Earth Hour is held annually and celebrated during the month of March, every last Saturday. This year, that celebration falls onto March 26. The Earth Hour celebration is done in order to raise awareness in energy consumption, which is by switching off the lights for one hour. In Jakarta, Earth Hour commenced from 20.30 to 21.30 GMT+7 at several iconic spots such as Monas and Bundaran HI. Marine Buddies Jakarta as the sister community of Earth Hour Jakarta, both under the World Wildlife Fund, helped out in documenting the switch off of the city.

Jakarta as the capital city of Indonesia is always bustling with life from the early morning to the late night. So it was an interesting scene to see the iconic spots of Jakarta switch off their lights. This is in collaboration with the government that made it possible. The Marine Buddies team got assigned to document the switch off at Bundaran HI. The location has the famous statue of Welcome to Indonesia, where the area is surrounded by hotels and two high end malls that are Plaza Indonesia and Grand Indonesia.

The lights gradually turned off at Bundaran HI when the time strike 20.00 GMT+7. First it was the advertisement billboard. Then the lights of the water fountain below the Welcome to Indonesia statue, followed by the light shining the statue, and the hotel lights. Finally, a bit later around 5 to 7 minutes, were the sidewalk lights switched off as well. The documentation team stayed at the location until the lights was turned back on at 21.30 GMT+7. When the sidewalk lights were turned back on, it was an immediate contrast to how dark it was before. It goes to show that Jakarta is a bustling city that is bright with lots of light.