“Santri’ Also Can be a Citizen Scientist!

Nature has been provided the human needs for life, not only for food sources since long time a go human has exploit nature for medicine sources. When you see now there are still many plants in nature that have potential as a medicine.

Biodiversity Warriors collaborate with Biology Department of National University, then Chevron invite the students of Ecology Pesantren Ath-Thaariq in Garut-West Java to learn about biodiversity. They learned mostly about potential medicine plants around the pesantren environment. This activity also held to celebrate the World Wildlife Day which took place on 3 March 2016.

The warriors from National University were taught the santri or pesantren students about how to observate biodiversity in their around environment before they did observation by themself. They learned about biodiversity and Indonesian medicine plants from Nadia Putri Rachma, photography basic technique skill from M. Bagus Satrio, and popular writing technique from Ahmad Baihaqi.

When the observation started the students began to act, they look so skillfully to be a citizen scientist. They saw animal through a binocular then write the data in their field book. Cameras also completed their weapon to peek biodiversity around them.

According to Biodiversity “Students” Warrior in pesantren, they figured out there are 44 species of medicine plants, 15 species of butterflies, 5 species of dragonflies, 21 species of birds, 5 species of herpeto fauna, 1 species of mammal, and 2 species of fungus.

The head of Ecology Pesantren Ath-Thaariq, Ibang Lukman said “Here, except the students learning to read Arabic letter, I hope the students also learn about biodiversity with keeping habitats around pesantren tp prevent ecosystem from destruction”.

“ The students very enthusiastic doing biodiversity observation around pesantren environment. They have to write what they find then sharing their data in Biodiversity Warriors website” Said Muhammad Khoir whose end year student in Biology Department of National University as this event coordinator.

One of the pesantren student Lusi Dianti Duryat said, “This event is so interesting, we can gain knowledge and improve our concern about how important to keep our nature. Not only care but we are the conservation actors”.

Know and love nature biodiversity are never have boundary. Everyone who live from nature have to know and respect it, because nature not only place for us to stay over nor to visit. Nature is our home”.