Bulacan students tapped for Angat watershed reforestation

CITY OF MALOLOS—Student power in one of Bulacan province’s biggest universities has been tapped to reforest part of the 62,000-hectare Angat watershed that has been sustaining the Angat Dam, Metro Manila’s primary source of potable water.

Students and teachers of Bulacan State University (BulSU) will start planting thousands of trees, including fruit-bearing species, in 25 hectares of the watershed on Nov. 5, following the signing of a memorandum of agreement to conduct the Angat watershed rainforestation project.

The university has 30,000 students.

The project, initiated by BulSU president Cecilia

Gascon, will be overseen by the university, National Power Corp., which manages the watershed, and the Department of Science and Technology.

Napocor president Gladys Sta. Rita said tree-planting activities would be held in areas which had lost trees due to erosion and to typhoons across the decades. The agency will provide tree saplings for the project.

Bro. Martin Francisco, founding chair of the Sagip Sierra Madre Environment

Society which is supporting the project, suggested employing the local Dumagat community at the Sierra Madre mountain ranges to monitor the reforested areas.

“It is easy to plant tree saplings, but making sure they grow into full-blown trees would require the help of people living in those mountains,” Francisco said.