Nestle to plant 500,000 indigenous trees along Kinabatangan river

KUALA LUMPUR: Nestle Malaysia Bhd is targeting to plant about 500,000 indigenous trees by 2014 along the Kinabatangan river in Sabah for its Project Rileaf, aimed to regenerate the ecosystem of the Kinabatangan region.

“We had planted 100,000 trees in September, and now the number is increasing,” said Nestle Malaysia managing director Peter R Vogt after announcing the Nestle Project Rileaf’s achievement of planting over 100,000 trees this year.

As part of Nestle’s Corporate Social Responsibility, Vogt said the company planned to plant more than 100,000 trees for next year along the Kinabatangan river to speed up the riparian reforestation of 2,400 hectares of land.

Through the project, Nestle also supports the capacity building of the local community, as it purchases forest seedlings from “Komuniti Anak Pokok Kinabatangan” (KAPOK), a local community-based seedling producer and acquires its services to manage the planting of the seedlings.

Its project is also in support of the government’s 26 Million Trees Planting Campaign that was launched on April 22 2010, where the objective of the campaign is to enhance the freshness and vitality of natural environment, enhancing awareness on conservation and providing opportunity for public participation in conservation activities.

“By 2014, about 3,000 hectares of degraded forest areas, logged-over forest as well as coastal areas will be planted with indigenous woody species and this effort is envisaged to sequestrate a total of three tonnes of carbon dioxide per hectare per year,” said Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Malaysia, Datuk Sri Douglas Uggah Embas in his speech yesterday. — Bernama

Source : Borneo Post