Odyssey No.26: Eco-Warriors Forest Rehab Project

Life sucks, period. On second thought, maybe it's just one of those depressions on my mood graph.

Here am I writing away, two and a half months after my last (serious) post. What have I been doing?

*Thinks*

Nothing, really.

It was school I guess, that silly aspiring me, taking up things that shouldn't be mine to concern with in the first place. Big roles, heavy responsibilities, little recognition. But it was good while it lasted, the things I've done in LEO Club.

More of that later, as for now, one big thing that is on my to-blog list is this. SEEDLING COLLECTION AND TREE PLANTING!!!

Boy oh boy this had suffered delays after delays due to procrastination. Hmm... Two months is an awfully bad procrastination that we're talking about. You know, if there's a course called "Fundamentals of Procrastination" I know I'll ace it for sure.

Anyway, I'll be writing about the seedling collection way back in early May, and also a recent tree planting event that happened about a month ago. At least I'm not really procrastinating the latter, in relative terms.



So, now that we're at it, let me show you around what happens in a seedling collection project.


First things first, rally point! This is where the eco-warriors gather every now and then for seedling or tree planting projects - the A&W restaurant in PJ, right under the Taman Jaya LRT station.

Jar... Of course, no seedlings without going deep into a deep secluded area, accessible only by an old "kampung" road. Here we are, around 20 people, in the middle of nowhere in Sabak Bernam, looking for young sprouts of Macaranga species, or locally known as Mahang trees.

These Dutch Lady milks were used to water the trees. Nah just kidding, it's the empty milk cartons that were used to house the seedlings.

With the soil inside of course. These soils are swamp soils, extremely wet but surprisingly clean though.

Teh seedlings! These were the ideal-sized seedlings that we were looking for, about 8-10 centimetres high. Anything higher than that we won't be digging it because it's quite difficult to dig deep enough to extract the seedling without causing shock to the long roots.

That's how you handle a seedling. Dig up a ball shaped soil around the roots, big enough not to expose the roots.

And ye plant them all in the temporary soil, which will be transferred to Eco-Warriors nursery for a certain period to stabilize the growth.

Of course, doesn't seem like a tough job, except for the fact that it's not easy to find a sprout, under the hot sun grazing on your skin, walking in muddy pothole-filled grounds camouflaged by long lalang grasses, with the risk of stepping on snakes. Yeah, other than that, it's not really a tough job. :)

On the big picture, it does look like a very dull place with not much animal activity, and with all the mud swamp all around you would have expected so. But surprisingly, when you do get down and tune yourself to a smaller scale, it's actually quite a vibrant place. Well sadly I didn't have much time to take many photos but here are some microactivities that are going around at the place.

Dead birds, and you have ants scavenging for a furry meal.

Of course, some fungus species.

And the spiders there spin very beautiful webs, and forms huge clusters of them with neighboring spiders. A typical cluster would span about one or two square feet.



The tree planting was a whole lot of new experience.

New faces, new places, common cause. It never gets tiring to meet new people who share the same passion as you do.

Met a woman (I believe her name was Loo Yuen or something) who drove me and Jin Rui to the site. Really had a good time talking to her, with her sharing her life experience, amazing one at that.

And Walter! A dutch computer programmer who came to Malaysia to start his own business, despite being offered a blank cheque by his previous company to keep him in Netherlands. Again, it's amazing, how people make decisions. Imagine being offered a blank cheque by your boss, literally begging you to stay. What would you do?

And Indian with heavy Australian accent, who tried hitting on Jin Rui to get access to college girls LOL.

And the little girl who called me an uncle, who came with her own uncle, whose uncle is so much more older than me whom she called uncle.

And Matthias Gelber, a German environmentalist, 3rdwhale's Greenest Person on Earth 2008, who decided somehow to live in Malaysia, to help this ill-stricken country when almost all hope were lost.

And everyone else whom I forgot. I want to thank you all for coming into my life.

==========================================================

Didn't capture any pictures in the process of planting trees, hands too messy, you know, of digging. Anyway you'll find this article in interesting read, written by Jin Rui.



So, I guess I'll stop here.

I still have lots of things to share. Lots to write.

Tik-Tok Earth.

Youth '10

LEO club events

MYS events


Sometimes I wonder if I'm procrastinating just because I'm not feeling alive anymore. This. Is. Not. My. Life.

Is it still mine?



Don't know.

Don't care.



Till next time, cheers~