Anticipating Falling Trees, Bandung City Government Prunes 2,532 Trees

During the third quarter of 2022, 2,532 trees were cut and 59 trees were cut by DPKP3.

Head of UPT Reforestation and Tree Maintenance DPKP3 Bandung City, Roslina said, tree maintenance and control activities so far are trimming trees that block traffic signs, PJUs, prone to falling, and blocking CCTV.

"We do tree trimming every working day. We don't wait for the incident to carry out the pruning. But we also need to clean up the remnants of fallen trees and transporting them also takes time," said Roslina to Public Relations of Bandung City, Sunday, October 9, 2022.

He explained that the number of fallen and broken trees during the third quarter of 2022 was 217 incidents. Among them were 108 incidents of fallen trees and 109 incidents of broken branches.

Some of the locations most affected by the disaster were in Bandung Wetan District with 25 incidents, Cicendo, Sumur Bandung, Coblong each with 18 incidents. Lengkong 16 incidents, and Cidadap 10 incidents.

"The types of trees that most fall or break include mahogany, cherry, Angsana, banyan, and ki acret," he said.

Based on this incident, he added, there were 28 cases of insurance claims that had been followed up until the third quarter of 2022. The number is dominated by four-wheeled vehicles.

However, this claim is only for the occurrence of trees that are on public not private land.

"Some of the factors that cause trees to fall or become prone to falling are natural factors, such as extreme weather, old and porous trees. Human factors also exist, such as being hit by a vehicle, ex-excavation projects, burning, drainage and others," he said.

Until the third quarter of 2022, DPKP3 received 483 application letters from the public. Among them are requests for tree pruning as many as 238 letters. Then, there were 245 requests for tree felling.

"The difference between pruning and logging is that when you prune it's just stems and twigs. If you cut it down to the roots," he explained.

Then, several complaints from the public also came through social media regarding the condition of trees, such as prone to falling, fallen and broken trees, stuck in cables, pruning, and others with 54 complaints.

Not only cutting and pruning, DPKP3 also promotes reforestation or tree planting programs in the city of Bandung.

This program even involves various parties. The program for reforestation (planting) and distribution of seeds based on requests from the region until the third quarter of 2022 totaled 1,746 tree seedlings.

"Then, the number of tree seedlings received from citizen participation until the third quarter of 2022 is 2,429 trees," he said.

Meanwhile, the reforestation program from the UPT for Reforestation and Tree Maintenance is 1,404 trees.

Most of the reforestation was carried out in Gedebage District, namely in the GBLA Stadium area, along Jalan Soekarno Hatta, A.H Nasution, and embroidery in several areas of Bandung City, participation in the Citarum Harum program.

"The tree seeds planted and distributed are mahogany tree seeds, ketapang Kencana, pink tabebuya, cape, and others," he added. (din)*

Head of the Bandung City Communication and Information Technology

Yayan A. Brilyana