Cargill plans to plant 150,000 trees in Indonesia across its company sites over the next three years.
This initiative is in celebration of Earth day and the company’s 150th year anniversary.
Cargill employees celebrated Earth Day 2015 by planting 1,000 trees at Kampong Tunggilis, Ciputri Village, right on the foot of the Gede Pangrango Montain in the Cianjur Regency, West Java.
Kampong Tunggilis is a rain-water absorption site that provides water supplies to Cianjur, Jakarta and Bekasi areas.
Protecting water-absorbing forests at Tunggilis is critical for ensuring sustainable fresh water supplies to the Great Jakarta areas and reducing water volumes in rivers flowing to the Java Sea, which will help lower the risk of flood in Jakarta or Bekasi and to prevent soil erosion.
“The planting of 150,000 trees program by Cargill underscores our commitment to improving the livelihood of the communities we operate,” said Jean Louis Guillou, Country Head, PT Cargill Indonesia.
“Protecting natural resources such as fresh water supplies, is vital for the livelihood of the people in Indonesia and this sustainability effort goes towards our goal to protect vitals elements of the environment.”
“Besides planting trees to protect the environment, we will also plant productive trees such as coconut, cocoa, fruit trees to help improve the livelihood of smallholder farmers,” he said.
The three-year’s tree-planting program in Indonesia started in April 2015 and the second phase of will take place at the start of rainy season in October 2015.
In the first year of the program, 70,000 trees are expected to be planted across 18 sites of Cargill plants.
The same number of trees will be planted in 2016 while in 2017, a minimum number of 10,000 trees will be planted.
The tree-planting program will support biodiversity and the tree varieties will be decided by the team on each site.
The Cargill team in Amurang, Sulawesi, will implement the tree-planting program by donating coconut trees to smallholding farmers in those areas.
Cargill Makassar trained and supported the cocoa farmers to make their cocoa nursery.
The team in South Sumatra donates fruit trees to the smallholder farmers in the area.
The team in Pasuruan, East Java, works with a local NGO Kaliandra, to plant trees in the Arjuna Mountain conservation area in East Java.
The Cargill team in the Jakarta Head Office plants trees at Gede Pangrango Mountain.
