VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

VOINews, Jakarta - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) urged fishers and environmental activists to plant mangroves in coastal areas to anticipate a rise in sea levels due to climate change.

He noted that the rise in sea levels due to climate change has also affected small islands in the world.

"Our small islands have been affected; many small islands in the Pacific islands have been lost; beware," he said at the 2023 Environment, Climate, Forestry, New Renewable Energy (LIKE) Festival here on Monday.

He highlighted that the threat of climate change is increasingly becoming real and has been felt by many countries.

Climate change can result in sea level rise, extreme weather, and landslides.

The President also discussed the environmental damage that needs to be anticipated.

He advised environmental activists, traditional leaders, social forestry groups, extension workers, and other parts of society to reactivate forest rehabilitation.

President Widodo affirmed that the government is also carrying out several efforts to rehabilitate the environment as part of measures to anticipate the impact of climate change. Those efforts have included building seed nursery facilities.

Near Jakarta, the government has built a nursery facility in Rumpin, Bogor district, with a production capacity of six million seedlings per year.

"Beware, environmental damage causes us to suffer many landslides. Why did we open (a nursery (center) in Rumpin? Because landslides occurred in West Java," he said.

The government has also built a plant nursery center in the new capital Nusantara, namely in Mentawir, North Penajam Paser, before building other infrastructures in the new capital.

In addition, the government has set up a mangrove nursery center in Denpasar, Bali, with a capacity of six million seedlings. President Widodo had invited G20 leaders to visit the nursery center on the sidelines of the 2022 G20 Summit in Bali.

"They (G20) were impressed by the nursery process there," he said. (Antaranews)