Tree Nursery and Replanting Programme
Creating tree nurseries planted with fruiting and hardwood seedlings provides sustainable livelihoods for communities surrounding critical Orangutan habitat. Communities therefore no longer need to rely on collecting wood and other forest products for an income.
Our projects concentrate on teaching local communities about the benefits of reforestation and developing alternative livelihood solutions. We distribute seedlings and establish organic forestry centres near degraded forest areas, and provide training so that communities can be self-sufficient in producing their own seedlings for future replanting.
We have established a number of nursery and replanting sites in Aceh and North Sumatra, and have now replanted over 300,000 seedlings.
Areas of focus in Aceh are the coastal mangroves destroyed by the recent tsunami and hardwood and fruiting trees in degraded forest areas in the province. In North Sumatra we work in the deforested regions around the Leuser Ecosystem, the most important remaining hab
itat for the Sumatran orangutan.
A new element of this programme in 2008 is the replanting of degraded areas inside the border of the Gunung Leuser National Park. We are working with local government and local communities to restore vital orangutan habitat that has been damaged by illegal oil palm plantations established within the protected area.
Oil palms illegally planted within the Gunung Leuser National Park
On the authority of Gunung Leuser National Park officials, the following species have been designated to be replanted in the national park, from two groups of seedlings in the nursery houses:
- Indigenous hardwood tree species that naturally grow in the forests of the Gunung Leuser National Park, initially starting with sungkai (Peronema canescens) and pulai (Alstonia scholaris).
- Fruit tree species such as durian (Durio zibethinus), cempedak (Artocarpus integer), and jengkol (Archidendron pauciflorum) planted in an area designated for a community forestry program to reinforce buffer-zones adjacent to the park.
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