LEGAZPI CITY: Some 1.2 million indigenous trees are expected to be
distributed this year throughout Bicol
to further boost the government’s National Greening Program
(NGP) an official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)
said the other day.
Gilbert Gonzales, DENR regional executive director, said they intend to produce and distribute 1.2 million
tree seedlings of native species by the end of the year to 16 community
environment and natural resources
offices in the six provinces of Bicol.
The DENR Ecosystem Research and
Development Service (ERDS) here has raised in 2012 a total 807,000 indigenous
tree species which has significantly formed part of the 5.9 million seedlings
of various varieties planted across the country last year.
This year, Gonzales said, he tasked the ERDS to produce some 1.2
million seedlings for planting to complement the national target of 25 million
native trees in the current course of the greening program.
Gonzales, quoting Environment Secretary Ramon Paje’s directive, said the agency is shifting
its program by planting native species instead of exotic ones to give
the program a Filipino character.
Gonzales emphasized that the role of the ERDS would be beneficial to
Bicol forests to be rehabilitated and wherein native tree species thrive.
Based on the regional target, 750,000 indigenous tree seedlings will be
allotted to protected forests, 113,000 native species allocated to protected
areas, and 337,000 seedlings to timberlands.
Planting native tree species is a nationwide campaign of the DENR as it
shifts from using exotic trees which are not locally grown and not suited to a
particular climate or type of soil in several areas of the country.
DENR statistics indicate that
Bicol has a total land area of 763,000 hectares, where only 163,499 hectares, or 21 percent, are forest
areas.
Of the forested areas, Camarines Sur has 52,056 hectares, followed by
Catanduanes with 39,507, Camarines Norte 27,880, Albay 26,425, Sorsogon 15,078,
and Masbate with only 2,465 hectares of forest land.
An ERDS report shows that indigenous species of seedlings may include
the following species: pili, sambulauan, kupang, bagras, kalumpit, bagalunga,
malapapaya, banaba, molave, bitaog, narra, batino, dao, lamio, akleng parang,
lumbang, baguilumbang, white lauan, bagtikan, red lauan, almon, mayapis
species, and other dipterocarps whose seeds are available for collection.
Since 2011 when the Pres. Benigno Aquino III launched the NGP to plant
and grow 1.5 billion new trees on 1.5 million hectares of land across the
country until last year, around 83 percent or 47.2 million of seedlings planted
nationwide are of indigenous species.
NGP is a nationwide re-greening campaign launched through the
President’s Executive Order No. 26 issued in February 2011 that aims to
percolate the country’s green renaissance towards a more focused and unified
interventions to achieve sustainable rural development.
Since its launch, the program as of last year has already planted about
57 million seedlings on more than 232,000 hectares all over the country.
Apart from the indigenous forest trees, the program also came out with
4.1 million fruit-bearing trees being grown by DA and 765,173 ornamental trees
planted and grown by various local government units (LGUs) and community
organizations for their urban greening programs.
These ornamental trees are usually acacia, pine tree, aratiles,
ilang-ilang, balitbitan, caballero, and talisay.
Areas planted include mangrove and protected areas, ancestral domain
areas, civil and military reservations, urban centers under the greening plan
of LGUs, inactive and abandoned mine sites, and other suitable lands for
reforestation. – Bicol Mail
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