Questions of Policies
Trees
By Honesto General
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 23:51:00 05/13/2008
One of the most valuable assets that the country ever had was the magnificent stand of lawa-an trees spread all over the archipelago.
The lumber was exported around the world as “Philippine mahogany.”
But during the economic boom of the late 1950s, the trees were cut down by logging companies at an alarmingly fast rate.
Government policy, however, required them to reforest their logged-over areas.
A lawa-an was nurtured for 30 years from seedling to tree before it could be cut down for timber. A logging concession, which could be as large as a hundred-thousand hectares, was divided into 30 strips. Each strip had enough trees to keep the logger busy for a year.
As a tree was cut down, the logger was supposed to plant three seedlings. Thirty years after the logger started operating, when the logger reached the last strip, the seedlings he had planted in the first strip 30 years before would have matured and ready to be cut down. The logging operation, thus, can roll on forever.
That was the plan.
But, because of greed and inefficiency, the plan was never fully carried out.
Philippine mahogany was being shipped out (smuggled is a more accurate word) mostly to Japan at a rate faster than the logged-over areas could be reforested.
Also, as part of our industrialization plan, loggers were encouraged, through tax holidays, to put up plywood mills. While plywood exports raised our dollar income, our trees were being cut down at an even faster rate.
Today, our lawa-an trees are no longer found growing in commercial quantities.
It is truly tragic that, in order to keep our plywood mills humming, we now have to import Philippine mahogany from Indonesia and Malaysia.
Now, a private company called LIFE—Lasallian Institute for the Environment, an education and advocacy organization—has launched a project called “Better Late Than Never — Green for Life: One Million Trees and Beyond.”
The goal is to respond and contribute to our environmental situation by planting and nurturing one million trees by 2011.
Please notice the word “nurture.” LIFE ensures that the seedlings really become trees. Much is wasted in planting programs that are neglected soon after the planting (and the press releases).
LIFE partners with local communities to sustain the program and has added a livelihood component to the partnership.
For example, in Mount Palay-palay, LIFE “buys” the seedlings grown by the local community by swapping them with coconut seedlings.
In Nakar town in Quezon province, east of Manila, working with the General Nakar Development Corp., an NGO, LIFE traded fruit-bearing trees for wildlings. LIFE then planted the wildlings in other projects.
LIFE plants trees that are indigenous to the area. If lawa-an grows in the area, LIFE will plant the lawa-an seedlings there.
LIFE started in January last year. The group planted 8,000 seedlings last year and about 16,000 seedlings so far this year.
Sites include Agos River in Nakar, Calatagan town in Batangas province, Antipolo City in Metro Manila, and Mount Palay-palay in Cavite province.
LIFE aims to plant a total of 100,000 seedlings by the end of the year, and then 250,000 seedlings every year thereafter.
LIFE is now evaluating and targeting new sites in the watershed in San Pablo, Laguna, at Ipo Dam in Bulacan province and Wawa Dam in Rodriguez town, outside Manila.
Since July 28 last year, LIFE has been planting trees in Mount Palay-palay National Park, in Maragondon town in Cavite and in a 280-hectare restoration area that needs reforestation because of illegal logging, cattle grazing and kaingin (slash and burn) farming.
Let us hope that other private companies will follow the lead of LIFE.
You want to help? Get in touch with my drinking buddy, executive director Jorge C. Buenaventura at his email address: jorgeb@first-datacorp.com.
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