By: Riansyah Sigit Kurniawan (Marine Buddies Medan)

Keeping mangroves alive is one of the real actions towards environmental sustainability that must be done together. The existence of mangrove forests can improve ecosystem functions in coastal areas, ranging from preventing abrasion, protecting marine biota and increasing oxygen that supports the lives of all species. Volunteers who are members of the Marine Buddies Community and Earth Hour (EH) Medan made conservation efforts to Taloek Beach (Teluk Beach) located in Perbaungan District, Serdang Bedagai Regency, on January 19, 2017. Wanting to build the spirit of conservation to keep mangroves sustainable, the Marine Buddies Community and EH Medan, again chose Teluk Beach as the location of activities to take real action with the surrounding community.

Teluk Beach, which is green with mangroves, is in a very clean condition thanks to the community groups that are always there to take care of it. The Bina Mangrove Farmer Group, chaired by Mr. Erwin, has regular activities on the coast to clean and keep mangroves healthy. The group members, who make their living as fishermen, don't mind maintaining the mangroves in Teluk Beach.

The action of planting and cleaning the beach was carried out by the Marine Buddies community and Earth Hour Medan accompanied by community groups in Teluk Beach. While the volunteers were heading to the planting site, some members of the Marine Buddies community held a coloring contest for children on the beach. Happy smiles appeared on the children's faces when the coloring competition began. A total of 23 children who participated in the competition were accompanied by their parents during the competition. After participating in the coloring competition for 30 minutes, all children received entertainment prizes at the end of the event.

Meanwhile at the planting site, many new mangrove seedlings were planted with a spacing of 1 x 1 meter. "The big waves that came in December have damaged thousands of mangrove trees that have been planted by the group, the water was up to the knees of adults and inundated the house," Mr. Erwin explained.

This big wave had made it difficult and even made some group members not want to preserve mangroves again. Fortunately, there are still members who survived and chose to continue planting mangroves in the cultivation pond near the beach to keep the coast green.

At the end of the activity, the volunteers expressed their gratitude and appreciation to the community for continuing to carry out conservation despite the big waves. The volunteers also gave encouragement and motivation to the Bina Mangrove Farmer Group to protect the surrounding nature. The Marine Buddies Medan community promised to continue to care for the environment and will come with even more masses to carry out restoration and conservation of green belts on the coast. That day the spirit of volunteers and the community for conservation action was even greater, bigger than the waves that came in December.