10 Asian Environmentalists to Watch

With our physical environment increasingly threatened, it has become essential to recognise that even a single person is capable of making a big difference.

A region of immense growth and unparalleled biodiversity, Asia is also beleaguered by the very assets that make it such a rich natural economy. After decades of exploitation in the name of development, the continent is now witnessing the rise of a unique collective of environmental advocates. Some of them have chosen to speak on behalf of voiceless rivers and forests; others are amplifying the voices of suppressed communities that will fall alongside the development of natural areas. Whatever their chosen direction, each individual or team is a facet upon the same gem, a player on the same team, all striving to make the world a better place for us to live in.

 

Jafar Shah

Pakistan

Caravan

https://www.caravan-swat.org/ [4]

Jafar Shah is creating a model for partnerships between local communities, local governments and a provincial government in Pakistan to help conserve community forests and natural resources. Following a successful partnership in Swat, Jafar is spreading his idea by training community leaders and local government officials from other parts of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province.  

Jafar’s organisation, Caravan, mobilises local people and caters to their needs through self-help and donor-sponsored projects. This approach gives the communities that depend on the forests a critical role in forest conservation. Caravan focuses on helping people manage their forest and water resources by assisting them in finding alternatives to timber for heating and cooking. Caravan also responds to the health, education and livelihood needs of the local populations.

Jafar has mobilised and organised the tribal people of the mountainous region in the North West Frontier Province to create a hierarchy of organisations from the village level to an apex forum with representatives of the villages in four valleys. He has also developed a promotional campaign to influence the policies of the Pakistan government and international donors.

 

 

Megh Ale

Nepal

Nepal River Conservation Trust

https://www.nepalrivers.org.np/ [5]

Nepal is renowned for its mountains, but what of its rivers? Fifteen years ago, Megh Ale, a rafting enthusiast and the most established rafter in Nepal to date, realised he need to change the way river communities, politics and Nepalese society perceived the country’s awe-inspiring river heritage. Together with a team of volunteers, Megh is taking a multi-pronged approach to educate and empower river communities, instilling in locals the knowledge and passion for river conservation.

The Nepal River Conservation Trust has partnered rural and needy schools in Nepal, guided by the vision of “Sustainable Education for Better Living”. Megh hopes this partnership mission will help many river community schools to better understand river conservation and save the pristine Himalayan Rivers.

“Building a new nation will require foresight and emphasis on sustainable development, and so does river management. Just as the mountain, the river deserves protection and honour.”

 

Nalinika Obeyesekere

Sri Lanka

PetVet Clinic

https://www.petvetclinic.org/ [6]

The city of Colombo alone has an estimated 20,000 stray dogs and a similar number of cats, which are hosts for many public health and sanitation problems. The problems are exacerbated by the public’s lack of compassion for animals.

Nalinika broke new ground by introducing a new model of veterinary care in Sri Lanka. As a first step toward improving the quality of care, Nalinika established Sri Lanka’s first professional body of veterinary practitioners to promote ongoing professional development. She is also pioneering new fields and commercial opportunities for animal care. The sum effect has already become apparent: an emerging ethic of compassion in a country brutalised by decades of war.

 

November Tan

Singapore

The Leafmonkey Workshop

https://leafmonkeyworkshop.blogspot.com/ [7]

November is a nature lover, blogger, writer, environmental management researcher, volunteer and practitioner who organises capacity building and community engagement workshops for like-minded individuals. The Leafmonkey Workshop began as a study group within the Naked Hermit Crabs, which was founded by a group of volunteer shore guides in 2007.

Within a year, the Leafmonkey Workshop became larger than itself, evolving to become an independent entity that attracts students and professionals across all sectors. Workshops for existing or aspiring nature guides are conducted by academic experts or experienced naturalists. They are a platform for networking, learning and sharing for nature groups, nature volunteers and nature lovers, with much emphasis placed on methods, content and techniques in engaging the public.

 

Pianporn Deetes

Thailand

Social Environmental Justice Campaigner

https://www.livingriversiam.org/ [8]

Summer breaks can make for life-changing experiences. Painporn began her career in social environmental justice as an intern at the Hill Area Development Foundation in Thailand. As an intern, she was engaged in the promotion of rights, protection and sustainability of hill tribes. She then stoked her then newly formed passion by joining protests against the construction of the Thai-Burmese pipeline, and working for an international organisation focused on labour rights.

Now a pioneer in her work with Thai and Burmese ethnic grassroots organisations, Pianporn is a spokeswoman for the Salween Watch Coalition. She has worked on trans-boundary environmental issues in Mainland Southeast Asia for over seven years, and is also the coordinator of the Living River Siam.

As the demand for energy and fresh water grows in the region, Pianporn’s work is essential in ensuring the sustainability of water systems and the communities that they support, and to mitigate the environmental impact of dams and hydroelectric projects where its development is unavoidable.

 

Rajendra Suwal

Nepal

Lumbini Crane Conservation Center

https://lumbinicrane.org/ [9]

Most conservation efforts in Nepal fail to demonstrate the interconnectedness of people and the natural world; instead, many such efforts seem irrelevant to local people. Lacking an understanding of how their actions fit into a larger whole, or of how they can profit from their environment, people who live along wetland peripheries continue to devalue wetlands. For example, little children steal the eggs of endangered birds just for play.

Rajendra is changing the way people view wetlands and, in the process, enabling them to see the correlation between their own health and livelihood and that of the wetlands. Rajendra encourages farmers living along the periphery of wetlands to see these areas both as an addition to their current resource base and as the key to allowing them to move to the next level of economic independence.

He teaches the locals who live along the periphery of the wetlands, as well as the sanctuary's millions of visitors, to respect, protect and profit from the wetlands. Rajendra and his staff involve local people in the management of the sanctuaries and in the conservation of resources in the surrounding areas.

 

Ritwick Dutta

India

Legal Initiative for Forest and Environment

Before Environmental Law became a household word, Ritwick was already breaking frontiers in its field and challenging some of the most powerful people in his country. Through a process he calls “environmental democracy”, Ritwick gives ordinary citizens in India an unprecedented voice in the authorisation of major infrastructure projects. Working with partner environmental groups and communities in India's leading biodiversity “hotspots”, he trains residents to read and interpret the complex legal reviews that accompany each project, giving them the tools to understand the immediate and long-term implications of proposed developments. He then works to demystify pertinent laws and processes for legal action, empowering citizens to take full advantage of the country's legal system.

India’s unprecedented economic boom has fuelled a considerable rise in large-scale infrastructure projects across the country, ranging from big dams that generate energy and support irrigation systems, to the construction of new highways and airports. Meanwhile, industrial demand for resources continues to grow, increasing the number of mining and forest clearing projects across the country.

 

Suwimon Piriyathanalai

Thailand

Protection of the communities’coastal resources and livelihoods has long been a source of conflict in Thailand’s southernmost provinces. Suwimon is determined to work with the Muslim Malays, a traditionally marginalised group, to develop a non-violent channel to defend their rights to fish and protect coastal resources.

Suwimon is using her integration and work experience to encourage local communities and officials to work together. By building strong and well-informed community associations, she is increasing the capacity of coastal Malay Muslims to defend their interests and negotiate effectively with the state and other actors. These community associations play a key role in protecting the coastal environment, preventing violent conflicts over coastal resources, and making the residents less vulnerable to the pressure of recruitment efforts of armed groups in the region – a first step towards establishing peace in the region.

 

Toto Sugito

Indonesia

Bike 2 Work

https://b2w-indonesia.or.id/ [10]

Toto Sugito is building a bike riding movement, Bike 2 Work, to reduce air pollution and improve city transportation in Indonesia. B2W’s goal is to introduce biking as an easy and healthy means of transportation by pushing for local governments to create bike lanes and storage places, providing a motivational support network of cyclists, and giving people access to safe, affordable and convenient bikes. Toto is successfully bridging the gap between public issues such as pollution and health problems and individual lifestyles, encouraging people to recognise their individual role in larger social problems and participate in collective action towards solving these problems.

 

 

Yuyun Ismawati

Indonesia

Bali FOKUS

https://balifokus.asia/balifokus/ [11]

Solid waste has grown into a major problem in urban areas throughout Indonesia. The public service of waste removal and disposal has until now been urban-based, the responsibility of local governments. But over the past 35 years, there has not been any city authority in the country that has properly managed or successfully provided public waste management and sanitation services.

That’s where Yuyun steps in. A first-class innovator and environmental engineer by training, she is developing a decentralised, community-based waste management system that brings privatisation of public services to small-scale providers. Working in Bali, she has gained the cooperation of large businesses like hotels and restaurants, sanitation workers (including garbage collectors and scavengers), and local governments and communities to actively support environmentally responsible solid waste management. Yuyun is convincing local communities that solid waste is one public resource that should not be outsourced to mega-companies but should be managed practically and efficiently to benefit the local people, businesses and the tourist industry; while relieving some of the burden from the local government.

Yuyun sees significant pressure on regional government to outsource public services like waste management. Numerous foreign-owned companies are vying to secure contracts for sanitation and waste management in places like Bali, an international tourist centre. Their capital-intensive approaches displace hundreds of thousands of jobs in the informal sector.