What? Another Planting?

Vanessa called me in the morning on the first week of March 2011; I cannot recall which day was it but it was the early of the week. She sounded so excited over the phone telling me about a group of students have arrived on her backyard and were getting ready into the mudflat. 

While talking to her, I was telling myself, "Oh no... not another planting on the same site.." As I was rushing to get to my work site, I told her to capture a video or some pictures. 

Well... this is her video on youtube...

At the end of the week, I went over to Vanessa's Backyard to check the outcome of the latest planting. 

Saplings barely half alive

After all the planting and fun the group had, it seemed that the project leader had forgotten the most important thing to do - collect all the polybags. Vanessa wasn't happy about all these trash left behind as the tide and current will wash these plastic bags to another location. Also, this kind of project is meant to "be green" and yet the group had forgotten the simplest task; "Clean As You Go".

There were a few of these polybags left at site as most of them were probably washed away before I got there

These were a group of college students who came from the mainland for a holiday-cum-environmental project. My guess would be that this college must have provided the funding for these students to do this planting. Who was the organiser? 

Any mangroves planting especially the Rhizophora genus; will be futile. It is a waste of time and money from the experiences we had. 

Kuala Melaka and Kuala Teriang sites require intervention from the experts so that the generation of mangroves forest can be successful. Meanwhile, let this site be a complete mudflat and allow nature to take its course.

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