Solution to cutting seen: Don’t plant trees on roads

DAGUPAN CITY—An environment official in Pangasinan province offered a solution to tree cutting in future road-widening projects—don’t plant trees where the roads are.

Leduina Co, provincial environment and natural resources officer (Penro), said tree cutting along the highways became controversial in Pangasinan after the Department of Public Works and Highways cut more than 1,000 trees along Manila North Road (MNR) in 2012 and 2013.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) issued a permit to cut more than 1,800 trees along a 42-kilometer stretch of MNR in November 2012, but the 90-day permit expired on Feb. 9, 2013, with 770 trees still left standing in Binalonan and Sison towns. Trees along MNR traversing Rosales and Villasis towns and Urdaneta City had been cut.

A group of residents and environmentalists asked a court in Urdaneta City to issue an environment protection order to save the trees.

Co said most of the trees were planted along MNR in the late 1970s under the Program for Forest Ecosystem Management, which required all Filipinos to plant one tree a month for five consecutive years.

She said the roadsides could have been the most accessible areas to plant seedlings as planting in the mountains would be difficult.

With the National Greening Program (NGP), the provincial environment and natural resources office seeks to reforest 18,000 hectares.

Co said the DENR was contracting out the seedling production and planting to peoples’ organizations (POs).

Members of these POs have to produce the seedlings and take them to the mountains.

“They have to clean the site, dig holes for planting the seedlings, haul the seedlings and plant them. Then they have to take care of and maintain the seedlings until they are able to survive on their own,” Co said.

POs have to make sure at least 85 percent of the seedlings survive or they would not be paid.

In 2011, when the NGP was launched, and in 2012, the survival rate of seedlings in Pangasinan was 49 percent.

Co said this could be because the province’s climate is dry and windy and the mountains are rocky as the top soil had been depleted.

In 2014, a total of 5,706 ha were reforested by 60 POs in Pangasinan using more than 4.2 million seedlings of different tree species.

Except for a few POs that planted forest trees like narra, palosapis, Benguet pine and gmelina, most chose to plant ipil-ipil, kakawate and acacia and fruit trees like duhat, cashew and tamarind. Others planted coffee and cacao.

Regreening the provinces means income for POs as the government has allocated funds for the program.

For 5,706 ha in Pangasinan, the DENR had paid 60 organizations at least P67 million, Penro records showed.

The biggest contract had been awarded to I-Owak Tribe Earth Savers Association, whose project to reforest 475 ha along the   Ambayaoan River subwatershed cost more than P6.52 million or P13,739 per hectare.

Co said each hectare must be planted with 50 seedlings.