An All-Girls trip to APRIL's Paper Mill
!!!!!
We left Seletar Airbase at 0800hrs yesterday and just touched down back in Singapore at 1030hrs. Sooooper tired and I really want to crash and sleep now, but let me start recording my memories. I can't put in too much detail because it's non-disclosure, I wrote all my notes in the travel journal that they gave us. But it was a sooooper fun and exciting and mindblowing-eyeopening-smileswidening trip. It still feels surreal that the trip did happen, that we went and came back within 27 hours.
The program we were under is called "The Fascinating World of Forestry" and it is wholly organised by APRIL and paid for by APRIL. We literally did not spend a cent, apart from public transport to-and-fro Seletar Airbase. They had T-shirts and badges for us to don on and keep, and a whole travel journal designed for the program. The amount of resources they gave us was quite a lot, like staff to give us 1.5hr tours, money for 3 meals and 2 teabreaks, drinking water, Polaroid cameras to go wuth the journals... We're still not quite sure why they came up with this new program... Something to teach us about sustainable forestry? Christiana was our tour guide on Singapore's side for the whole trip, she's an employee at RGE, which is APRIL's parent company. She graduated from SMU not long ago but she looks like our age!
One thing I learned is that you can actually squeeze super a lot of things into a 24 hour day (technically we had 25 hours). The amount of places we went and saw in a day!!
I took a bus to Seletar Airbase and happened to meet Sandy and Xueyi at the bus interchange. At Seletar Airbase, we met the rest: Prof Amy Choong, Christiana, another APRIL employee, Miao Shan, RenYue, Xinyi, Saeyun, Cheryl, and Arina. So we took APRIL's private plane from Seletar Airbase to the international airport at Pekanbaru, Sumatra, then continued on to APRIL's private airstrip. From there, we had our safety briefing, donned on visibility vests and safety shoes, and equipped with earplugs in case of bees. I sat with Xinyi on the bus, and we had a good chat as we travelled between places.
The bus took us straight to APRIL's largest Nursery, where they propagate the Acacia seedlings using cuttings from the mother plant tent. The soil for the seedlings is made using their own mix and the seedlings are manually placed into small tubes for rooting and growing of the shoots, then exposed to full sunlight, after which they'll be transplanted into their plantations.
After that, we went to a conservation and biodiversity area. It's a plot of peat forest land owned by APRIL that is dedicated to biodiversity and conservation, and it's surrounded by around 1km of acacia plantation to prevent illegal encroachment and damage to the forest. Being a plantation, this 1m ha of land is arguably fragmented forest that's in a matrix of monoculture plantations, but we discussed and concluded that the plantations should reduce the forest edge effect. The environmental officers and safety officers had hacked out a path for us a few days before just so that we can walk through the conservation area, and they accompanied us on our walk in. They were really friendly and helpful, giving us a literal strong hand to step over the many holes in the ground. Miao fell into one because the leaf litter layer gives the impression of solid ground. They explained to us how they controlled the water table to maintain the peat forest, and Prof gave us 30s lessons on fungi and peat forests. Walking through a peatland is like standing on cork, the ground is spongy! (Y) And the water bodies surround the peatland is red due to humic acid!
After that, we had lunch at one of the plantation offices while John, a New Zealander, gave us a talk on managing peatlands. Dr. Choong caught me nodding off :P and she let me haha. I did try to keep awake, just that I failed. After lunch, we went to the RGE Technology centre, which is where they produce seeds from tissue culture. The centre's tour guide gave us a tour around level 2, which holds an exhibition area on the history of RGE, APRIL's zero waste and zero fire aims, and their contributions to community and country development. Really admirable to see a company's chairman so dedicated to the community! They even had a Flying Elephant Squad that trains elephants and reduces the conflict between animals and villages! Mr Sukanto Tanoto (Y)
The bus then took us to the paper mill. As we drove towards the mill, we could see the different areas of the complex. In one area, there's just rows of piles and towers of acacia wood all stacked up. Scary. At the mill itself, where we had really cool earphones that is connected to a portable microphone, so that any instructions given by the tour guide is transmitted directly to us above the noise. We got to see paper go from slush into sheets, and then cut and packaged into boxes. Haha he was really nice in showing us around and answering all our questions, simplifying things where necessary. The paper mill is really cool, the stuff comes out in giant rolls of paper that are then cut into shorter cylinders (that still weighs 3 tons) and the paper is moved around the mill on a thin conveyor belt! Cylinders have small contact area with the ground. (Y)
Back on the bus, we found that the APRIL's side tour guide had secretly laid boxes of snacks on our chairs for teabreak! We were super amazed and honoured and humbled. Note to self: Learn from their hospitality. We then headed to Unigraha hotel in APRIL's complex to check in and shower and dinner. Prof shared a room with me and... we are quite similar in the way we live. So that worked out well. We had dinner with Craig and he gave us a talk on Forest Fire prevention after dinner. Craig is a forest ecologist from Australia and every forester in Aussie is a trained firefighter. While the forest fires there are naturally occurring, the ones in Indonesia aren't. He showed us data on forest fires and how they are correlated to people, and talked to us about how they used various strategies like financial incentives (no actual money but a new market/school etc), accountability to their own people, second chances, to encourage people to move away from burning forests, and giving them new alternatives by loaning machinery to clear land and teaching them to diversify their crops. Riau University also did a study on which areas of land are best for planting what kind of crop and organised a course for the local farmers. This is real academia on the ground, interacting with the ground. (Y)
Then sleep!! (: Prof and I shared a King-sized bed, so there was lots of space between us. But it was so... I clamped up haha. So I laid awake from 12am to 1am (Indonesia 2300 to 0000hrs), because it was too warm under the covers and my muscles were all tensed up. I got up at 1am to lie on top of the covers and grabbed my jacket to hug for comfort, finally slept at 1.30am Singapore time. Then we simultaneously woke up at 0630 Singapore time. After we each washed up, we chatted and went downstairs for breakfast. Christiana wasn't awake to accompany us to the airport, she probably overslept! So we left her behind and the APRIL drivers (who were prearranged) took us to the airport. At the airport, we hit some trouble because usually APRIL staff would pay for the airport tax but we had left Christiana behind, but thank God, the airport staff settled it with a few phone calls. Back in Singapore, we took some more Polaroids (just cos it's free lol) and Arina's dad was kind to give us a lift to Khatib MRT.
-------------------------------------------------
So, that was the trip. The people were all really amiable, they use terms of address that are more intimate than Malayu (uncle VS. father), which is a really nice touch. It didn't really feel jam-packed because they had planned our exactly how much time each activity would take, and we got back to the hotel exactly on time. But the amount of things we saw in a day!!! Aerial view of the river and plantations from the plane (all our aquatic flooded in), millions of acacia cuttings (all our botany flooded in), the huge paper rolls with bigger machinery carried by a bigger crane (takes 100 tons!) in a BIGGER warehouse. I especially liked the walk through the acacia plantation, an endless scape of grey-green phyllodes dotted with fungi on the dead stumps is beautiful. Can't get enough of it, didn't take a picture either. And learning about community development really reminded and added on to what I learned at HealthServe, except that now I can interact with the information to an extent. It's really placing the tools into people's hands to see what they make of it, and relying on people and networks that are already established in the community. All-girls trip is awesome haha we can talk and joke around so freely! Miao and her endless selfies were our entertainment.
And. I did enjoy sharing a room with Dr. Choong, even though I still clamp up thinking about it. She knows I'm extremely shy haha. We talked about IBS and her QT, about how we got to know Christ, about how God touched her personally in big ways in the small things. A reminder that when we strive to seek God, God will make Himself known to you. And a reminder to build family relationships, because it is the framework and context within which we can understand the church as a family of God and our relationship with God. HARD TEACHINGS but well it has knocked on my door.
We left Seletar Airbase at 0800hrs yesterday and just touched down back in Singapore at 1030hrs. Sooooper tired and I really want to crash and sleep now, but let me start recording my memories. I can't put in too much detail because it's non-disclosure, I wrote all my notes in the travel journal that they gave us. But it was a sooooper fun and exciting and mindblowing-eyeopening-smileswidening trip. It still feels surreal that the trip did happen, that we went and came back within 27 hours.
The program we were under is called "The Fascinating World of Forestry" and it is wholly organised by APRIL and paid for by APRIL. We literally did not spend a cent, apart from public transport to-and-fro Seletar Airbase. They had T-shirts and badges for us to don on and keep, and a whole travel journal designed for the program. The amount of resources they gave us was quite a lot, like staff to give us 1.5hr tours, money for 3 meals and 2 teabreaks, drinking water, Polaroid cameras to go wuth the journals... We're still not quite sure why they came up with this new program... Something to teach us about sustainable forestry? Christiana was our tour guide on Singapore's side for the whole trip, she's an employee at RGE, which is APRIL's parent company. She graduated from SMU not long ago but she looks like our age!
One thing I learned is that you can actually squeeze super a lot of things into a 24 hour day (technically we had 25 hours). The amount of places we went and saw in a day!!
I took a bus to Seletar Airbase and happened to meet Sandy and Xueyi at the bus interchange. At Seletar Airbase, we met the rest: Prof Amy Choong, Christiana, another APRIL employee, Miao Shan, RenYue, Xinyi, Saeyun, Cheryl, and Arina. So we took APRIL's private plane from Seletar Airbase to the international airport at Pekanbaru, Sumatra, then continued on to APRIL's private airstrip. From there, we had our safety briefing, donned on visibility vests and safety shoes, and equipped with earplugs in case of bees. I sat with Xinyi on the bus, and we had a good chat as we travelled between places.
The bus took us straight to APRIL's largest Nursery, where they propagate the Acacia seedlings using cuttings from the mother plant tent. The soil for the seedlings is made using their own mix and the seedlings are manually placed into small tubes for rooting and growing of the shoots, then exposed to full sunlight, after which they'll be transplanted into their plantations.
After that, we went to a conservation and biodiversity area. It's a plot of peat forest land owned by APRIL that is dedicated to biodiversity and conservation, and it's surrounded by around 1km of acacia plantation to prevent illegal encroachment and damage to the forest. Being a plantation, this 1m ha of land is arguably fragmented forest that's in a matrix of monoculture plantations, but we discussed and concluded that the plantations should reduce the forest edge effect. The environmental officers and safety officers had hacked out a path for us a few days before just so that we can walk through the conservation area, and they accompanied us on our walk in. They were really friendly and helpful, giving us a literal strong hand to step over the many holes in the ground. Miao fell into one because the leaf litter layer gives the impression of solid ground. They explained to us how they controlled the water table to maintain the peat forest, and Prof gave us 30s lessons on fungi and peat forests. Walking through a peatland is like standing on cork, the ground is spongy! (Y) And the water bodies surround the peatland is red due to humic acid!
After that, we had lunch at one of the plantation offices while John, a New Zealander, gave us a talk on managing peatlands. Dr. Choong caught me nodding off :P and she let me haha. I did try to keep awake, just that I failed. After lunch, we went to the RGE Technology centre, which is where they produce seeds from tissue culture. The centre's tour guide gave us a tour around level 2, which holds an exhibition area on the history of RGE, APRIL's zero waste and zero fire aims, and their contributions to community and country development. Really admirable to see a company's chairman so dedicated to the community! They even had a Flying Elephant Squad that trains elephants and reduces the conflict between animals and villages! Mr Sukanto Tanoto (Y)
The bus then took us to the paper mill. As we drove towards the mill, we could see the different areas of the complex. In one area, there's just rows of piles and towers of acacia wood all stacked up. Scary. At the mill itself, where we had really cool earphones that is connected to a portable microphone, so that any instructions given by the tour guide is transmitted directly to us above the noise. We got to see paper go from slush into sheets, and then cut and packaged into boxes. Haha he was really nice in showing us around and answering all our questions, simplifying things where necessary. The paper mill is really cool, the stuff comes out in giant rolls of paper that are then cut into shorter cylinders (that still weighs 3 tons) and the paper is moved around the mill on a thin conveyor belt! Cylinders have small contact area with the ground. (Y)
Back on the bus, we found that the APRIL's side tour guide had secretly laid boxes of snacks on our chairs for teabreak! We were super amazed and honoured and humbled. Note to self: Learn from their hospitality. We then headed to Unigraha hotel in APRIL's complex to check in and shower and dinner. Prof shared a room with me and... we are quite similar in the way we live. So that worked out well. We had dinner with Craig and he gave us a talk on Forest Fire prevention after dinner. Craig is a forest ecologist from Australia and every forester in Aussie is a trained firefighter. While the forest fires there are naturally occurring, the ones in Indonesia aren't. He showed us data on forest fires and how they are correlated to people, and talked to us about how they used various strategies like financial incentives (no actual money but a new market/school etc), accountability to their own people, second chances, to encourage people to move away from burning forests, and giving them new alternatives by loaning machinery to clear land and teaching them to diversify their crops. Riau University also did a study on which areas of land are best for planting what kind of crop and organised a course for the local farmers. This is real academia on the ground, interacting with the ground. (Y)
Then sleep!! (: Prof and I shared a King-sized bed, so there was lots of space between us. But it was so... I clamped up haha. So I laid awake from 12am to 1am (Indonesia 2300 to 0000hrs), because it was too warm under the covers and my muscles were all tensed up. I got up at 1am to lie on top of the covers and grabbed my jacket to hug for comfort, finally slept at 1.30am Singapore time. Then we simultaneously woke up at 0630 Singapore time. After we each washed up, we chatted and went downstairs for breakfast. Christiana wasn't awake to accompany us to the airport, she probably overslept! So we left her behind and the APRIL drivers (who were prearranged) took us to the airport. At the airport, we hit some trouble because usually APRIL staff would pay for the airport tax but we had left Christiana behind, but thank God, the airport staff settled it with a few phone calls. Back in Singapore, we took some more Polaroids (just cos it's free lol) and Arina's dad was kind to give us a lift to Khatib MRT.
-------------------------------------------------
So, that was the trip. The people were all really amiable, they use terms of address that are more intimate than Malayu (uncle VS. father), which is a really nice touch. It didn't really feel jam-packed because they had planned our exactly how much time each activity would take, and we got back to the hotel exactly on time. But the amount of things we saw in a day!!! Aerial view of the river and plantations from the plane (all our aquatic flooded in), millions of acacia cuttings (all our botany flooded in), the huge paper rolls with bigger machinery carried by a bigger crane (takes 100 tons!) in a BIGGER warehouse. I especially liked the walk through the acacia plantation, an endless scape of grey-green phyllodes dotted with fungi on the dead stumps is beautiful. Can't get enough of it, didn't take a picture either. And learning about community development really reminded and added on to what I learned at HealthServe, except that now I can interact with the information to an extent. It's really placing the tools into people's hands to see what they make of it, and relying on people and networks that are already established in the community. All-girls trip is awesome haha we can talk and joke around so freely! Miao and her endless selfies were our entertainment.
And. I did enjoy sharing a room with Dr. Choong, even though I still clamp up thinking about it. She knows I'm extremely shy haha. We talked about IBS and her QT, about how we got to know Christ, about how God touched her personally in big ways in the small things. A reminder that when we strive to seek God, God will make Himself known to you. And a reminder to build family relationships, because it is the framework and context within which we can understand the church as a family of God and our relationship with God. HARD TEACHINGS but well it has knocked on my door.