Plant a Rainforest “The Size Of Jersey”

An Introduction

Every year an area of rainforest 300 times the size of Jersey is destroyed. With every tree that falls the imminent threat of climate change grows as biodiversity and vital ecosystem services are lost. Despite our collective concern, the realities of rainforest destruction can seem far away from our busy but comfortable lives back home in Jersey.

I believe every islander wants to help but the sheer scale of the problem can leave us daunted and unsure how to turn our concern into action. In my opinion, releasing ourselves from this state of apathy is the key to the people of Jersey playing their role in restoring the worlds lost forests.

In order to get the ball rolling I travelled out to Kalimantan, Indonesia in February 2019 to meet with a 2 conservationists who share our concern and have already began to act to tackle deforestation on the ground.

My experiences taught me that there was a great deal of will amongst local people to restore natural habitat though the success of these projects were often limited by stark financial realities coupled with an inability to connect with donors in wealthier countries where funding is more easily found.

My belief is that with a little direction, encouragement and support we can join forces with these “local heroes”  and begin to restore significant areas of forest that have been lost, whilst repopulating these areas with native wildlife through wildlife rescue and rehabilitation programmes.

Now a project like this requires a quantifiable goal which connects the wider mission with the hearts and minds of the good people of Jersey and therefore I hit on the concept of “The Size Of Jersey” which has the stated aim of  replanting an area of rainforest equivalent to the size of our island. This amounts to 11,500 hectares of forest.

Who knows, if we can make this model work in Jersey then why not elsewhere?

LINUS'S BEWAN RIVER AGRO-FOREST RESTORATION PROJECT.


Demang Linus is the director of CAN Borneo (www.canborneo.id) and he is on a mission to plant 37,000 seedlings on the banks of the Bewan River in North East Kalimantan. This is an area that has been devastated by forest clearance by open cast coal mining.

This practice involves the complete and utter annihilation of forest, leaving huge open scars across the landscape that without intensive restoration efforts, may never recover.

The Bewan River (a tributary of the Kelay River) winds its way through the region and is the main thoroughfare used by the local Dayak people to access the remaining forests that support local wildlife whilst providing the indigenous human populations with food and forest products for their own nutritional  and cultural needs. The river has become choked in sediment and damned by landslides due to the expansion of the coal mines right up to the rivers edge.

Watch the video here. 

Linus has decided to take decisive action. By gathering the local community together to begin an ambitious reforestation project, to restore the lost forests for wildlife, provide native foods for the community whilst protecting the Bewan River by planting forest buffer zones and wildlife corridors along its banks.


In order for him to do this the first stage is to purchase 37,000 seedlings. He also requires a riverboat so he is able to transport the seedlings from the nurseries up river to the most desperate spots. Linus has great ambitions to restore many thousands of hectares of forest so this boat will be essentials to the success of the project as it develops.


ABDULLAH'S ORANGUTAN FRUIT TREE PROJECT.



Abdullah works as a ranger in the Sebangua National Park in Kalimantan, Indonesia and is therefore employed to patrol and protect Sebangua, with a particular emphasis on fighting forest fires that are often lit for slash and burn agricultural practices on surrounding land which can spread into the National Park.

Huge swathes of forest were destroyed in 2005, in particular a 632 hectare area abundant in native fruit bearing trees, which supported dense populations of orangutan. Historically this area was also frequently visited by tourists, providing the local community with sustainable income by guiding guests through the forests to visit the resident orangutan.

Concerned with the damage that had been done, Abdullah and a group of similarly minded community members built a small tree nursery where they were able to grow 3000 seedlings each year. The seeds are collected by hand by Abdullah and his friends during their patrols in the forest.  Every dry season, when the water from the flooded forest recedes, a group of local volunteers, led by Abdullah, plant out the saplings amongst the charred stumps of the destroyed forest in a bid to restore what has been lost.

Abdullah has picked 4 specific fruit tree species, each of which bare fruits favoured by the orangutan. Abdullah must wait until each seedling has grown to at least 70cm in height to be sure that it can survive when the rains return and the forest floods once again.

Abdullah's hope is to scale his reforestation project up, with the aim of building 10 tree nurseries allowing him to grow and plant 30,000 trees every dry season across areas of the park that have suffered the worst.

Thanks to our steadily growing group of supporters we have already raised the 1200 pounds necessary to pay for the construction costs of 3 additional tree nurseries, construction of which will start in July 2019. Each year we have committed to pay for 3 additional tree nurseries so gradually overtime, we believe we can help Abdullah's vision become a reality.



Why should you trust me?

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to do something to protect the natural world. Most of my career has been dedicated to conservation, through working primarily with great apes both in the field and at home in Jersey during my 12 year career as a great ape keeper at Jersey Zoo.

A few years ago I decided to follow my own path with the ultimate goal of starting my own initiative to bring together likeminded people across the island to address the problems faced by the wild life and wild places of this earth.

I witness every day on my facebook newsfeed the level of concern that my fellow islanders have for the the future of the planet so I thought by starting The Size Of Jersey; combining my own experience and contacts in the field with the support and talent of our island community, perhaps Jersey can come together to make a real difference.

In order to maintain transparency in our fund raising, The Size Of Jersey has teamed up with the London based, UK registered conservation charity, “Wild & Free Rehabilitation and Release” who support us in our mission. Every penny raised is therefore channelled through the Wild & Free accounts and is therefore open to third party scrutiny, guaranteeing every penny raised goes directly towards our chosen projects with zero administration charges.

You can visit the Wild & Free website (www.wildnfree.org) to learn more about the incredible work they are doing, supporting small, locally run wildlife conservation projects across the globe.

Thank you for support, 

Jonathan