Chapter 14
Unveiling the ‘Green’: Media Coverage
on the Aceh Green Vision, Indonesia
Rizanna Rosemary and Darrick Evensen
Abstract Indonesia has had many trials in recent years associated with legal and
illegal threats to forests and their biodiversity, including in Aceh’s forests—Leuser
ecosystem, which are home to one of the key forest reserves. The Aceh government
has undertaken a policy and programme of actions to combat the deforestation.
Nevertheless, no research has explored how information on the challenges to the
forests, or the government’s solutions, have been communicated to the public in Aceh.
The public will likely need to play a role in realising the protection of Aceh’s forests,
and more broadly in addressing environmental and climate concerns in Indonesia.
In this chapter, we examine the types of information members of the public received
on environmental and climate challenges in Aceh from the key local mass media
outlet in Aceh. We specifically explore the nature of ‘efficacy’ information—on what
actions can be taken by various societal actors to combat the challenges. Newspaper
remains an important platform to address about climate change. This content analysis
systematically examines how local newspaper in Indonesia covers important and
alarming environmental issues through the Aceh Green Vision (AVG) initiative.
Keywords Forest · Climate change · Biodiversity · News media · Information
Landscape and Climate Challenges Tied to Indonesia’s
Forests
Indonesia has the third largest amount of forest of any nation. Forests in Indonesia
are generally tropical rainforests with high rainfall, which is more than 1200 mm per
year, and have a short dry season. According to the Indonesian Forest Watch (IWF)
data in 2013, 82 million ha of Indonesia’s land area are still covered by forests.
However, within the last 12 years, Indonesia’s forest lost 6.02 million ha (Mha)
R. Rosemary (B)
University of Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia
e-mail: rizanna.rosemary@unsyiah.ac.id
D. Evensen
University of Edinburg, Edinburgh, UK
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
R. Djalante et al. (eds.), Climate Change Research, Policy and Actions in Indonesia,
Springer Climate, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55536-8_14
281
Unveiling the ‘Green’: Media Coverage
on the Aceh Green Vision, Indonesia
Rizanna Rosemary and Darrick Evensen
Abstract Indonesia has had many trials in recent years associated with legal and
illegal threats to forests and their biodiversity, including in Aceh’s forests—Leuser
ecosystem, which are home to one of the key forest reserves. The Aceh government
has undertaken a policy and programme of actions to combat the deforestation.
Nevertheless, no research has explored how information on the challenges to the
forests, or the government’s solutions, have been communicated to the public in Aceh.
The public will likely need to play a role in realising the protection of Aceh’s forests,
and more broadly in addressing environmental and climate concerns in Indonesia.
In this chapter, we examine the types of information members of the public received
on environmental and climate challenges in Aceh from the key local mass media
outlet in Aceh. We specifically explore the nature of ‘efficacy’ information—on what
actions can be taken by various societal actors to combat the challenges. Newspaper
remains an important platform to address about climate change. This content analysis
systematically examines how local newspaper in Indonesia covers important and
alarming environmental issues through the Aceh Green Vision (AVG) initiative.
Keywords Forest · Climate change · Biodiversity · News media · Information
Landscape and Climate Challenges Tied to Indonesia’s
Forests
Indonesia has the third largest amount of forest of any nation. Forests in Indonesia
are generally tropical rainforests with high rainfall, which is more than 1200 mm per
year, and have a short dry season. According to the Indonesian Forest Watch (IWF)
data in 2013, 82 million ha of Indonesia’s land area are still covered by forests.
However, within the last 12 years, Indonesia’s forest lost 6.02 million ha (Mha)
R. Rosemary (B)
University of Syiah Kuala, Banda Aceh, Indonesia
e-mail: rizanna.rosemary@unsyiah.ac.id
D. Evensen
University of Edinburg, Edinburgh, UK
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
R. Djalante et al. (eds.), Climate Change Research, Policy and Actions in Indonesia,
Springer Climate, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55536-8_14
281