Plant Nursery and Agro Forestry Supervisor Jervaine Greenaway, said the white spice guava plants were the public’s favourite at the Department of Environment held its annual National Tree Planting Day held on Wednesday, November 9, 2011, at the Department of Environment Nursery in Shinlands, Brades.
The nursery had 22 fruit and ornamental trees available for sale The other trees available were papaw, sweet tamarind, custard apple, sugar apple, blackberry, plumrose, five finger, soursop, cherry ann, pomegranate, strawberry guava, golden apple, yellow cashew, sweeping willow, ylang- ylang, pink cassia, yellow pouri, noni, breadnut, lime and dew plum.
Greenaway said the day was great. He reported that most people came out early in the morning to purchase the trees. he said trees are available for purchase at the nursery throughout the year for $ 10.00 each. However, on Tree Planting Day a total of three trees were available for $ 10.00. “The objective is to get more trees in Montserrat. Most of the populated areas were in the Exclusion Zone and in the north was basically barren land. There are not much fruit trees around so we are trying to get as much trees back into the environment,” Greenaway said.
“We are doing our part to cut down on greenhouse gases and just beautify the whole of Montserrat; and now we are moving towards eco-tourism, so it should be a way to attract tourists also,” he added.
The supervisor cautioned persons who purchased trees to take care of them. “We don’t want to have any trees under any house, or just left to wither and die, because it would be a waste of the whole event,” he said, while adding “Persons needing advice on how to plant or care for a tree can contact the Department of Environment.”
[youtube width=”220″ height=”140″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkNrQxk1uJY[/youtube] Greenaway revealed a team from the Department of Agriculture will be going around the community from January to check on the trees.
Forestry Officer, James ‘Scriber’ Daley told The Montserrat Reporter (TMR) that the Tree Planting Day was introduced in Plymouth just after hurricane Hugo devastated the island. He said the Agriculture Department made a decision at that time to create a forestry nursery to provide residents with plants to put back into the ground.
According to the forestry officer the plants were given to residents, free, for a couple of years until public feedback suggested that a contribution should be made towards the effort.
Brades Primary School Kindergarten and grade-one classes visited the Nursery on the special Tree Planting Day. Teacher Rhiana Meade told TMRthe visit would be beneficial to the pupils. “We are doing living community in Social Study; in Science we are also studying living things and we know plants are living things. We want them to be environmentally conscious. We are living in a Caribbean environment and lot of our children don’t know the benefits of living in a tropical environment,” she said.
The teacher said that field trip such as these will help children to have an appreciation for the environment as they get older. Miss Meade said the children planted trees for themselves and took care of them as part of their Science project.
Forestry officer Daley gave the pupils a tour of the compound. “I told them how important trees are and how tree planting day actually started. I showed them how trees are planted and how you take care of them,” he said.
Mr. Daley noted that the children were brilliant and said he was amazed at the kind of questions they asked.
TMR also interviewed a customer who was very excited about Tree Planting Day. “The Day is very beneficial to the island. The opportunity of stepping out your front door and getting some nice fresh fruit in different varieties is good,” he said with a broad smile on his face.
