‘A GLOBAL TREE CITY’: City Hall eyes to plant 7,000 trees in metro

By: Emme Rose Santiagudo

A GLOBAL city with trees planted along its major thoroughfares is what the administration of Mayor Jerry Treñas envisions for Iloilo City in the next five to seven years.

In fact, the city government has prepared 7,000 fruit bearing, monocots, and other tree species in a major treeplanting activity sometime this week.

Armand Dayrit, Executive Assistant for Environment said in an interview on Monday that they are finalizing the schedule of the tree-planting activity on the floodway project at Barangay Buhang in Jaro district.

“We intend to plant on the floodway in Buhang, Jaro which is about 9 kilometers. We are going to plant on both sides. That is our plan but we are yet to met with the committee and decide on the final schedule,” he said.

According to Dayrit, they are also looking into copying the idea of a global city by planting more Narra trees in major thoroughfares in the metro.

“We would like to copy the idea of a global city where there are trees lining up in the major thoroughfares. We want to copy that idea into a certain area in the city and we will plant Narra trees. The mayor also intends to plant Narra trees in the major thorough fares in the city,” he said.

Aside from this, Dayrit said that they will also be reaching out to the barangays and encourage them to have their own nursery.

“We will train and we will cluster them so that they will have their own nursery,” he said.

On Monday, a ceremonial tree planting activity was conducted by the city government after the regular flag ceremony at the Plaza Libertad.

Treñas led the tree planting activity alongside the city government officials and the Iloilo City Hall Press Corps.

He emphasized that the conduct of tree planting activity is one of the mitigating measures of the city government against climate change.

“Ang aton sini guro nga maubra nga mag tanom sang kahoy, dyutay lang ni nga aton maubra para nga mahagan-hagan ang epekto sang climate change. We will undertake sustainable tree planting programs under the leadership of Mr. Armand Dayrit,” he said.