TEMPO.CO, Bogor - The Indonesian government has set aside nearly Rp1.9 trillion for a reforestation program across Indonesia this year, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has revealed. "If I am not mistaken, the budget for all over Indonesia is Rp1.9 trillion. We have mapped the budget allocations for 2020," he said on the sidelines of his working visit to Pasir Madang Village, Sukajaya Sub-district, Bogor District, West Java Province, Monday.

A disaster mitigation program through reforestation will become a vegetative approach that the government will continue to launch in addition to a physical approach, the President said.

He called on residents living in landslide-prone areas to grow plants with clay roots such as vetiver.

The disaster mitigation program will be conducted not only in areas once affected by flood and landslide but also in areas that have the potential to be affected by a disaster, he said.

The government has prepared nearly 92 thousand seeds of plants to support a reforestation program in Sukajaya. The seeds include those of plants that have an economic value such as jengkol, durian, and petai trees and seeds of plants that have the function to improve the ecosystem such as veliver and sereh wangi.

"That is what we will always approach through the methods. Through the two types of approaches, we hope that the issue of floods and landslides can be resolved," he said.

He further appealed to residents to benefit from plants that have economic value and not to destroy landslide-preventing plants such as the vetiver.

Before visiting Pasir Madang, the President inspected the site of a landslide in Harkat Jaya Village, of Sukajaya, Bogor.

Torrential rains at the start of 2020 caused landslides in the sub-districts of Sukajaya, Nanggung, and Cigudeg and floods in the sub-districts of, Gunung Putri, and Jasinga.

The floods and landslides forced 14,010 residents in the four sub-districts to take refuge. Of the total, 922 came from Cigudeg, 9,925 from Sukajaya, 3,121 from Nanggung and 41 from Jasinga.

ANTARA