CANGKUL (Cangkringan Environment Guidance, Work, and Learning)
To celebrate International Day of Forests that is held every March 21st, International Forestry Students’ Assosiation Local Committee Universitas Gadjah Mada (IFSA LC UGM) and Lingkar Studi Ilmu Sains (LSiS) from Faculty of Mathematics and Science of Universitas Gadjah Mada held a social and conservation activities in Dusun Kali Tengah Kidul, Glagaharjo,Cangkringan, Sleman, Yogyakarta.
Dusun Kali Tengah Kidul is one of the small villages that is located 2 km from the crater of Gunung Merapi (Merapi Mountain). So, the Government classified the village to be Disaster Risk Area Level III (according to http://36.81.2.29/gisbpbdsleman/content/peta-kawasan-rawan-bencana-merapi). Aside from that, there are two dominator species, which are Acacia decurrens and Bamboo sp. The citizen of the village always makes charcoal by using Acacia decurens. They get the Acacia decurens from certain places, thinking that Acacia decurens is an invasive species. The other is Bamboo sp. Both of them has the same high economic value but the villagers are not able to maximalize the utilization of Bamboo. Seeing the two problems, IFSA is interested to hold an event and to help villagers to get more information. Therefore, the event is called “CANGKUL (Cangkringan Environment Guidance, Work, and Learning)”. This event was also supported by the fund from IFSA World. The fund is purposed for helping the people after the eruption of Gunung Merapi in 2010.
CANGKUL was held on March, 28th – 29th 2015. On the first day, the first agenda was giving an information about Bamboo by Mr. Ir. Soewarno Hasanbahri, M.S. Mr. Soewarno is one of the forestry lecturers and has more experience about handling Bamboo’s problem. His presentation contains topic about how to carrying Bamboo clumps, the utilization of Bamboo and Bamboo innovation. The villagers were interested in the material, they were listened to the speaker with full attention and they asked some questions to the speaker. Mr. Jamin, the chief of Village Kali Tengah Kidul, want to make some follow up events.
The second day was started with doing research. IFSA LC UGM and LSiS have different target and location. IFSA LC UGM was doing the research in Conservation Zone of Taman Nasional Gunung Merapi (Gunung Merapi National Park). The research was done on time, although we used simple tools. After we have finished our research, we continued our next agenda. The material was about disaster risk mitigation that was presented by Mr. I Made S from Pusat Studi Bencana Alam Universitas Gadjah Mada (Center of Natural Disaster Studies of Universitas Gadjah Mada). The material elaborated in how to be respectful people when the disaster happens and to remind that people live so close to Gunung Merapi. As we know, that Gunung Merapi is one of active mountains in Indonesia. The participants on the last day were young people that have high spirits and energy for helping each other.
The event was closed by giving some merchandise to people that became the participants. The merchandise is a Bamboo plant and a sticker. IFSA LC UGM really hopes that the event can give more benefits to the other people.
