KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 10 — The Gunung Apeng National Park Serian in Sarawak will have 100,000 new trees planted over the next 10 years from 2024.

The effort is part of The Nippon Foundation and Japan Malaysia Association’s (JMA) long-term programme to restore and preserve the rainforest in Sarawak.

The tree-planting programme will see 15 to 20 student volunteers from Japan flying in four times a year to conduct afforestation and educational activities in Sarawak for 10 days each time.

According to the foundation chairman, Tan Sri Yohei Sasakawa, the objective of the programme is to restore the rainforest and ensure the ecosystem stays intact.

"The tropical rainforests in Borneo continue to decline and many living creatures, including orangutans, are losing their homes.

"One of the factors contributing to the issue is deforestation and lack of trees.”

Sasakawa said the project aims to provide Japanese students with firsthand experience of Borneo’s history and the issues surrounding tropical rainforests such as biodiversity through volunteer tree planting.

"We also hope to have Malaysian students join in volunteer activities with the aim of promoting exchange between Japanese and Malaysian students.”

The first and second groups of students will start the tree-planting programme in February and March 2024 respectively.

Sasakawa also said JMA has been conducting tree planting activities in East Malaysia since 1995 to restore tropical forests in collaboration with the Sarawak state government, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak and local communities.

He said the reason they started to stay in Sarawak and concentrate their efforts in the Borneo state was to get better results.

"Sustainability may have become a buzzword today but most efforts or the people behind them are not even sustainable.

"Hence we decided to have a sustainable effort for better results.”

To date, JMA has planted over 800,000 trees in Sarawak with an investment value of approximately RM12 million.

The association also conducted mangrove forest restoration in Kedah and Pahang between 2019 and 2022 for flood mitigation.

Present at the media round-table discussion were also JMA president Takakazu Ogawa and executive director Takashi Moribayashi.

Sasakawa and his team are in Malaysia for a working visit to strengthen ties between Malaysia and Japan in the area of sustainability.

During his visit to Malaysia, Sasakawa has met with Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change Minister Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad and is expected to pay a courtesy visit to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim later today to discuss various areas in sustainability efforts.