THE Penang Island City Council (MBPP) has been taking various initiatives to make Penang cleaner, greener, safer and healthier.
Planting saplings which will grow into trees providing shade around Penang island has been among the efforts undertaken by the council for the past ten years and till date (Sept 2018), a total of 363,676 saplings have been planted.
The latest tree planting activity to take place was when the council planted 11 saplings of rain trees by the river bank in the constituency of Sungai Pinang.
On Oct 7, MBPP mayor Datuk Yew Tung Seang, Sungai Pinang assemblyman Lim Siew Khim and several MBPP councillors took part in the planting of ‘Samanea saman’ (pokok hujan- hujan) near the river bank of Sungai Pinang in the vicinity of Jalan S.P. Chelliah.
The mayor, in his speech, stated that the MBPP and MPSP (Seberang Perai Municipal Council) councils are committed to plant 100,000 tree saplings on the island as well as the mainland.
“MBPP will undertake one third of the target, MPSP one third and another one third bythe Forestry Department of Penang.
“A flood mitigation project for Sungai Pinang river is coming up next year. So, what we intend to incorporate here is, the planting of the rain trees and we want to play a part in the beautifying the place (the river bank).
“The trees that we are planting are rain trees which will provide us with shade, as they will grow into a ‘canopy-like’ shape.
“The river banks normally have maintenance access for Drainage and Irrigation Department (JPS) and as such, we also want to take this opportunity to turn it (maintenance access) into a jogging track and cycling track as it is a good link-way to connect the cycle track to the one in Air Itam,” said Yew.
Yew also expressed his hope that one day the Sungai Pinang riverfront can be transformed into a recreational spot.
Story by Tanushalini Moroter
Pix by Alissala Thian