An Intern's experience

On Saturday June 26th, GEC held their regular tree planting in Raja Musa Forest Reserve at 8am together with the Sathya Sai centre and the other volunteers. Concurrently, Mr. Balu had decided to build a dam-like structure to block the drainage canal.

The main objective for the dam construction is to raise the water level to sustain the water composition in the peat soil. Dry peat soil can burn easily and will spread to other regions of the forest. In order to avoid that, a high water level will always ensure that the soil is in a damp condition.

The process to construct the dam required a lot of man power and time. Initially, it was started by Mr Balu, Petri Marttinen, Kee Wee Ken and I. The material that was used to build the dam was a stack of fallen mangrove trees. On that day, we managed to complete more than half of the dam. The mangrove trees had to be inserted vertically in the soil underneath the water with the right orientation. The pointed narrower end is the end that was inserted into the soil and pushed in to grip the soil. Next, for each tree insertion, we needed two trees to be attached horizontally to a certain elevation point by string to the inserted tree. One person was then needed to step up on the horizontal tree in order to force the vertical tree down to further penetrate the soil until only 1 foot of the tree was visible above the water level. Finally, we filled the canal with some sacks consisting of peat soil. This will help to retain the water behind the sacks and raise the water level. According to the Forestry Department officer, about 6 layers of sacks is needed but for a start, 3 layers of sacks was sufficient. Approximately, we will fill the canal with 18 sacks. The rest of the sacks will be filled next week.

All of us are still amateurs on building dams but Mr Balu’s plan worked well. Among the challenges that we faced was to insert the tree to the canal soil. A great amount of brute force is needed to insert the tree. Sometimes, the canal soil is covered with trees, which makes it difficult to insert the mangrove tree. We must also make sure that the inserted tree must be adjacent to each other in a line and also with similar height from one end of the river to the other end. However, some trees were higher from the water level because we couldn’t insert it any further due to the obstacles underneath the canal. Mr Balu also always reminded us of our safety because there is a slight chance that we could fall into the canal or worse, on the hard mangrove tree. A slight mistake or trip can cause a very serious impact. Nevertheless, we adhered to Mr Balu’s advice and finished it in one piece.

This canal blocking activity was very interesting for me. I learned that sometimes we have to use any available resources to find a solution to a problem. The dam building was possible because we worked as a team although it was complicated and demanded a lot of strength. I also learned that restoring a peat swamp forest is not only about tree planting, but also other aspects like canal blocking to restore the water levels. The community will play a fundamental role on the Raja Musa Forest Reserve Rehabilitation Programme, the outcome of which will only be seen by future generations. It takes a second to destroy an entire forest but decades to restore one. Therefore, I need to be patient and actively play my part in restoring the forest. The number of participants for the canal blocking increased from 4 people to 15 people and shows the helpful attitude of some of the volunteers as well as the kids that joined us and helped to do whatever was possible for them to contribute.

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