The Negligence of Conservation and Environmental Communication in the Nature Tourism and Adventure Programs on Television

Abstract

Nature tourism and adventure program is one of the most popular programs on Indonesian television. However, these kinds of programs were often ignoring the environmental aspects. As a result, conservation issues were neglected because the main purpose of the program was only to show the audience the luxury of the trip. One of the cases could be seen on “The Beautiful Adventurers” program on Trans7, which was aired on Sunday, April 22^nd, 2018. This particular episode showed the hosts were consuming a “Kima”, a kind of giant clams that is protected by the law. Harsh criticism from environmental activists spread on social media, even before the show ended. This study took this incident with an explanatory case study method to analyze it from the perspective of environmental communication. The results showed that the crew did not have awareness about the conservation issues and was more attracted by the tour guides’ persuasion rather than following the regulations that have been established both by the Government and the international conventions. This study suggests Indonesian Broadcasting Commission include conservation material in the Broadcasting Standard Guidelines to persuade more specific regulation for similar programs on Indonesian televisions that support environmental communication and natural resource preservation.