The event I was asked to attend today alongside Jo Ee and Aliya was an eye opening experience for all of us, to say the least. The event today organised in conjunction with World Forestry Day Celebrations took place in Raja Musa, which as far as I knew, was rather long way from Wisma Hing in SS2, where we met up to carpool with GEC volunteers. We left Wisma Hing at approximately 7.30 am, and arrived at Raja Musa about an hour later.
The pothole ridden, muddy path leading towards the planting site proved to be much too big of an obstacle for a car filled with food and people, so everyone except for Regina, who drove had to get down from the car and walk a short distance to the planting site.
There, every volunteer was then treated to breakfast, which was a pleasant surprise for me as I didn't expect to be served breakfast out in the wilderness surrounding by weeds taller than I am. We had a large selection of food to choose from, ranging from curry puffs to sandwiches and even apples. After a scrumptious breakfast, we were led into the planting site where a basic introduction to the Raja Musa Peat Forest Rehabilitation Programme before instructions on what we were supposed to do for the day and how we were supposed to go about doing it were given.
Raja Musa Peat Forest Rehabilitation Programme is a long term project currently implemented by the Selangor Forestry Department and Global Environment Centre. The project aims to rehabilitate a total of 1000 ha of degraded peat swamp in Raja Musa Forest Reserve through community based enrichment planting as well as regular monitoring of illegal encroachment. The Raja Musa Peat Forest Reserve is a significant block of remaining peat forest in Peninsular Malaysia and is important ecosystem for freshwater source and carbon storage. The protection of this ecosystem will significantly secure the storage of carbon in the peat, a key greenhouse gas which contributes to climate change.
That was an excerpt from the invitation they sent us, by the way.
Each fair maiden was accompanied by a parang-wielding, dashing lad, and those who wielded parangs were in charge of clearing the horribly dense, impossibly tall weeds so that the fair maidens could poke bamboo stakes four steps away from one to another on the ground. These bamboo stakes would serve as an indication of where each tree was to be planted later. Trust me, going around poking stakes in the ground is easy, but it's navigating through the logs, over-sized roots, damp grass, and sudden drops in the ground hidden by grass that makes this experience a real eye-opener. This fair maiden can only imagine what slashing through the thick, prickly weeds feels like, especially after seeing numerous scratches on the arms of those who wielded parangs. ( I have two tiny scratches too, I hope they don't heal before I could show them off to Farhanah)
Oh, did I neglect to mention the fact that being the only secondary school students in the ocean of college and university volunteer made us stick out like a sore thumb?
The fact that our club had a name like 'Eco Rangers' made us appear much 'younger' in their eyes, and because we 'lacked muscles', the people in charge of the programme kept asking college boys to help us. We ended up barely doing anything at all.
After we were done poking 400 stakes into the ground (Don't worry, the workload was distributed evenly amongst the volunteers), we were asked to take a short break whilst awaiting the arrival of the stars of the day-the trees. We didn't have to wait for long before he sound of gravel crunching beneath tires greeted our ears. Each group carried about 5 or 6 Marcots to the planting site where we had to track down the bamboo stakes and plant the marcots beside them. By the way, Marcotting (otherwise known as grafting) is a process whereby the epidermis of a tree bark is sliced off and removed, before the area is covered by a ball of soil. The ball of soil covering the sliced-off area would then be secured by plastic bags and ties, and the Marcots are then left to sprout roots over the duration of 45 days before they are finally removed and replanted once again.
Using this process, the Raja Musa Peat Forest Rehabilitation Programme has seen a tremendous increase in their yields.
Planting trees is much harder than I previously thought it would be. Poisoned by the media with images of smiling ministers using ribbon-adorned spades to insert pretty plants into ready-made holes while standing on a carpet, planting proved to be an immensely difficult chore for me. Merely carrying the basket of 6-feet tall plants on my back already proved to be a difficult chore for me, and when I attempted to dig a hole in the ground... let's just put it nicely and say that my efforts were pathetic.
Under the blazing sun, planting 380 marcots took around an hour and a half, and by the time we were finally done, I was starting to rethink my decision of painting my room green. Despite my complaints, I still have to admit that meeting the volunteers was a great experience and planting was rather fun. Had it not been for this event, I might have spent the rest of my undoubtedly long life under the misguided impression that gardening was done in an air-conditioned room using spades in pristine condition.
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