The Mandaue city government is trying to identify and preserve century-old and heritage trees especially in urban areas amid the city’s rapid industrialization.
“The trees will always complement the city, no matter how big or how progressive the city becomes,” said City Councilor Jimmy Lumapas.
Lumapas started the campaign rolling when he sponsored the Century and Heritage Trees Ordinance of 2011, which was passed in August 2011.
Lumapas said he wanted to prevent the “indiscriminate cutting” of old trees and avoid the situation in Carcar and Naga cities in south Cebu where road-widening projects threaten to destroy pre-war trees lining the road.
“I doubt if there are heritage trees left in Mandaue. Just a few maybe, so we passed an ordinance to preserve those remaining,” he said.
The ordinance says it aims to conserving ecosystems and genetic resources, while meeting the needs of the people for forestry products in a sustainable manner and to promote social justice.
But implementing the ordinance remains a tall order. Implementing rules are still being reviewed by the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (PENRO).
No inventory has been made yet of old trees in Mandaue.
“We’ll ask the help of barangay captains in barangay Casili, in themountains like Tawason,” Lumapas said.
The Mandaue Tourism Council and the Mandaue Historical and Heritage Center will help in the task and coordinate with the 27 barangays in the city.
Under the ordinance, heritage trees are trees that may not have reached 100 years but are considered ecologically, historically or culturally valuable to the city. Century trees are those that have lived 100 years or more.
A sambag (tamarind) tree in the compound of the national shrine of St. Joseph near City Hall is a candidate for a heritage tree.
Louella Cabañero, 57, head of the Mandaue City Tourism Office, said she remembered that as children “we’d have catechism classes after school and play under the sambag and acacia trees.”
She said she’s certain the sambag tree was nearly a century old. It was already fully grown when she was still an elementary student.
Brigitte Villar, 59, of barangay Jagobiao, said another tamarind tree in the Eversley Childs Sanitarium compound was almost 100 years ago and had protected them when Typhoon Ruping struck in 1990.
Villar’s house is located under the tree.
She said her family was the third to occupy the house.