Reforestation with Friends of Chestnut Nature Park

Saturday morning saw members of RRP join in another reforestation session organised by the Friends of Chestnut Nature Park. This voluntary group was set up in collaboration with NParks to get more of the community involved in biodiversity conservation in Singapore's nature reserves and parks. RRP Leaders at UWC Dover, George and Naomi, had attended a previous session at the park in May, organised by local conservation legend N.Sivasothi . (aka "Otterman").

This time we were kindly invited by Dr Chua Siew Chin of NUS, who designed the day so her students from Ridge View Residential College could also carry out some community service work and hopefully be inspired to join in the future research and maintenance of the site.

Planting a Sandoricum Koetjape ("Lolly fruit tree")  - taller than expected!

Close to a hundred indigenous rainforest trees* were planted on this degraded site close to the car park. The planting design hopes to test the effects of using both leguminous trees and mulch to build up soil fertility to enhance growth. Quicker close of the canopy means less competition from weeds...and eventually less maintenance too.

George and Naomi planting at an earlier FOCNP event

It was a real privilege to work alongside all the other students and families. Chestnut Nature Park is lucky to have such good friends! We're very grateful to Dr. Chua for inviting us to be part of this project and for generously lending  RRP her expertise with seed collection and research in our own nurseries.
Thanks also to Nparks and contractors for kind help with some very large trees!



* Species planted included:

Koompassia malaccensis
Sandoricum koetjape (Lolly fruit tree)
Dyera costulata (chewing gum tree)
Parkia speciosa (petai bean tree)
Sindora wallichii
Elaeocarpus mastersii
Shorea Leprosula

RRP Planters: Wanhui, Naomi, Leah, Nathan.