It seems like Indonesians are becoming greener day by day. Recently, in a drive to preserve the natural forest habitats, Indonesia is going to plant about 79 million trees in a single day! This is to make up for the 4.2 million acres destroyed annually. The target seems to be a little overwhelming at first.
But, given enough manpower this kind of scheme is possible. In the world’s fourth largest nation, forest degradation seems to be one of the biggest problems. Although, some environmental activists think that planting more trees in the midst of rapid deforestation will get Indonesia nowhere, other groups have different take on this issue.
The event, which is set to go for Nov.28 is a part of a massive global campaign launched by UN. Eucalyptus and teak plants will be planted mostly. The UN planned to plant 1 billion trees during last year’s climate change talks in Nairobi. I think this is a crazy target. But, I do agree that planting that many trees will definitely do the environment some good.
Indonesia had the fastest rate of deforestation between 2000-05. The rate of deforestation was equivalent to about 300 soccer pitches being destroyed every hour. At the same time, the ever increasing palm oil plantations are destroying the rainforests. Besides these causes, massive use of timber from the forests are also destroying them.
According to stats, the govt. planted about 2.5 million acres in 2006. It’s goal is to double the number within a year. This drive is also part of beautification process for the global warming summit scheduled for December in Bali, Indonesia. World leaders are going to discuss the Kyoto protocol as well during the climate change talk. Hopefully, the U.N. will be able to achieve the crazy target in one day!
Image Credit: Reuters
