Swietenia Puspa Lestari (born 23 December 1994) is an Indonesian underwater diver, environmental engineering graduate, and environmental activist.
Early life Swietenia Puspa Lestari, was born in Bogor (born 23 December 1994), is a native of Pramuka Island in the Java Sea, is also an Indonesian. A keen diver from childhood, began to show her interest in the sea since her father was assigned to Pramuka Island, an island located in the Seribu Islands cluster, who had been actively diving since childhood and really liked it. Her interest in environmental protection began when she began learning about waste management systems in 2015 while still an environmental engineering student at the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). Her father's experience in the Seribu Islands between 2003 and 2007 introduced Tenia to the sea, where she often dived around the north of Jakarta.
Employment history Swietenia is an activist for marine cleanliness, co-founders, executive director of Yayasan Penyelam Lestari Indonesia or Divers Clean Action (DCA), an environmental action community headquartered in Jakarta, and serves as the leads a team of volunteer divers who clear rubbish, especially plastic waste from the reefs and recycle what they find.
Career From there, she realized the serious challenge of the amount of waste that threatened the marine ecosystem in the Seribu Islands. To overcome this problem, she began to encourage the community to reduce plastic use and manage plastic waste better. At that time, attention to the problem of marine waste was not as big as it is now. However, with the many discussions about land waste, final disposal sites (TPA), temporary disposal sites (TPS), and rivers, she decided to establish a community in the field of environmental conservation. In 2015, she founded Yayasan Penyelam Lestari Indonesia or Divers Clean Action (DCA) with a primary focus on cleaning up waste in the ocean, especially in the Seribu Islands, Jakarta. This community began to form when Tenia and her two friends held a clean-up event to collect data before determining the next steps. In addition, at the same time, research by Jenna Jambeck highlighted that Indonesia was ranked second in contributing to marine waste in the world. This encouraged her community to carry out routine cleaning activities every one or two months. As an underwater diver, Tenia often finds garbage scattered on the beach or sea surface. Indonesia is often referred to as the second largest producer of plastic waste in the sea after China, with the amount of plastic waste entering the sea reaching around 1.29 million tons per year according to the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (KKP). Beginning with three people in 2015, the DCA has grown to 12 team members and nearly 1,500 volunteers across Indonesia. Lestari related that diving to collect waste can be dangerous because of the high currents, but that the rapid increase in tourism since 2007 has led to far more trash being dumped into the formerly pristine seas around Indonesia's many islands. In 2017 Lestari founded the Indonesian Youth Marine Debris Summit (IYMDS). The same year, she represented Indonesia and spoke at the 2017 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany. She also helped initiate an anti-plastic drinking straw campaign in Indonesia and convinced 700 restaurants to reduce the use of single-use straws. In 2019, Lestari was listed among the BBC's 100 Women, a list of 100 inspiring and influential women. Later that year, she was invited to attend Barack and Michelle Obama's 'Obama Foundation Leaders Forum', which was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in December. She was subsequently included in Forbes' "30 Under 30 – Asia – Social Entrepreneurs 2020".
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