A genuine feeling of love towards nature that’s planted deep within ourselves will last for a lifetime, even if life brings us to diverse, branched paths. This is strongly felt by Ridzki R. Sigit, a member of Kaoem Telapak in Bogor, West Java.
Nicknamed Ridzki, he was among the first people who developed Mongobay Indonesia, a news media focusing on nature conservation topics founded in 2012 as the first international branch of Mongabay.com.
Throughout his career with Mongabay which spans across 13 years and counting, he is currently positioned as the Program Director to organize a division which consists of 10 people, including 60 contributor journalists spread across Indonesia, from Aceh to Papua
“If I may say, we were like ‘test rabbits.’ There weren’t plenty of news websites dedicated to nature conservation during that period, so we attempted to raise the people and media’s awareness and interest towards nature topics,” Ridzki explained regarding his history with Mongabay.
In addition to Mongabay, Ridzki is also a teacher for Communication Study since 2015. He applies his nature-related interests and life experiences while teaching the college students and also publishes research journals.
Ridzki is also involved in other organizations. He was the founder of Rekam Nusantara Foundation (Yayasan Rekam Jejak Alam Nusantara) and is the head of Indonesia Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP) Foundation.
And just recently in 2025, Ridzki founded Aksara Foundation and became the head of the organization which encourages community participation within the nature conservation areas, particularly in Halimun Salak National Park, West Java-Banten.
Outside of those professions, Ridzki has a diverse range of hobbies. He loves traveling to many regions across the world, photography, and reading. In addition, he’s a certified diver who’s frequently into diving while expanding his interest in underwater photography.
Regarding his professions and hobbies, Ridzki said, “Everything that I’ve been working for years, be it as a professional work or leisure, is always tied to the nature.”
The origin of his love towards nature
Ridzki’s love and appreciation towards nature which built his careers and hobbies over the years to this day began when he joined Lalawata IPB nature enthusiast group during his college years. This set the foundation for his passion when he joined Kaoem Telapak in 1998, also known as Perkumpulan Telapak at the time.
As time went on, Ridzki became more involved with Telapak. He was the 2004-2006 Executive Director of Telapak. Later on, he and other Telapak members began developing Gekko Studio, an autonomous body under Telapak which focused on the documentation of nature, environment, and culture in 2006.
He then developed his media aspect in Telapak by pioneering the foundation of Telapak News Office located in numerous regions such as Bogor, Riau, Bengkulu, and other cities.
“When we developed the website in 2008, there weren’t any video call technology commonly used by the people such as Zoom and even the popularity of social media as a platform was still in its infancy among us. For that reason, we felt the need to develop all of those platforms,” he elaborated.
