Shah Alam Trees for Life (June 2014)

It was another tree planting event held by Eco Warriors Malaysia together with Shah Alam City Council and UMWT at Taman Tasik Kota Kemuning last Saturday! Yes, it was Shah Alam Trees for Life again which would be going on almost once for every month throughout the year! Too bad I can only write a post-event post instead of an event trailer as I was still in examination week before that weekend. Anyway, even though this was not the first tree planting event (this was the second one, here's the first one) that I have gone to, this one could be considered as a brand new experience because my fellow coursemates joined the effort!!! They drove all the way from UPM, Serdang to Kota Kemuning and somehow got lost in this place, hahaha. At the end they managed to get to this mesmerising lake on time before the tree planting section started.

Evening view of Taman Tasik Kota Kemuning, or we used to call it Lakeside.

Sometimes I live in Kota Kemuning so I go to this place quite often for some morning or evening stroll. Lakeside is a recreational place with a very large lake and a fountain shooting up into the sky and spraying lake water at passer-bys. There is also pavement surrounded the circumference of the lake for people to walk on besides land covered with grasses. Scenery there is taotally amazing especially during the evening when the sun is setting. If you are lucky enough, at the correct orientation and time you can see rainbows as a result of the refraction of sunlight by the fountain. People living there love to get some fresh air at the lakeside and you can see all sorts of activities going on there: kite-flying (even the four-stringed one which can do tricks), fishing (which is actually forbidden), jogging, cycling (it is quite dangerous as joggers share the same pavement with cyclists, and the pavement is not very wide), having picnic, strolling and the list goes on. So when I heard that Shah Alam Trees for Life is coming to Kota Kemuning, I was thrilled! It was so near to where I live!

The morning of the event! Fresh air!

The other side of the lake. See the fountain?

As I was a bit late for the event, the tents were already full with volunteers. For the last Shah Alam Trees for Life event that I attend, there was not so many people compared to this one! Guess what? There were more than 1000 volunteers in this event!

I went to Lakeside a week before the event and found that all the holes were dug (a bit disappointed as they were not dug using the driller, hahaha, I kinda like the tractor with driller), leaving behind holes which were quite an ugly view. Finally came the event day where we were going to plant the trees and cover up the holes with healthy-looking topsoil! As usual, volunteers were divided into a few plots and the volunteers from UPM (us!) and University Technology Mara (UiTM) were given one of the furthest plot at the end of the lake. Me and Hanis had fun working together in getting the tree-lings planted as nice as possible so that the authority did not have to replant these poor trees (if mishandled). Firstly we had to remove the tree-lings from the poly bags. Although the bags were cut open vertically, we had troubles removing the tree-lings from the bags without breaking the rootballs because I think the tree-lings had overgrown that the roots had penetrated the bottom of the poly bags. Some of the tree-lings were somehow crooked as their stems were not upright but bending in weird direction.  However one good thing about the tree planting event this time compared to last time was we don't have to move the top soil from one particular site to the planting site which would be really exhausting! After planting the trees, we had to insert a pole beside the tree then tied the tree to the pole using a string to make sure that the trees grow in the right direction. 

The mayor and other VIPs heading towards the plot.

Bernard (leader from Eco Warriors) giving instructions and reminders to fellow volunteers. The crowd was so huge!!! 

Demonstration of tree planting. The tree-ling on the ground was planted in a biodegradable poly bag instead of the normal black colour one as shown in the photo, which means we do not have to remove the poly bag! What a good innovation! Less waste will be created!

Me and my coursemates together with some other volunteers were the last who left the planting sites as we saw there were lots of unplanted trees on the other plot. So we planted as many as we could but at the end we surrendered due to the scorching hot sun and the overwhelming workload (seriously there were still a lot of unplanted trees there due to uneven distribution of volunteers, some plots got more than enough volunteers but some not). No matter how, it was the first time we attended tree planting event together! When we work on something with the physical support of friends, things seem easier and more enjoyable! After the exhausting work we sat at the wooden table under the trees and chatted about our future plan as an active environmental student. It doesn't matter how many trees we had planted but how encouraging this feeling of cooperation has given us to fight for the environment creating awareness among the public. It would not be easy, but we will still give it a try despite all the difficulties ahead that we can foresee.

My fellow coursemates! (made by Faiz)

So dear Selangorians! If you live in Shah Alam, keep an eye on the Eco Warriors fanpage on Facebook or MESYM to update the information regarding the next tree planting event! The weather is really hot recently and we definitely need more trees to chill the atmosphere a little! Lets do it together!

Cheers~ See you next time!