Singaporean mum does her bit for Sabah reforestation

A Kinabatangan villager planting native tree species in the reforestation effort.

KOTA KINABALU: A Singaporean mother is doing her bit for a reforestation project on Sabah’s east coast by raising funds through the sale of a children’s picture e-book.

But with just days left to the Oct 31 deadline, the campaign has raised only one third of the target US$3,313 (RM13,773).

About US$1,184 had been pledged by 35 backers so far, but the sum would not be collected if the targeted amount is not achieved by the deadline.

Half of the targeted amount would go to the Regrow Borneo reforestation effort, an initiative of the Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC), a research centre in the wildlife-rich Lower Kinabatangan region, about 100km from Sandakan town.

Aria Lee, a mother of two, created an e-book, “Jojo, The Rainforest Girl”, about a girl with the ability to talk to animals and how she solves the conflict between her brother and the animals.

Among the animals featured in Jojo are the sun bear, clouded leopard, proboscis monkey and orangutan, some of the distinctive species of Sabah wildlife found in the Lower Kinabatangan.

Two characters in Aria Lee’s book Jojo, The Rainforest Girl.

Lee said she had chosen Sabah as a backdrop of the story after being inspired while trekking up Mount Kinabalu some years ago.

“When I wrote the book, I asked myself how I was going to make our children understand that protecting the rainforest is important. So I made up all these characters, to make the message of protecting the rainforest easier for them to understand,” said Lee, an educator.

DGFC director Dr Benoit Goosens said the Regrow Borneo project was about regenerating the forests at degraded areas with native tree species that also serve as food sources for wildlife, and which form corridors for the animals to move between existing fragmented forests.

Goosens said the reforestation effort that was currently focused near the Kampung Batu Putih area also benefited the local community as they were the ones engaged to carry out the work.

He said the Regrow Borneo initiative had so far raised some RM108,000 which was being used to reforest about 5ha in the Lower Kinabatangan since early this year.

“It does not include the cost of monitoring the growth of the planted trees for three years. But that is something we have to do as well,” he said.

from Free Malaysia Today https://ift.tt/3jqn9bG
via IFTTT