Feature
TEEN ECO-HERO: CHAMPIONING BIODIVERSITY AT 14 !
BY LESLIE ANN JOSE-CASTILLO
L
ike many teens her age, 14-year-old Adeline Tiffanie Suwana used to love hearing news of flooding in her native country, Indonesia. For most kids, a flood means they can skip classes and play in flood waters with their friends. But when flood ravaged Adeline’s home, things changed.
“At first, flood waters reached only our front fence. Succeeding floods reached our house and occupied almost a quarter of our home’s first floor, causing difficulties for me and my family. We had to move our refrigerator, tables and other equipment and furniture to the second floor. Eventually, we had to move out of our house because there was no electricity and clean water,” Adeline recounts. The experience moved her to question why catastrophes happen. After surfing the Internet, she learned about the relationship between global warming and floods – as the world is heating up, the sea level is rising. In her research, Adeline found that Southeast Asia already is experiencing the impacts of climate change. It was devastated by a spate of typhoons, floods, cyclones, heat waves, drought, and other calamities brought about by
fied as one of the most vulnerable countries. As Adeline found out more about climate change, she started asking herself, “What can I do to help my own community?”
extreme weather conditions in recent years. The Asian Development Bank’s The Economics of Climate Change in Southeast Asia: A Regional Review confirms this, reporting
that the sea level is rising one to three millimeters annually, and average temperature rose 0.1 to 0.3 degrees Celsius between 1951 and 2000. In the report, Indonesia was identi-
Founding Sahabat Alam Curiosity and the passion to help led the then 12year-old Adeline to continue researching about ways she can support her community. After learning about the importance of mangroves in preventing floods and other natural disasters, she invited 150 friends and classmates to plant 200 mangrove saplings at Wisata Angke Kapuk during a long school holiday. She briefed her fellow teenagers about the key role that mangroves play in providing significant flood protection in low coastal areas. With massive root systems, mangrove forests serve as buffer zones. These ecosystems regulate the impact
SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER 2010 ! ASEAN BIODIVERSITY !
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