I am Nadi Afriyansa, an intern student from the Faculty of Forestry, Tanjungpura University, Pontianak. I will share my experiences during the internship process at the Alam Sehat Lestari Foundation (ASRI). I gained a lot of experience in the internship process at ASRI which took place from 2 October - 8 December 2023, especially my focus was in the field of conservation. At ASRI, this field has 3 main programs, namely Forestry, Sustainable Livelihoods, and Planetary Health Education. These programs also have a variety of activities. We also participated in several activities from the ASRI Research Team.

In reforestation and nursery activities (forestry programs), we participate in planting seeds, maintaining seedlings, checking the health of seedlings, transporting seeds (patient seeds, MSME seeds), as well as monitoring reforestation locations. By participating in this reforestation program, the knowledge we gain in college can be realized well in the field. This is in accordance with one of the objectives of an internship, namely to implement the knowledge that has been obtained in lecture classes.

By participating in this reforestation program, I gained a lot of new knowledge that was never taught in class and I was also able to observe that there were several activities where theory and field practice were incompatible. The experience of going directly into the field and contributing to reforestation activities was my first experience, because I had never participated in an activity like this before, even though I was still a beginner, I was able to follow all the activity lines carefully and well.

It turns out that after I went directly into the field, I found out that this reforestation activity is not as easy as many people think, there are many considerations that must be made if you are going to carry out reforestation activities. For planting time, you have to pay attention to the weather conditions that make it possible for a seed to grow well in a reforestation area, the condition (health) of the seed also really needs to be paid attention to if you are going to carry out reforestation activities.

In this reforestation program there was one memorable and proud moment for myself, namely that my friends and I were directly involved in planting thousands of fruit seeds or wood seeds that would be planted in reforestation activities. Planting of seeds is carried out in permanent and semi-permanent nurseries at ASRI. Activities in the nursery are the activities that I do most often because this activity is in accordance with my field.

This reforestation activity also requires assistance from the surrounding community to assist in the planting process. Collaboration with communities around the forest and the Gunung Palung National Park Office, forms a pattern of community empowerment that will increase public awareness of the importance of protecting the forest around the Gunung Palung National Park.

Apart from reforestation, there is also something interesting in the field of conservation that I probably won't encounter anywhere else, namely the activity of paying for treatment with tree seedlings (non-cash payment). This can help make it easier for communities around the forest to access health services. Because not everyone can afford to pay for treatment directly with cash. ASRI is here to overcome or help with these problems. This is something interesting for me, because through health services, ASRI is able to encourage people to protect the environment.

In Research and Sustainable Livelihoods activities, I also gained new experiences by going down and interacting directly with the community to talk about what obstacles they face when they live directly adjacent to the Gunung Palung National Park. By participating in the activities at ASRI, I feel a positive spirit where very good interactions exist between humans and their environment. My contribution in this internship process is not just to hone my knowledge, but I can enrich my view of the environment and surrounding society, both in terms of awareness and interaction. With the completion of this internship process, I get the idea that humans have the right to be responsible for the environment.