Mangosteen
Medan Plants Trees and Then Some
Wednesday, December 12, 2007 11:51:54 AM
Jakarta Post
MEDAN, North Sumatra (JP): Wimpi Sugiono, 37, spreads his arms wide toward the 200 saplings. They reach an adult’s knee. The stands of saplings are placed three paces apart in neat rows in one quarter section of a 4,000 square meter level field.
In the background is a banner that reads: Kecil Menanam Besar Memanen, Bhayangkari Medan. (Plant Small Harvest Big, Bhayangkari, the association of the wives of police officers in Medan)
“These are mainly fruit trees. After they mature we can share them,” remarks Wimpi, a local repair shop owner who is a native of Ponorogo, East Java. Twenty years ago he settled in North Sumatra at the age of 17.
In time, the people of Bandar Setia, a village on the eastern outskirts of Medan, will enjoy a manna of sweet, tropical fruit: durian, manggis (mangosteen), belimbing (starfruit), and duku, jambu bol, asem (tamarind), to name a few. Non-fruiting trees that provide leafy foliage for shade have also been planted. These include the meranti (Shorea loprosula), mahoni (Swietenia mahagoni), and ketapang (terminalia catapa).
The previous week, Saturday, Dec. 1, the chair of the Bhayangkari Medan city branch, Meiledyawati Bambang Sukamto, ceremoniously planted the first batch of trees in this village field of public land left fallow.
“The planting is in line with the national tree planting initiative. The initiative gives a lot of benefits. It gives a green freshness to the village. Further, it helps to check global warming,” explains Jalaluddin, 38, the village head.
The Bhayangkari ladies came bearing 1,000 saplings. The remaining trees will be planted in the rest of the field and also in village households, said Jalaluddin, whose own modest house is endowed with two fully-grown mango trees that bear fruit year round.
Jalaluddin, a former school head of the local SMP (junior high school), says he is following the current Bali climate conference. “The climate is changing because plant cover is decreasing. Whatever government policy comes out that stems from the Bali meeting, I will carry it out if it’s for the people’s good.”
What can the government do now? Provide seedlings of crops that would increase the village people’s income, he exclaims giving mangoes as one example.
Bandar Setia is one of Indonesia’s more than 60,000 villages gearing up for the nation’s drive to plant 10 million trees. The considerable loss of the country’s tree cover from illegal logging, forest fires and degradation has made Indonesia a top emitter of greenhouse gases, a major cause of global warming. The plant drive aims to reverse that.
Medan, the capital of North Sumatra and Indonesia’s fourth largest city (after Jakarta, Surabaya and Semarang) has women’s organizations leading the planting campaign. Nanan Abdillah, the mayor’s wife, started the city drive at Pangkalan Mansyur, an 8,000 square meter field in Medan, Dec. 1. Similar drives were started across the nation on that date.
At least six women’s groups, including the Bhayangkari, have fanned out across Medan’s 21 kecamatan (subdistricts) and 151 kelurahan (villages) to plant 10,000 trees. The women’s organizations get the saplings from the city agricultural service. This office in turn receives its supply from the city’s Association of Plant Breeders.
The plant drive appears to be getting momentum. “It is not just the women’s groups or the government, however, that are involved in the tree planting. School children and private businesses are engaged too,” declares H. Arlan, 51, the public affairs chief at city hall.
He insists the tree plant drive is not a one-off thing. The city’s parks service has routinely spruced up the city streets and green belts as part of its regular work.
Backpacker guidebooks may label Medan as “noisy, dirty, crowded” or “filthy and chaotic.”
However, a slow drive from the Grand Mosque in the south to City Hall in the city center on Medan’s charming betor (becak bermotor, motorcycle-driven pedicab) shows the city streets are relatively garbage free. Tree-shaded lanes are still lacking, though.
How successful the tree planting initiative will be to make Medan green will depend on how well the local communities where the saplings have been planted can care for the trees. If a plant dies too quickly, it may be that the sapling was not appropriate to the soil where it was planted.
The appropriateness of a plant, the correctness in the method and the timing of its planting, and seedling selection are primary considerations other than post planting maintenance, Bogor Institute of Agriculture plant professor Supriyanto told Kompas recently.
If Bandar Setia’s seedlings grow well, the banner above the village field will live up to its message. (Warief Djajanto Basorie)
The author is a freelance writer. He can be reached at wariefdj@yahoo.com.
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