Gunung Walat, Sukabumi – Fieldtrip during South East Asia Forest Youth Meeting (SEAFYM) 2011 has been conducted on 14-16 December 2011 in Gunung Walat Educational Forest (GWEF).
SEAFYM is a series of activities in the form of regional meeting and discussion on forestry issues by young people organized within IFSA (International Forestry Students Association) LC IPB, for commemorating international forestry year which was established by United Nations, namely the year 2011.
Theme of SEAFYM activities is creating history for great forestry. According to Fahmi Satria, executive chairman of SEAFYM 2011, this activity of SEAFYM is the first being conducted in Southeast Asia, with the objectives of sharing of information concerning new ideas, knowledges and innovations in the field of forestry. It is expected that this activity could create history which will make better future of forestry, particularly in Southeast Asia. According to SEAFYM plan, this activity will be conducted once in 2 years, and in the year 2013 it will be conducted in Universitas Putra Malaysia (UPM).
The series of SEAFYM activities was conducted in IPB campus of Darmaga Bogor, Gunung Walat Educational Forest (GWEF), and Bogor Botanical Garden on 12-16 December 2011. The total number of participants was 19 persons, of which, 10 came from several universities in Indonesia (University of Sumatera Utara, University of Sriwijaya, University of Mulawarman, etc), 5 came from UPM Malaysia, 2 came from Singapore, 1 came from Vietnam, and 1 from Thailand.
Activities in GWEF was in the form of fieldtrip which was conducted from 14-16 December 2011 in the form of presentation, discussion, forest tracking, pine planting, practice of copal and resin harvesting (non timber forest products), and cultural night. Cultural night was a session where each participant presented and exposed his / her own culture / tradition. Resource persons which are available during the discussion series were Dr. Supriyanto DEA, and Dr. Cahyo Wibowo M.Sc.F who both are faculty members (teaching staffs) of Forestry Faculty (IPB).
“GWEF was chosen as Fieldtrip destination, because GWEF is a success story of transforming barren land into dense and extensive forest which provide economic and environmental benefits (such as hydrology and agroforesty for the people)”, Fahmi Satria said
“We want to learn many things here, so that someday, each delegation can take lesson and develop ideas, starting from small things, like what have ever been occurring in Gunung Walat Educaitional Forest”, he added.
“SEAFYM is a very interesting activity for student to get more awareness for protecting the environment, especially forest, and I think Gunung Walat Educational Forest is the nice place for tracking, studying, and doing extreme thingds in the cave, while the staffs are very friendly“, a participant says (Tran Phuong from Hoa Sen University Vietnam).
“SEAFYM is a smart program for us to explore and share knowledge and get together and understand the region, and Gunung Walat is very special place, because people can explore and do recreation activity , can get together, and being friendly with nature and understand nature more, and the beauty is still a lot more to discover and that is why I believe that this place is very-very nice place to be, and I really hope to be able to come back here in the future”, other participant (Gerald from UPM Malaysia) said
[hap]
Photo galleries click here
Download news click here