The narrative of seeing humans as separate and more superior from/than the natural world has brought us to this era of natural resources exploitation and environmental degradation. Even in the pursuit of nature conservation and preservation, many modern efforts are driven solely by scientific and economic perspectives. This, however, does not take into account the interconnectedness between communities and nature, possibly giving rise to conflicts in the implementation of these efforts.
As most Southeast Asian countries comprise different cultures - rural and urban, settled and nomadic - the marriage between local knowledge systems and modern approaches is the way to go in promoting environmental conservation and sustainability efforts as well as addressing the impacts of the environmental and climate crisis to local communities. This inspire our team to create the ECOnnected podcast as a safe space to discuss unconventional and niched topics around environmentalism in South East Asia and its connection to people and culture.
ECOnnected is a self-managed team of four passionate environmentalists from four different Southeast Asian countries; namely Sumarni Laman from Indonesia, Muhammad Arisyahmi bin Jeffry from Brunei Darussalam, Nurfatin Najihah Hamzah from Malaysia, and Erica Jeniece Zafra from the Philippines. Four of us first met in the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) Academic Fellowship at Montana University in 2021. Sharing the same passion and interest in activism, conservation, and Indigenous culture, we were grouped into the same team in our online fellowship program to create a project together that YSEALI and the Mansfield Center will support. After brainwriting and sharing our vision, we decided to make a series of podcast episodes to raise awareness of the environment and highlight local and traditional knowledge to the youths and the community at large through social media platforms.
To learn more and listen to our podcast please follow us in Spotify, Youtube, Facebook, and Instagram.