Leyte town aims to plant 10,000 trees every year

Leyte map. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

MATAG-OB, Leyte — The local government here targets to plant 10,000 trees every year in a bid to save the environment and its inhabitants.

Matag-ob Mayor Bernandino Tacoy said in an interview on September 9 that he strongly encouraged the public to plant trees and help fight climate change.

“We are doing this tree planting activity as our way of helping the environment,” he said.

Tacoy said Matag-ob is coordinating with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), private sectors, and members of communities to realize their target.

Since they started the campaign early this year, Tacoy said they already planted more than 8,500 trees of different kinds, including lawaan and narra.

These trees were planted in forested areas like Barangay Malazarte and at various watersheds in Barangays Bulak and Cabadbad.

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Couples who apply for civil weddings were also mandated to plant 10 trees.

“The feedback is very encouraging,” Tacoy said.

Job order workers were assigned to take care of the seedlings every day to make sure they become fully grown trees in the future.

“Failure of our job order workers to make these seedlings grow could mean possible dismissal from service,” Tacoy said.

The town mayor also encouraged candidates in this year’s Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan elections to plant trees.

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Tacoy lamented that some private individuals seemed to have managed to acquire land titles for some of their watersheds, prompting him to seek the assistance of the DENR on how to address their concern.

The local government of Matag-ob, he said, is also practicing waste segregation where biodegradable wastes were turned into fertilizers.

Non-biodegradable wastes, on the other hand, were buried in the landfill.

“We hope to make Matag-ob waste-free and in the process help in the fight against climate change,” Tacoy said.

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