On the 9th of October 2010, LEO Club of INTI-IU has organized a trip to participate in the 10:10 Tree Planting at Raja Musa Forest, Kuala Selangor.
10:10 was a global action weekend where individuals and organizations all over the world organized environmental activities to signify their commitment towards reducing carbon emission by 10% for the year. The project was coordinated by www.350.org and 10:10 Global and was the biggest coordinated event in human history.
The tree planting event was registered as part of the event of 10:10, and was attended by over 100 people from various places, of various age, races, occupations, with one common aspiration – to contribute to mother earth and preserve the environment for the future.
As early as 6:00am in the morning, we gathered outside the Multi-Purpose Hall of INTI-IU. And after a quick round of roll call, we departed for Kuala Selangor at 6:30am. It took about 2 hours to reach our destination.
The organizers of the event, Sai Baba and Global Environment Center, gave us a short briefing of how to handle and plant the trees (Mahang trees, cut branches up to 5 meters long!). When the briefing ended, we took off to grab our equipments – boots, shovels, gloves – and started to work on planting our first trees in the lovely (and sunny) morning.
The first things that we worked on was to remove the plastic bags wrapped around the tree roots, which were put there to retain the moisture and reduce exposure shock to the roots system. After that we proceeded to the swampy area of the grass plains to plant our trees, the trick is too look for wet areas where we could dig easily and then drive the tall trees deep into the soil so that its roots are touching the water.
There were literally thousands of trees to be planted, but we persevered and each of us planted an average of 5-6 trees, which translates to about 150 trees planted by our group. As the weather got hotter, we took a break at 10am, some too tired, while some continued with the work after a short rest.
The event ended at 11:30am, when the weather became almost unbearable (for most people). The organizers gave us a short debriefing session, and thanked everyone for making the event a success. We had our photo session before making our way back to the bus.
On our way back, we had our lunch at the Sungai Buloh Bridge Footcourt, whee restaurants were built on a bridge overlooking the PLUS highway. It felt good to have a good meal after a whole morning of laborious exercise.
At 3:30pm, we finally reached INTI-IU. It was a wonderful experience for everyone, and I’m sure if given a chance, many of the LEOs would participate in this meaningful event again.
Cheers,
Chris Yong Mun Hong
Organizing Chairperson of the Event, Tree Planting
