Morning Dialogue on RRI: Towards the National Tree Day
The International Tree Day, which falls on November 21, will be commemorated by the community to reduce global warming. People recognize when there are no trees or lot of barren lands, catastrophic floods and landslides will be easily occured. In addition, trees have furnished us with two of life’s essentials, food and oxygen for living creatures. "The tree has high economic and ecological value. In Indonesia, Sengon and Jabon are trees which are ready to be harvested within four years. Moreover, teak is even ready to be harvested within 10 years. While in other countries, like Japan, two years for those species are still in the nursery, "said Dr. Ir. Irdika Mansur, M. For. Sc, Senior Advisor of the Department of Silviculture, Faculty of Forestry, Bogor Agricultural University in the Morning Dialogue on Radio Republik Indonesia (RRI), Tuesday, 15 November 2011, in Bogor.
Further, Dr.Irdika stated that social forests are growing well in West Java, not only its timber to be harvested, but the sap, flowers and leaves are usefull for the community life. "Illegal logging in protected forests or nature conservation in recent years are due to the high demand for timber, while the supply is limited," said Dr.Irdika. In the 1970s, Indonesia’s natural forests produced about 50 million cubic meters of timber per year, at present even get 9 million cubic meters of timber per year is very difficult. Therfore, if we do not plant trees from now, said Dr. Irdika, then our natural forests and conservation parks will no longer preserved.
When he was queried any steps should be taken by the government to overcome the phenomenon that occurs in today’s society. Dr.Irdika replied, "With the recent population growth of Indonesia, the demand for wood for construction, furniture, plywood and so on will also increase. We must improve the protection of public forests, so that illegal logging won’t be practiced again, this certainly would hurt a lot of us all. "
One hand we need to increase the planting of trees in the social forests, but of course they usually also cause several problems. Planting trees which is too close to human settlements, will cause the uprooted of the trees to the vulnerable residential areas that cause casualties and torn houses, especially in the rainy season and windy. "Therefore, we suggest to prune the trees appropriately, however they should be retained its economic value. With cut the trees, they will grow shady, they will create Bogor green, beautiful, cool and comfortable, "explains Dr. Irdika to end the conversation with RRI. (Wied).
