Aklan Launches Tree Planting

By Venus G. Villanueva

Some 23,280 tree seedlings were planted on August 30 in the municipality of Tangalan in the western part of Aklan as the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), together with the local government unit of Tangalan, the Department of Education and the community launched the expanded Green Philippines program that targets to plant some 20 million seedlings nationwide.
According to Raul Lorilla, Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Officer, the project was launched in Barangay Panayakan, Tangalan and at the Tangalan watershed. Seven groups took part in the tree planting, composed of schools, fishery and agriculture councils, municipal officials and employees of Tangalan, multi-purpose cooperative, barangay officials and DENR employees.
Each group planted specific tree specie – for instance, the Tangalan National High School planted Golden Shower tree seedlings numbering 1,000; Panayakan National High School, Acacia auri, 12,132; Tangalan FARMC, Mount Agoho, 3,000; Tangalan officials and employees, Bagras; Panayakan Lanipga MPC, Mahogany; barangay officials, Narra; and DENR employees, Narra and Molave; 328 seedlings.
The GPP launching in Tangalan, according to the DENR, was aimed to plant trees in some 20 hectares of land.
For this year, however, in sustaining and fully supporting the Green Philippines program, DENR, along with its partners in the province, aims to plant a total of 111,054 seedlings in some 73.86 hectares.
To realize this, PENRO Lorilla recently released a special order assigning DENR personnel as project focal persons/coordinators for thematic protected areas, critical watersheds and open lands.For this year, DENR has set the planting of trees at protected areas, critical watersheds and open areas in the months of July and August; Agroforestry-Community-Based Forest Management Areas in September; Urban Parks, school campus, military camps and housing subdivisions in October; and mangrove and coastal areas in November.
Last August, Lorillla said other GPP sites with mass planting included the Aklan River Watershed Forest Reserve at Brgy. Galicia, Madalag; Pana-kuyan River Watershed Project, Brgy. San Jose, Ibajay; Nabaoy River Watershed/Malay Refo. Project at Brgy. Nabaoy, Malay; and Open Forest Land Areas in Brgys. Castillo and Calangcang in Makato.
The Green Philippines Project is an offshoot of the Green Philippine Highways Project (GPHP) launched a year ago to green national highways that serve the route of the Strong Republic Nautical Highway. In Aklan, this covers the national highway where buses using the RORO boats traverse – from Barangay Caticlan in Malay to Barangay Cabangila in Altavas, Aklan, the boundary of Aklan and Capiz.
With its expansion into GPP, the government hopes to arrest air pollution, flooding as well as water depletion and other environmental hazards. /MP