SARAH Aida Mohamed Mustak and Nur Irsalina Sulzaily are two enthusiastic members of their school's Kelab Pencinta Alam.
In the club, the SMK Bukit Jelutong fifth-formers take part in a host of activities that cover collecting items to be recycled, organising and taking part in environmental programmes and going on camping trips.
"It's one of the most popular clubs in school. We have long- and short-term programmes that involve not only the club but also the school," says Sarah Aida.
"We didn't have such a thing in primary school. We joined this one because of our seniors and the teacher in charge," says Nur Irsalina, adding that they in turn encourage their juniors to join the organisation too.
Through the club, the two see the importance of development but feel that it should be tempered with preserving the environment.
BOH Plantations Sdn Bhd hopes to get more youngsters thinking about nature through an ongoing competition.
The BOH Forest Friends School Programme 2012, which is on until Wednesday, aims to educate secondary school students on the importance of the forests while raising their awareness of deforestation.
There are two aspects to the initiative -- which is undertaken together with WWF-Malaysia and supported by the Education Ministry -- school visits and talks, and the BOH Virtual Forest Competition.
The competition calls for participants to create and grow their own virtual forest in a month. At the end of the contest, the entrants with the healthiest virtual forest will take home prizes for themselves and their schools.
"We've worked with WWF-Malaysia and the ministry on a few programmes prior to this one, the last of which focused primarily on the orang utan and its habitat.
"It was a blog contest where students had to create a blog about orang utans and it was the first time an environmental competition for students had been done online," says BOH chief executive officer Caroline Russell.
Because of the overwhelming response, the tea company decided to run this year's event on the Net as well.
WWF-Malaysia conservation director Dr Sundari Ramakrishna says programmes such as this could bring about a change in people's behaviour towards the environment.
"Perceptions, behaviours and attitudes change over time; it all depends on the exposure, intervention and experience that people have had.
"Environmental programmes such as this help to plant the seed of awareness but a collective effort by different people is what will eventually push us to make a personal change," she says.
Russell adds that while changing behaviours does not come from just one competition, she hopes the Forest Friends project will reinforce the environmental education students already receive in school.
"Our goal is to approach the topic in a different way and help raise the profile of the importance of this subject," she says.
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