November Sky

On the way to Miri on Friday (28/11) I noticed the sky turning cloudy on the eastern horizon. However, after about a three hours journey from Bintulu the rains didn't materialise. In the middle ground are palm trees that are left rotting after being poisoned to allow underplanted new and younger palm trees to take over. In the Miri region where oil palm trees are planted a decade earlier than Bintulu, thousands of hectares of old plantations are replanted on yearly basis. A competitive measure as deemed by the industry. Underplanting is one of the two practices of replanting old oil palm estates that have trees surpassing their 25-30 years of economic life. The other practice of replanting oil palm holdings or estates is called clean clearing with zero burning.