As an introduction, the RRP is a UWCSEA service wherein we volunteer to take care of saplings of local trees in our tree nursery, and then help plant them around the island. We mostly get our trees from the Singapore Botanic Gardens.
Although the first session was meant to be the week before, there were HS three-way conferences that day so the service did not run. Hence, I attended the first Rainforest Restoration Project meeting on the 21st of February. That day was mostly a day of getting to know the other participants, understanding the aims of the service, and getting acquainted with some of the jobs we would have to do. We learned more about the trees in the nursery, especially through a treasure hunt that required us to look around at the different plants and tools. Seeing the species tags on all the saplings made me realise just how much diversity there is in the tree family, and how they really are all unique. From leaf shape and colour to the orientation of twigs, being up close to the features of the trees made me appreciate them more already. As for what we’d have to do to help them, one of the first chores we learned to do was picking leaves off the ground, tearing them up, and feeding them to the saplings. As the leaves were all from the vicinity i.e. from the nursery trees, and that means those leaves give less nutrition then they took, it made me wonder how much total nutrition was actually from those leaves, instead of the soil carted in. I also wondered how exactly we will decide where to put the trees to maximise their health and benefits.
All in all, this session has really piqued my curiosity, and started getting me passionate about these local trees.