
by Nadya Natahadibrata for The Jakarta Post
More than a million people worldwide have joined online calls for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to block the Aceh administration’s plan to open protected forests for commercial exploitation.
Rudi Putra, an Acehnese activist who won the 2013 Future for Nature Award, initiated an online petition on Avaaz.org on May 7, demanding the President step in to the plan. As of Saturday evening, the number of people who signed the petition, which is directed at the President, Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan and Aceh Governor Zaini Abdullah, had reached 1.2 million.
The petition was begun after a group of local environmental activists from Aceh signed an online petition on Change.org Indonesia against the draft spatial planning bylaw proposed by the Aceh administration, which put the province’s 1.2 million protected forests, home to numerous endangered species, at risk. More than 35,000 people have signed the petition.
“I live and work in the last place on Earth where endangered orangutans, rhinos, elephants and tigers still roam together, but it’ll be bulldozed to bits unless our President hears our call and steps in to save this unique habitat,” Rudi said on Avaaz.org, a global web movement that was launched in 2007.
This excerpt from a news article appeared in and is courtesy of The Jakarta Post. It can be read in its entirety here.