No Day Without Tree Planting

This billboard with a picture of the President handing over a tree to the Mayor can be seen in several places in the city. The writing on it says "No Day Without Tree Planting".

The billboard is part of the nation's wider campaign for Planting 1 Billion Trees Movement (called OBIT -- One Billion Indonesian Trees) which began in 2006.

The movement, which becomes part of Indonesia's commitment to curbing global warming, is commemorated every year on November 28. This year, the President launched the tree-planting-month-of-December campaign to speed up the achievement of 1 billion tree target and to encourage every citizen to take part in the movement.

This year's commemoration theme is "Hutan Kota Mendorong Terwujudnya Indonesia Hijau" or Urban Forest for Green Indonesia.

Does Chocolate Grow on A Tree?

Does chocolate grow on a tree?

Yes, it does. The fruit doesn't look like a bar of chocolate that you'd usually find on a supermarket shelf though. It looks green like the ones in this photo when it's young and yellow and reddish brown when it's ripe.

The chocolate fruit (called cocoa or cacao) is not eaten for its flesh. It is the seeds that are extracted from the fruit. These seeds are then dried and fermented to make the basic ingredient of the chocolate that we know.

I saw these cacao fruits on a tree near my office in the north of Bandung.

Glowing Leaves

It was an unusually sunny November day today. And this morning, on the parking lot of my office at Indonesia University of Education (UPI Bandung), I saw the sun light streaming through the super-sized leaves of the Katapang tree (terminalia catappa), making them glow in beautiful hues of green.

Katapang is a native tree of the southeast asian regions (except in the islands of Sumatra and Kalimantan/Borneo where curiously the natural occurence is reportedly very rare).

The hot, tropical coastal areas are the natural habitat of the tree. However, it can also grow well in areas up to about 400 meters above sea level with rainfall of about 1,000–3,500 mm per year with 6 months dry season. Ketapang sheds its leaves twice a year.

The Robust Ki Hyang

This is Ki Hyang, the local Sundanese name for albizia procera, that grows robustly outside our office at the Faculty of Language and Arts Education of the Indonesia University of Education. I love this tree for the green shades it provides and the lovely figure of branches it has.

Like most albizia family, Ki Hyang (or Ki Hiang) is is a large, fast-growing tree that is native to many Asian forests and savanna woodlands. This particular species, however, trives especially well in cooler and moister tropical climates like that of Bandung's.

A Withering Tree (A Skywatch Post)

If I remember it correctly, this huge tree on Ranggamalela Park (now Flexi Park) used to be green all-year round. (I know it because used to work at an office that was located just across the street from this park.) Even in the dry season, this tree was never as bald as this. I don't know what has made it this bald. The unusually wet summer may have played a part or the worsening air pollution level.

It's Friday and time for the Skywatch Friday meme. Please check out what the participating blogs have here.

Sausage Tree

Does sausage grow on a tree?

Of course not. But there is a tree that bears the name: sausage tree (kigelia afrikana). As the Latin name indicates, this tree is originally from Africa. The tree in the picture, however, is not in Africa. It is - and there are quite a few of them - part of the collection of Taman Hutan Raya (lit. Great Forest Park) Ir. H. Djuanda at Dago in the north of Bandung.

According to the park's records, the original seeds of the trees were a gift from one of the African delegates in the 1955 Asian-African Conference. The trees grow well here that the park has been able to give some of their offsprings to other botanical gardens in the country.

Magnificent Trees #2 (A Skywatch Post)

I often feel awed by big trees. Standing at their base and looking up, we can't help but realize how small we are compared to them. Not only are they big in size, they also play a big role in nurturing lives and keep our planet livable.

Unfortunately, many of us don't care much about them. Because of our greed, many of them are already gone. Many more are on their way to extinction. We have fewer and fewer giants that can protect us from extinction.

Many big trees and forested land around Bandung are fast depleting. The need for land for farming, housing, and industries in this one of the fastest growing (about 3.5 percent per year including 2.5 percent immigrants) and the densest urban areas in the Indonesia (155 people per hectare) has become a serius environmental threat to the Bandung basin and its surrounding mountains where the city is located.

The trees in this picture are those that are protected in the Taman Hutan Raya (Great Forest Park) Ir. H. Djuanda in the north of Dago area, Bandung. This 590 hectare nature reserve has some interesting flora and founa and two waterfalls, namely Curug Dago (Dago Waterfall) and Curug Ciomas (Ciomas Waterfall). I'm going to show them at some later posts.

For now, happy skywatch Friday, everyone. Please do visit other skywatchers' post here.

Skywatch Friday: Magnificent Trees #1

The branches of some old trees against the sky on my campus one late afternoon last week.

Please visit other skywatchers this week HERE.