Mike O'Leary is an Aussie surfer turned environmental educator. He's the founder and CEO of ROLE Foundation in Indonesia, an organisation that addresses environmental issues in a unique way. In Indonesia, environmental degradation is a product of poverty so rather than simply picking up rubbish, ROLE Foundation travel upstream to the heart of the matter.

Swellnet: Where are you from originally?
Mike O'Leary: I grew up in Mermaid/Nobby Beach on the Gold Coast in Queensland Australia .

When did you first visit Bali?
I first visited Bali in 1979

When did you consider aid work and creating an NGO in Bali?
In 2005 I got pretty well ripped off in business, and sold out for a song. What you call a backdoor takeover. It was a silver and gold jewelry business turning over around $4 million dollars a year. 

After all of this had happened, I was surfing and traveling a lot around the Philippines and Indonesia. I started to notice the solid waste piling up around this beautiful island and also out of town in the small villages. There were waste trails out in the ocean and the environmental degradation which I realised went hand in hand with poverty throughout both countries. So in 2007, I founded ROLE Foundation. ROLE represents Rivers, Oceans, Lands, Ecology.

What is the big picture aim of ROLE?
ROLE Foundation is all about education. Only through education can we achieve the goal of having local people taking charge of these massive waste and environmental destruction problems. We currently operate out of two education centres. Our future plans include building and managing major colleges for marginalized women and at risk communities in North-East Bali, East Flores, East Timor, and Papua New Guinea over the next 10 to 15 years. They'll offer over 30 vocational skills and teach sustainable business development practices including waste management, reforestation, sustainable business and farming, as well as our women's skills and business education.

ROLE has an idiosyncratic structure, one attuned to particular Balinese issues. Did it always have this structure - i.e a focus on marginalized women - or was it something that evolved along the way?
Our poor and marginalized women's programs were born from a need for a healthy and safe environment. We want to clean up the ocean. So we follow the waste up the rivers and come to the people, especially the poor. 80% of the poor are women and their kids. Boys are a priority in Asia so the poor will spend money and educate the boys and leave the girls behind.

Women in general are more family-minded, which includes the need for a healthy environment for their kids. So we stumbled onto our very popular Skills Education Program for Marginalized Women, I believe it is also a valuable tool in the fight for a healthy environment.

Does R.O.L.E do any work at government level?
Our costs are around $17,000 per month, and we receive around $5,000 every second year from the Australian Government. We are striving to reach higher levels of education year by year. The Australian government deals with their own programs which fail all the time, [they're] drawn up and managed mainly by middle men. They want to deal with lawyer types who use the right words, not rough diamonds that get the job done.

As far as the Indonesian Government goes, we answer and are audited by the Social Department of Indonesia. If we want to get money off them, we'd receive around 30 cents in the dollar and would have to sell the foundation's soul. Corruption is endemic across Indonesia, and this is why the waste issue and poverty are only going to increase as they destroy all their natural resources and pocket the money that should be spent on waste management as part of good governance.

Each off season we hear about the rubbish problem in Bali, when garbage flushes out of the rivers into the ocean. How is ROLE involved in stemming this issue?
Up to the end of January we had a very dry wet season, but now the heavens have opened. The rainy season flushes out an estimated 5,000 tons of solid and liquid waste in Bali per day and 130,000 tons in greater Indonesia. That's approximately 1.5 million tons for Bali and 39 million tons for greater Indonesia of solid and liquid waste dumped into the ocean each year. This waste can be now seen covering Northern Australia from Exmouth to Arnhem Land to Cape York. Indonesia is the second biggest producer of ocean borne waste after China. I believe only through education followed by awareness and assistance can we eventually get on top of this catastrophe. We need a sea change in our priorities - a sustainable world.

Visit the ROLE Foundation website for more information or to donate