Resort to restore rainforest

Restoration of 32 hectares of the 500 million-year-old rainforest in Langkawi is now under way. Berjaya Langkawi Resort has launched a three-pronged Green Project at its resort hotel on March 11, which is aimed at sustaining its surrounding rainforest. The three-pronged plan started with the planting of 80 trees at the resort. All the plans were launched together at the same time.

The second plan involved an educational conservation project, whereby 11 students from a special class of SMK Tunku Putra Langkawi planted the trees. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the school for a tree planting workshop and a nature conservation holiday camp (The Langkawi Hornbill Project) was also held at the launching.

The third involved an eco-tourism project where five special repeat guests of Berjaya Langkawi Resort were invited to plant a tree each while other resort guests were invited to adopt a tree for RM200 each. “The guests will have their names engraved in a plaque placed beside the tree,” the resort’s general manager Graeme L. Dwyer said. “Of the RM200 sponsored by a guest to plant a tree at the resort, 40% will go to the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) for nature conservation, 30% for the JungleWalla’s Langkawi Hornbill Project and 30% retained by the resort to purchase a tree for our guests to sustain our rainforest.”

JungleWalla is a company set up in 1994 mainly to educate and inspire people to experience the island resort’s rich natural history. Dwyer said that the resort was earlier forced to cut down 30 trees due to various reasons such as termite attacks and decaying trees, which were on the brink of falling over its chalets. “Each tree felled would be replaced with two new trees in an effort to green the resort’s environment,” he said. Among those trees that will be planted are Cempaka tree (Michelia Alba), Cinnamon tree (Cinnamomum Verum), Senegal Mahogany (Khaya Senegalencis), Fern-Leaf tree (Filicium Decipients) and Keday Bungor (Lagerstromia Florbunda).
-thestar online.
http://www.berjayahotel.com/langkawi/index.asp