How would Radio Deejays spend their weekend if not on air, or catching up on the latest news and their buddies? They get all sweaty and dirty and plant trees in their bid to help save the world in conjunction with World Environment Day! KEH CHOOI LAN has the story.

Written by Keh Chooi Lan on 12 Aug 2008 with 1 comment. Contribute!

'ONE TANAH MERAH, WAH HEE THE ONE TANAH MERAH. ONE TANAH MERAH...'

Not quite the original lyrics of the Cuban song 'Guantanamera' but an adapted version that was oft repeated during the tree party which Wild Asia and AMP radio co-hosted - where else but in Tanah Merah! No, this is not the Tanah Merah in Kelantan but the Tanah Merah in Negeri Sembilan which is just a 20 minute drive from the Kuala Lumpur's international airport, KLIA.

In conjunction with World Environment Day (WED) 2008, Wild Asia together with AMP Radio Stations, ERA, MY FM, MIX fm, hitz.fm, LiteFM, SINAR, Xfresh, THR Raaga and THR Gegar, planted 100 trees for the environment. This is in line with this year's WED's theme of "Kick the Habit! Towards a low carbon economy." And low carbon it was too as ZERO disposable items were used. At any event, there is bound to be much garbage generated in the form of plastic bottles and cutlery. But in this environmentally friendly event, none were used!

For two weeks, both on air and online, the nine radio stations were encouraging their listeners to pledge RM50 for a seedling to be planted on June 7th and June 8th by the radio announcers who were participating in the event. Dubbed as a happening "tree party", the announcers who were involved in this project included Jojo and Sham from MIX fm; Linda Onn, Ray and Aimee from ERA; Jamal, Najman and Salih from SINAR; Natalie and Ean from hitz.fm; Jack and Jason from MY FM; Burn from Xfresh; Rex from LiteFm; and Revathy and Rezlynn from THR Raaga and Gegar respectively. Many of the announcers had never held a "cangkul", the traditional Malaysian digging tool, in their entire lives and they had a lot of fun digging holes for the seedlings. Of course, there was a lot of ribbing from each other about digging their own graves!

In return for the RM50 pledge, the listeners receive e-tree-certificate with a picture of the announcer whom the listeners had chosen to plant the seedling. To further their commitment to this tree planting campaign, AMP has financially committed to look after the well-being of the seedlings for the next two years until the trees are mature enough to fend for themselves.

The tree planting site chosen was next to a river, Sg, Janging, which Wild Asia is working with the Sime Darby Plantation estate management and staff to rehabilitate. Cutting across 4,500 hectares of Tanah Merah's oil plantation land, Sg. Janging provides the only natural connection between Lukut's mangrove forests and the forested hill slopes of Bkt. Siamang. Planting trees along the river is one way of enhancing the biodiversity values of this natural corridor which Wild Asia is aiming to create. By continously protecting and improving on the habitat within this corridor, local communities will be able to utilise the area's natural resources. Some of the wildlife found in the area include kingfishers, snakes, squirrels, palm civets, owls and several species of bugs like damselflies and dragonflies.

Sime Darby Plantation Sdn Bhd is currently embarking on an ambitious conservation programme to cultivate five million trees over 15 years at several allocated plantations nationwide and the estate in Tanah Merah is just one of them. "Plant a Tree for the Planet" programme at Ladang Tanah Merah is one of the company's long term strategies to create more natural corridors and to help nurture local wildlife populations within the plantation landscapes. Besides adding to the biodiversity, community in the estates will also in the long run benefit from a cleaner and healthier environment.

According to Dr. Reza Azmi, Director/ Founder of Wild Asia, "Planting trees is just one of the strategies we adopted to create a natural corridor between the forest reserve and mangrove. Ultimately, we hope to see that Sg. Janging is brought to life and that the natural corridor is able to to provide linkages or havens for wild species to exist."

"Protected areas are simply not enough to safeguard our environment. Many thousands of species survive outside parks and other protected areas. Therefore, the creation of more natural corridors within urban and plantation landscapes is a long term strategy to help nurture local wildlife populations," he added.

Wild Asia's efforts to create a natural corridor on privately owned lands was a given a boost recently when it was singled out by the London Zoological Society as a good example to promote the conservation of natural areas within private landholdings.

Only indigenous trees are planted along the river edge to attract and enhance local biodiversity. The announcers enjoyed themselves choosing what they wanted to plant and were heard hollering for seedlings with colourful local names like "pokok gajah beranak" (birthing elephant), "cerit budak" (kids shrieking) , "ceri terengganu" (Terengganu cherry), and "asem-asem"(sour-sour). Starbucks Coffee provided the compost which is in the form of spent coffee grounds which the "farmers" sprinkled on the ground.

Later, Dr. Reza gave a presentation to the radio announcers on how planting trees relates to the bigger picture of "Tanah Merah's River of Life Programme". After the presentation, a well-earned lunch was served on banana leaves, of course, to reduce the need to use dish liquid and water to clean the plates. No plastic disposable items were used during the lunch. It was most encouraging to see some of the announcers go back to basics and use their fingers to eat!

alchi1210

Member 01-Jun-2008 Posts: 5

Sunday, 10 August 2008 at 2:09 PM:

Great Job!

Really good for the Radio Deejays and listeners to learn about local trees =)

Hope to have even more new habitats for the wildlife.