A green holiday celebration in Koronadal aims for record

Beaming with their soiled hands, some 28,000 people planted 108,000 tree seedlings across Koronadal City’s Roxas mountain range—which spans six villages—in less than 20 minutes.

It could be a Guinness World Record for the largest number of people taking part in a tree-planting activity in the shortest time, but for Mayor Peter Miguel, the event was primarily aimed at helping alleviate climate change and promoting environmental volunteerism among his constituents.

“The impact speaks of the number of people who received the message of environmental protection. This campaign is more than awareness, it’s about changing the attitude of the people here. The volume means we are doing something, and in one way or another we came ahead of President Aquino’s call to reforest denuded lands,” Miguel said.

The Roxas mountain range is among the major sources of water for the Liguasan Marsh via the Allah River. The lack of forest cover was among the reasons pointed out for the siltation in the marsh, which causes recent flooding in Maguindanao, North Cotabato and Cotabato City.

Environment month

The Tree Growing Festival came in time for the observance of the International Environment Month.

Miguel said the city government spent P184 per day for cash-for-work beneficiaries for 11 days from June 12 to dig holes for the festival.

It was “a massive consortium of people from various sectors including the government, private, students and the common folks,” Augustus Bretana, city environment and natural resources officer (Cenro), said. “Even those who could not participate in the actual planting (at the Roxas range) did their little way—planting within their surrounds.”

Businessmen, politicians and ordinary residents provided free ride to participants, who started climbing uphill as early as 5 a.m.

South Cotabato Governor Arthur Y. Pingoy Jr. and Representative Daisy Avance-Fuentes also made available 10,000 seedlings.

“The city government deserves a commendation for this ideal program,” Pingoy said. “This activity deserves the support not only of the provincial government and the city residents but also of the entire South Cotabato people.”

The city government conceded that to be recognized by Guinness, they needed to provide documents.

Camarines Sur

The Guinness website had recognized Siruma and Tinambac towns in Camarines Sur as having the largest area planted to trees in so short a time at a total of 64,096 trees within 31,000 hectares of land.

Koronadal’s tree planting covered 23 sub-villages from the villages of Carpenter Hill, Paraiso, San Isidro, Mambucal, Saravia and Assumption nestled atop the mountain range, a watershed area that serves as major source of potable water for the city.

“It’s high time that we become responsible citizens,” Miguel said.

Per the Cenro’s monitoring, of the 27,000-ha land area covering the city, only less than 1 percent or barely 150 ha have forest cover.

“We don’t want a repeat of the floods that affected the city in the past that claimed lives and destroyed properties,” forester Dominador Samelin said. “Of course, we came to rescue the watershed.”

“We do tree planting every year, but this year is massive, involving the entire population of the city,” Samelin said.

Time to be intimate

Eric Cagaanan drove his entire brood to spend the holiday declared by the city government at Sitio Bulol in Barangay Assumption.

“This is a time to be intimate with nature which we don’t normally do,” he said.

His eldest son, David Cege Cagaanan, 10, a Grade 5 pupil, has taken the recent flooding that swamped the low-lying villages of Cotabato City and nearby Maguindanao towns as an example of pain that does not distinguish who the affected would be.

“What happened there is a wake-up call for children like me so we need to do our share, even in the littlest way,” David said, while ripping the polyethylene material that covers the narra sprout to a burrow. “There, you must grow to your full potential. Who knows what you can do in the future,” he added, obviously elated.

Miguel, a medical doctor by profession, had discussed the massive tree-planting event with Cenro officials last year.

“Let’s target at least 171,000 trees for the tree growing to represent the city’s population (171,000, NSO 2007),” Miguel recounted what he said during the meeting.

Job not over

The idea was boosted by a Department of Education campaign that required schoolchildren to plant trees.

Now that the biggest tree-planting event is over, Miguel said landowners and village officials should do their share in caring for the seedlings.

“This is not solely the government’s solution for environmental degradation, but this is an effort to combat poverty among landowners in the long-term run,” Bretana said, adding that the fruit-bearing trees such as durian could prove to be income-generating in the future.

“Despite the fact that we’re still facing challenges in environment protection, Koronadal City will serve as a model of sustainable development in the country,” Miguel said.