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Indonesia will plant 79 million trees

1 Nov 2005
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The President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, of Indonesia said:" Trees are the heroes who will save the Earth"

The 79 million trees should be plant within a few days. Citizens will receive young trees, and they are allowed to plant them where they want to, even in front of there own houses,

http://www.depers.nl/Buitenland/?D=127659&ref=rss
It was written in the Dutch paper De Pers.
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We can call it nice but far too little but I find it a beautiful geste.
It is thinking and believing in a better future and that has always been the best spirit of all centuries!

A bravo for Yudhoyoho, a bravo for Indonesia!!
 
It sounds like a good thing to do ! And I tell you, I have to admit that I am part of the problem, because you see...I do love my BBQs, and we get this charcoal from the mangroves here in Japan often...and I do use it. (although recently I've found a new 'ecologically formed' charcoal...whatever that may mean. But the trees sound good !!
 
A big cheer for Indonesia for doing this! Trees do help immensely. Even though each person in each country can only do so much, each tree planted will make a difference.
 
Thanks for the information!
I love trees since childhood (I was a real tree-climber), and later worked with some in international art symposien, outside.

We can't have enough of them!
 
I personally hate to climb trees, and I don't like small trees :D but hell, do I love the huuuuge ones. Every country should do this, at least like yearly :D
 
Before Indonesia's applauded for encouraging people to plant trees, perhaps we should consider that vast areas of mature forests are being burnt down so that lucrative palm oil plantations can be created (mainly for the Western food and biofuel markets)? In those terms, these moves are probably too little too late for Indonesia's ecosystem - many commentators warn of a looming environmental disaster.

There's been a lot on the news recently about the explosion in demand for palm oil as a biofuel - largely so that Western country's can meet their own environmental targets in the future!!


Just one recent article from the BBC:


'Palm oil warning for Indonesia

Huge swathes of Indonesia's jungles are under threat
Land clearances in Indonesia to meet the growing global demand for palm oil pose a serious threat to the environment, a report has warned.

Forests are being burned and peat wetlands drained for plantations, causing huge releases of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Greenpeace said.

The environmental group warned of a potential "climate bomb" and called for the clearances to stop.

Palm oil is an ingredient in foods and a bio-fuel added to diesel for cars.

It is already controversial because it is often grown on rainforest land in South-East Asia, says the BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin.

But Greenpeace's "Cooking the Climate" report investigates the cultivation of the crop in Indonesian peat swamps, thought to be one of the most valuable stores of carbon in the world.

Carbon store

In normal rainforest there is much more carbon stored in microbes in the soil than in the leaves and branches of the trees.

In peat wetlands that is magnified with soils many metres deep. But these wetlands are fast being cleared and drained, causing large quantities of carbon dioxide to be emitted.

According to the report, every year 1.8bn tonnes of carbon dioxide - a major cause of climate change - are released by the destruction of Indonesia's peat wetlands.

"Unless efforts are made to halt forest and peatland destruction, emissions from these peatlands may trigger a 'climate bomb'," Greenpeace warned.

Indonesia is looking to become the world's top producer of palm oil.

But in July, environmental groups said a huge project planned for Borneo would cause irreparable harm to the territory and culture of indigenous people.
 
Hello Made of Stone,

I read the article from the BBC you have mentioned.

But I am getting a bit shy and feel guilty when it comes to speak negatively about Indonesia. I am Dutch and I was one of those Dutch colonial children that grew up in Indonesia before WWII.

Richard LLoyd Perry, journalist from The Independent wrote a very good book in 2005 about some situations in Indonesia:
In Time of Madness.
 
I think it is really good that indonesia is going to plant so many tree's, but i think they should still adress and sort out the major problems they have with destruction to forests and the environment in general- i kinda suspect that this new generous offer indonesia is doing for its environment is perhaps only so to help divert the media's attention as to what it is doing to its environment elsewhere...


Anyways, at the end of the day, the main focus should be to plant a variety of tree's- if they don't plant a variety of tree's, they will have little value towards wildlife and will be little better than just planting crops- ecosystems like rainforests only work because they have a lot of diversity, and this diversity usually only comes about after thousands upon thousands of years, but it is still important to plant forests with diversity of plant life in mind etc.


During my childhood, i helped plant thousands of tree's on my mums farm over many years, the tree's number in the tens of thousands, it is really cool now since a lot of the tree's are getting to a decent height now (some of them are about 15ft high now)- we planted a very large variety of tree's, from lyme tree's, holly tree's, oaks, birch tree's, pine tree's, U tree's, chesnut tree's etc etc- and my mum still plants tree's even to this day 👍 .
 
excellent...

by the Indonesians doing this, the millions of trees should help the country retain it's soils and lands, when natural disasters, such as typhoons and floodings, strike
 
Indonesians are doing great job , I salute them for this.The other countries should also try to follow the example set by the Indonesian government .We must work together to let the nature work.
 
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