MUAR – The Johor Forestry Department is planning to plant four million timber trees in the state with the people’s participation by the end of 2025.
Its director Datuk Salim Aman said the tree planting activities would be in line with the Greening Malaysia Programme, which began in 2021 to create awareness on the permanent forest.
He said at the same time, the department is also targeting to plant one million trees by the end of 2022, thus giving forest cover to the environment and humans.
“For a start, this year we will involve the younger generation comprising Skudai Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) students so that they become catalysts to the community to maintain greenery on the earth by carrying out tree planting.
“Apart from planting trees, the students would also be introduced to several forest tree species such as meranti, kempas, kundang hutan, saga and kasai,” he said.
He said this after the “2022 Green Earth New Year Resolution” ceremony under the Green Malaysia Programme via the “100 Million Tree-Planting Campaign” at Compartment 8 of the North Ayer Hitam Forest Reserve yesterday.
The programme, which saw 500 forest trees planted, was carried out with the cooperation of UTM and local EcoNinja volunteers, and it was attended by UTM Sultan Iskandar Institute deputy director Robiah Suratman.
Salim explained that individuals, organisations or government agencies keen on participating in the programme could register online.
“Registration could be made via smart phone application and its website, by typing ‘Greening Malaysia’ to upload the picture of timber trees planted.
“We are also giving special prizes to those who planted the most trees in the programme,” he said.
In this regard, one of the UTM student participants, Muhammad Asyraf Hilmi Salim, 24, said with the programme, students could apply the knowledge acquired from the programme in class.
“I got to know more about forest trees, and, most importantly, I was planting them in the forest, as it is a practical activity that could not be obtained elsewhere,” he said. – Bernama, January 2, 2022
