on solid GROUND

Nadya Hutagalung on helping changemakers stand strong for their advocacies.

- NANA NADAL

IT WAS IN THE ‘90s, WHILE WORKING AS A VJ ON MTV, THAT NADYA HUTAGALUNG DISCOVERED THE IMPACT OF HER VOICE. She recalls freestyling most of her spiels, often slipping in environmental messages. One day, fellow VJ Mike Casem told her that his cousin had donated half of his savings to help orangutans after hearing Nadya speak about their plight on the channel. Since then, she has not stopped publicly advocating for nature. “To me, it really is simple math. We're one finite Earth and there’s only x amount of resources and we're growing and growing in population,” points out the Indonesian-Australian presenter also known for hosting and judging the first two cycles of Asia’s Next Top Model.

Her mission took shape after witnessing the stark change in marine life at a Thailand dive site. She was appalled by the degradation she saw on her second trip, just a couple of years after the first. This happened around the same time as the most damaging transboundary haze pollution. The combination of the incidents left her desperately wondering, “Why is nobody doing anything?”

Over the years, her identity as an eco-activist grew more prominent, expanding to include the role of ambassador for the Great Apes Survival Partnership (GRASP). In this capacity, she joined an elite group alongside Dr. Jane Goodall, the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees. As a longtime UN Environment Goodwill Ambassador, she has played a key role in launching several campaigns. Some years ago, she was also invited by Prince William, Prince of Wales, to serve as an advocate for the Earthshot Prize, the most prestigious environmental award in history. Her work has led her to speak on the stages of highly regarded events and organizations such as the World Economic Forum and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.