By: Masayu Yulien Vinanda

Tangerang (25/07)-WWF-Indonesia forest restoration initiative called NEWtrees again donated 20 trees for Mt. Rinjani in the event of Farmers Market 2nd Anniversary held on Saturday (25/07) in Summarecon Mall, Tangerang.

20 agathis wood (dammar) auction was preceded by showing NEWtrees filler. The event was attended by WWF-Indonesia Director of Governance, Community Empowerment and Corporate Engagement (GCCE) Nazir Foead, President and Director of Supra Boga Lestari, ltd. Nugroho Setiadharma, WWF-Indonesia Honorary Supporter, Davina Hariadi, Chief Operating Officer of Farmers Market Meshvara Kanjaya, and other sponsor corporations.

All invited guests and mall visitors were enthusiastic with the NEWtrees auction. Only in few minutes, 10 NEWtrees packages (20 trees) were sold. Each package costs 50,000rupiahs. Some NEWtrees philantrophists bought more than 1 package. One of them was Michael, an Indonesian singer, alumni of the popular televised singing competition Indonesian Idol, who bought 2 packages. The last buyer was Meshvara Kanjaya who bought 5 NEWtrees packages.

All buyers will be able to monitor their trees using Google Earth application, in which the trees will be named after their respective donors. In this initiative, WWF-Indonesia monitors the trees growth and uploads the images every 6 month to ensure the donors obtain their tree status update.

The 20 trees will be planted in Protected Forest Area of Mt. Rinjani National Park, Lombok, Nusa Tenggara Barat. Rinjani is the second location in which NEWtrees program has been implemented with 140 hectares total planted area. Previously, WWF-Indonesia has conducted NEWtrees in Sebangau National Park, Central Kalimantan.