is an activity under the AWARE component and aims to support the TDA-SAP
process by reaching out to local and provincial level stakeholder
communities, educating people on broad environmental issues, biodiversity
protection and new and sustainable approaches to income generation.
Ideally, the ARP should also provide a feedback mechanism through which
the project can learn about concerns of local communities and villagers
directly affected by environmental degradation. The very tight project
implementation schedule however did not permit this and activities had to
run in parallel instead.
A number of initiatives were run under the umbrella of
the ARP. National mass media campaigns used local newspapers, talk-back
radio and TV shows as well as more traditional means such as posters,
pamphlets and brochures that were distributed at local schools, community
centres and through local NGOs.
The TumenNET Green School initiative was launched in
late 2001 and aimed to bring environmental awareness to kindergarten and
primary schools in the immediate target areas. A total of 17 schools in 4
countries were able to qualify for the Green Schools Award.
A primary school painting competition in late 2001
resulted in 12 regional winners whose paintings of environmental topics
were included in the 2002 TumenNET calendar that was produced in 5
languages and distributed widely throughout the region and beyond.
The TumenNET Clean Up Day initiative was launched on 5
June 2002, World Environment Day in all five countries. This initiative
was patterned after the Clean up Australia program and proved very
successful. On the one day, and with only minimal financial support from
the project budget, more than 60,000 people were mobilised to clean up
110t of garbage from local waterways at 30 locations. Local business like
LG Electronics of South Korea, local government, schools and community
organisations all provided resources to make this initiative the success
it became.
