk of a disaster, although its implementation in the field has yet to run optimally," Zulfikar said.
Therefore he suggested that development in Aceh adhere to environmentally-friendly concept in a bid to reduce the risk of disaster in the province.
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