Sarangani Capitol celebrates Arbor Day

By BEVERLY PAOYON

ALABEL, Sarangani (June 30, 2011) - More than a hundred Capitol
employees and officials planted seedlings on Monday (June 27) to
celebrate Arbor Day in this capitol town.

This activity was initiated by the Provincial Environment and Natural
Resources Office (PENRO) with students from Alabel Regional Science
High School and members of the Junior Ecology Movement, employees of
different agencies of the local government of Sarangani, Philippine
National Police, Bureau of Fire Protection, Conrado and Ladislawa
Alcantara Foundation, Department of Environment and Natural Resources,
barangay officials, and mountaineers.

More than 600 hills of forest and fruit trees like Mahogany, Rain tree
(common name for Acacia), Palosanto and langka were planted along the
riverbank of Maribulan village, in a 20-meter buffer zone which is
reportedly highly susceptible to flooding.

According to PENRO, the characteristics of these varieties are good
defense against flashfloods.

PENRO stressed the timeliness of the tree planting activity because
2011 is declared as the International Year of the Forests and this
year’s theme of the Environment Month is “Forests: Nature at your
Service.”

But since environmental rehabilitation of uplands, lowlands, and
riverbanks is a regular activity in Sarangani, the tree planting on
Monday was not just a compliance to the declaration of President
Benigno S. Aquino III on the National Greening Program last month
which sought for the transformation of some 1.5 million hectares of
open and denuded areas into greenery with at least 1.5 billion trees
planted until his term ends in 2016.

Rehabilitation initiated by PENRO alone on both reforestation and
agrofestry of the total forested land are underway since 2005 which
constituted for about 11,620 hectares.

PENRO forester 1 Emie Alvin Gler said most of the projects were in
partnership with the Development Bank of the Philippines, SMART,
Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Upland Development
Program, Mindanao Rural Development Program, Department of Energy and
Carbon Sink Agro-Reforestation were on-going and evaluated regularly.
“We have personnel who regularly conduct on-site monitoring and
evaluation to assess the 80 percent survivality of the species planted
in various areas,” he said. “Below 80 percent survival is considered
failure.”

PENRO said the tree planting activity was supposedly scheduled on June
25 in time for the Arbor Day celebration in the Philippines which is
declared as public holiday to ensure active participation of students,
out-of-school youth and government employees and the private sector,
people's organizations and non-governmental organizations in planting
more trees.

But for Sarangani Capitol, it was set on June 27 to ensure also
employees and students, especially those living outside Alabel, can
easily be mobilized, the office said.

Arbor Day is from the Latin word arbor which means tree. The first
Arbor Day was celebrated on April 10, 1872 which an estimated of 1
million trees were planted that day. (Beverly C. Paoyon/SARANGANI
INFORMATION OFFICE)