"The winning team from the Forest Friends competition, Rima Putri Agustina (25-year-old from Indonesia) and Lena Gottschalk (20-year-old from Germany), has been visiting the park from March 28 to April 2," WWF-Indonesia said an information made available to ANTARA News, on Thursday.
The youth symbolically started the planting on Wednesday of local variety of tree species such as Shorea and Kompassia, along with WWF, the Tesso Nilo National Park authority, rangers, and the local communities.
The first phase of replanting activities, covering 30 hectares, is taking place in Tesso Nilo National Park from 29 March to 30 June 2011.
The replanting is the follow-up from last year`s campaign by the youth initiative Forest Friends, on the first section of 106 hectares of critical habitat for the Sumatran tiger that had been deforested by illegal activity is being replanted with local tree species.
Forest Friends is an initiative targeted at 18- to 25-year-old youths using social networking tools. Under the initiative, three youths each from Indonesia and Germany were selected after an intense weeks-long selection to compete for fans and raise support for forest conservation through blogging.
Through Forest Friends, which is also accessible on Facebook, the youths communicate and share their views via articles, video and photo uploads. The blogging competition took place from May to August 2010, as an integral part of WWF`s Year of Tiger Campaign 2010 aimed at doubling wild tiger numbers by 2022, the next Year of the Tiger.
At the end of the competition the youths had successfully raised support for replanting more than 100 hectares of land.
"As one of the six Forest Friends finalist, I`m very happy and proud that so many young people became fans and supported our campaign. I am so excited to have the opportunity to visit the park and directly involved in the planting along with various partners on the ground," said Gottschalk.
The head of Tesso Nilo National Park authority, Drh. Hayani Suprahman, MSc, stated his support for the replanting efforts. "I appreciate the Forest Friends campaign for its contribution to biodiversity in Tesso Nilo National Park and our conservation work in the national park."
Encroachment by local villagers who clear the forest to plant crops or build settlements is one of the major threats to the national park. To combat the threats, national park authorities conduct a thorough protection patrol along with partners such as WWF-Indonesia.
The Tesso Nilo Patrol Team is actively involved in law enforcement and the socialization process, distributing information about encroachment threats to nature. "The next crucial step is to replant and rejuvenate ecosystems in the encroached critical areas," Suprahman added.
(T.KR-VFT/HAJM/S012)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Copyright © ANTARA 2011
