Hello. We are students from Sekolah Highscope Bintaro Indonesia. As students, we are the next generation, and because of that, we should start taking more steps toward solving our problems. One of which would be about the forest fire currently happening around us. We’ll be explaining to you folks everything you need to know about forest fires. Such as the main problem, cause and effects as well as solution to top this project. From this project, we expect to spread awareness to the public, in hopes to reduce the cases regarding this problem. 

Ecosystem is a community of many living organisms (such as plants, trees, animals, humans, etc) that are interdependent to each other. In an ecosystem, everyone and everything works together. They/every living organism have their own goal or self-needs to full fill. Through other organisms' support, they build a connection or in this case an interdependence so they could attain their objective and survive.  as the first producer to convert solar energy into potential energy for other creatures and convert CO2 into O2 in the process of photosynthesis.

Planting trees is a small but significant step in solving the problem of air pollution. Trees have the natural ability to absorb pollutant gasses such as nitrogen oxide, ozone, ammonia and sulfur dioxide from the air we breathe. However, there’s this issue called “Forest fire/Wildfire”, which basically is  an uncontrolled fire in a wooded area. And In Indonesia, it happens often and currently is increasing rapidly which causes danger to the organisms living in the same environment. 

Speaking of forest fires themselves, they greatly harm certain ecosystems like forests filled with living and nonliving things and also create an imbalance in the ecosystem. As such, it also harms us as any trees will be burned, thus there will be less trees to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen, so we will have less oxygen to breathe.

Awareness about multiple topics, including forest fires, doesn’t seem to be growing. Even despite continuous reminders and attempts of spreading awareness, people just don’t seem to listen and/or care. And because of that, any problem can become worse.

Even as we wrote this there was a big fire in West Kalimantan. Forest fires can rapidly spread throughout a forest, so we will need to act fast. Forest fires can cause the environment's imbalancement, and create bigger problems. Indonesia is one of the countries that has the most forest fires in the world, from that information most of our forests are burned and there are not as many trees as before. The data from Global Forest Watch Indonesia has lost 9,75 million hectares of forest between 2002 until 2020.Forest fires  

President Joko Widodo in 2014 pledged to crack down on deforestation by tackling a major contributor - clearing land for palm oil plantations. 

Up to 80% of burnings are carried out for this purpose, according to official data.

In 2016, forest loss reached a record 929,000 hectares, but deforestation rates have declined steadily since then

Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya said that the forest and land fires that occurred in early 2023 increased compared to the same period last year. Moreover, a number of regions in Indonesia are starting to enter the dry season or conditions with low rainfall which have the potential to cause forest and land fires to increase. Besides that, it will affect the food chain due to habitat destruction because of forest fires. If we have a lack of trees, meaning lack of producers, if animals which are consumers cannot live well, they will starve, and it will disrupt the food chain.

From the problem, of course we’ll need to propose a solution. We thought of creating an interactive mBlock which is intended to help people learn about forest fires, the effects of them, and how to solve them. Those interactive activities in the mBlock can be targeted toward a younger audience in the age range of 6-8 years old, so they can be exposed to the problem at a young age. As well as a list of things the government should add to avoid this problem in the form of a poster to Spread awareness. Which is to:

Refocus land use policies and incentives for better land-use planning and management
reducing carbon emission
Cut red tape
Promoting cheap and reliable no-burning technology
Reward and punishment burning 
Provide maintenance funds technology

We also support the government to apply the laws more strictly as stated in:

“Undang-Undang Nomor 41 Tahun 1999 tentang Kehutanan Pasal 49 UU Kehutanan menyatakan bahwa, Pemegang hak atau izin bertanggung jawab atas terjadinya kebakaran hutan di areal kerjanya. Dan Pasal 50 ayat huruf d menyatakan setiap orang dilarang membakar hutan.”

Using this petition, we are proposing people to start acting towards solving the forest fires in Indonesia, instead of just being told about the situation and not taking action. 

That’s it from us and our petition about the forest fire in Indonesia. 

Let’s stop, reject and share the word, therefore making a safe and conservative environment for us, our health, and our future generation of successors. Well, Thank You For Reading Our Petition!