Editor’s Note: This article, contributed by Jaron Koh Jun Jie, a MBBS Phase II student at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, first appeared in the Feb 2017 edition of MediCine Newsletter. Jaron Koh is a Tanoto Foundation Scholar who participated in Project Sukacita V, using his medical knowledge to conduct health screening & lessons for the local community.

With 27 oil palm estates in Riau, Jambi and North Sumatra totaling 160,000 hectares of land of which 60,000 are smallholder estates, Asian Agri together with its smallholder farmers represent one of Indonesia’s leading palm oil businesses. But along with vast plantations and fertile conditions inevitably come pests such as rats and caterpillars.

Doing broad biodiversity surveys in little-known areas is what many Fauna & Flora International (FFI) staff would love to do, but only a few get the opportunity. Finding, watching, photographing, identifying and reporting on the species in an area is fundamental to understanding how an ecosystem functions and what management steps are needed for its conservation.

Indonesians from all walks of life cranked their creativity for the inaugural APRIL Caring for the Climate Doodle Competition held in Dec 2016. APRIL, one of the largest and most technologically advanced pulp and paper products makers in the world, canvassed the public for creative expressions along the theme of “PT RAPP Good for Climate.”

Misi Kami Peduli (MKP) 2016, Mission We Care, was a community service expedition organized by Indonesian students at the National University of Singapore. As part of the MKP 2016 team, I travelled to Desa Tambakrejo, a rural village in East Java, Indonesia in Dec 2016. It was a fulfilling journey for me and my team as we had the opportunity to contribute to the well-being of the people of Desa Tambakrejo, make positive social impact to the community, and also to share good practices in environmental awareness.

Each year in January, the normally sedate Davos, population 11,000, sees an influx of visitors when the World Economic Forum (WEF) holds its flagship Annual Meeting in the alpine resort town located in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland.

Since 2015, RGE has participated in the thought leadership forum to understand the cross currents of emerging trends and how the private sector can work in partnership with both government and non-government actors to be a force for good.