Yogyakarta, October 8th 2022—A group of lecturers and students of the Faculty of Social and Political Science (Fisipol) UGM arrived at Getas Special Purpose Forest Area on August 8th 2022 at 11:46 WIB. The group went to Getas to do a symbolic act of the planting of 1000 trees in order to commemorate Fisipol UGM 67th Dies Natalis. The event was held in collaboration with the UGM’s Faculty of Forestry and the Faculty of Agriculture.
The Dean of Fisipol UGM, Wawan Mas’udi, said that the planting of 1000 trees is done in order to make concrete steps to solve environmental problems. According to Wawan, efforts to solve environmental problems, like climate change, always start with big narratives. “The fact is that the most important step is to do concrete steps based on those big narratives,” Wawan said.
Solving environmental problems like climate change is not an easy feat. The Dean of the Faculty of Forestry, Sigit Sunarta, said that solving climate change is not just a technical matter. “There is a social and political dimension in the effort of curbing the negative impacts of climate change,” Sigit said. This means that the step toward solving climate change can’t be taken based on the perspective of only one discipline of science.
In line with what Sigit said, the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, Jaka Widada said that environmental problems are complex. The complexity can only be solved by seeing it from different perspectives of knowledge. “This is why collaboration is so important,” Jaka said.
The event was warmly welcomed, especially by students who were involved. Akhmad Fadhilah Santoso, a batch 2020 student from the Department of Politics and Government, said that this event is what makes students get out of class. “We usually only study the theories. However, through this experience, we can gain first-hand experience.”
One of the interesting experiences that Fadhil went through is when he trailed the site of planting. “Seeing that the road towards the site is full of holes and treacherous, I became more interested in seeing this problem through,” Fadhil said. Furthermore, Fadhil hopes that more events like that are created.