Banjarbaru, South Kalimantan (ANTARA) - The Ministry of Environment (KLH) in collaboration with Lambung Mangkurat University (ULM) and PT Freeport conducts mangrove ecosystem management as well as reducing plastic waste in the coastal areas of South Kalimantan.
"This is an extraordinary collaboration between the government, campus, and business world on how we together organize mangrove ecosystem to save the environment and living creatures in it," said the Ministry's Deputy for Pollution and Environmental Damage Control Rasio Ridho Sani in Banjarbaru, Monday.
When opening the 2025 National Environment Day Seminar at the ULM Auditorium in Banjarbaru with the theme Arranging the future of Indonesian mangrove: Collaboration of science, action, and policy to end plastic pollution, he emphasized that mangrove area has a very important role with Indonesia as the country with the largest mangrove ecosystem in the world.
Mangrove has various functions range from climate change handling, preventing abrasion, tsunamis, fish habitats to developing ecotourism.
Mangrove area must be saved and its preservation must be maintained. Including from the threat of plastic waste pollution which continues to increase in volume in the sea."It's time for us to end plastic waste pollution beginning from ourselves and work environment by raising awareness against the use of single-use plastic," he pointed out.
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ULM Rector Professor Ahmad Alim Bachri stated that real action for mangrove rehabilitation continues to be carried out. Esepecially that ULM now has a responsibility to manage 611 hectares mangrove forest in Kotabaru Regency, South Kalimantan.
"Marine waste management is important as part of efforts to conserve mangrove forest area," he said.
President Director of PT Freeport Tony Wenas said that the company planned to plant 10 thousand hectares of mangrove, including 8,000 hectares in Mimika District and 2,000 hectares on Kalimantan Island.
"In collaboration with ULM, we plant 500 hectares mangrove seedlings on the coast of Tanah Laut District to Kotabaru," he said.
In relation with plastic waste, Freeport has eliminated the use of one-single use plastic drinking bottles in the work environment.
"There were three million plastic drinking bottles before, now it's zero," he said.
The Seminar moderated by Professor Syarifuddin Kadir presented three resource persons, Rector of Hasanuddin University Professor Jamaluddin Jompa, Dean of ULM's Faculty of Fisheries and Marine Science Untung Bijaksana, and Professor of Diponegoro University Denny Nugroho Sugianto.
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