Jokowi's Order: KLHK And Big Companies In Sintang Prepare Massive Tree Planting

President Jokowi (Setkab Twitter)

JAKARTA - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has asked for reforestation or reforestation efforts to be carried out in the Kapuas and Melawi river basins. He ordered the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK) together with large companies to build a nursery so that this effort could be carried out.

He conveyed this order after reviewing the construction of a flood control embankment and visiting flood disaster refugees in Sintang Regency, December 8.

"We will order the Ministry of Environment and Forestry as well as big companies here to build a nursery so that reforestation can run again," Jokowi said as shown on the Presidential Secretariat's YouTube.

The steps to replanting and reforestation in the watershed are the government's long term approach to dealing with the flood problem in Sintang Regency, South Kalimantan. The reason, said Jokowi, was that this disaster occurred not due to extreme rain but also environmental damage.

"This happened firstly, there was extreme rain and secondly, we need to overcome this, namely the damage to watersheds, damage to rain catchment areas," said the former governor of DKI Jakarta.

"This is what we will prepare, namely replanting, tree planting, reforestation of areas around the Kapuas and Melawi rivers," added Jokowi.

Meanwhile, to cope with flooding in the short term, he said the government is currently making geotubes filled with sand.

"We hope that in the short term we can reduce the existing floods," he concluded.