Benni’s Forest is named after Benni Over, an inspiring young German man who loves orangutans. Benni suffers from an incurable genetic disease called Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Despite needing to use a wheelchair, he and his family flew 15.000 kilometers to visit us in Indonesia.
Even though not being able to move more than his face muscles and some of his fingers he also travelled all the way over poor roads and rivers into the heart of Borneo. Here he met orangutans in the Sintang Orangutan Center (SOC).
Above: Benni visiting a school deep in the jungle of Borneo. On the right Benni in his wheelchair on the back of a four-wheel drive vehicle heading with Willie Smits to the Tembak Orangutan Forest School in the rain and over very bad roads.
Now Benni is motivating school children and the general public in Germany to care for our environment and protect forests, the homes of the orangutans and many other species, that are threatened especially by their conversion to palm oil plantations. He did drawings for his book “Henry saves the rainforest” and even an animation film that already touched the hearts of many children in Germany and Indonesia.
One of the alternative solutions that Benni is supporting is the planting of Benni’s forest to demonstrate that we can make valuable new forests on degraded lands. This helps people as well as nature and reduces the pressure upon the remaining intact forests. Benni has set a goal to raise 100.000 Euro for this project and, together with his family, he is incredibly active in reaching out to people through the Internet and by visiting schools and doing interviews for television and magazines.
Benni’s forest will be planted in one of the most degraded habitats in Indonesia, vast Pogon grasslands, that are very fire-prone and cannot protect soil from erosion and loss of nutrients, unlike forests. The several-hundred-acre area is in the Temboan region of North Sulawesi. This land has been recently purchased by the Masarang Foundation, which also supports the work of the Sintang Orangutan Centre. The aim of the purchase is to continue the mission of the Foundation, which is an environmental restoration model providing solutions for people and nature. The Sintang Orangutan Center and the Masarang Foundation will convert these grasslands into a species-rich biodiverse forest that will store carbon as well as improve the water quality in the area, which will benefit a priceless sea turtle nesting site beach just downstream from this reforestation area. We hope for your support!
This is the Temboan grassland area where a new forest will arise to restore nature both on land and in the sea
The first phase of the project will be planting more than 100.000 trees in the open grasslands (see picture above) to become Benni’s forest. For this special project we will run a tree adoption program. Over time the program and its monitoring will become more sophisticated, but initially we will establish one dedicated tree planting fund (Benni’s Forest) to which all the tree adoption funds will be transferred. All reforestation costs will then be paid from this fund and the areas of actual reforestation will be reported upon. In addition to articles on all our associated websites, the reforestation will be presented in three monthly drone images that will be uploaded to Google Earth for general viewing.
During the execution of the project we will do research in cooperation with local universities and Non-governmental organisations that will look at the recovery of the water quality outflow from the reforestation area, the increase in biomass and total CO2 sequestration effects of the reforestation as well as the recovery of biodiversity (focusing on birds and mammal species initially).
The project will be coordinated and supervised by Masarang’s Harry Kaunang, a multi-decorated forester and conservationist with a long track record of successful reforestation projects. Harry is an ex-student of Dr. Willie Smits, the founder of the foundation and SOC, who will also personally supervise the project.
Please help to support this project, for Benni, for biodiversity, for the climate and for Good!
https://henry-rettet-den-regenwald.bildungsblogs.net/2019/02/10/spende-auch-du-einen-baum-fuer-bennis-wald/
Many thanks for your support on behalf of the Masarang Foundation and the Sintang Orangutan Centre as well as Willie and Benni.
Leave a Reply