By: Jemin B. Guillermo
Various government agencies, civic groups and organizations, as well as private individuals, took the challenge to plant one million trees in a day.
During the Provincial Arbor Day in Capiz on June 25, 2019, employees and officials from the various government and private entities, and students here participated in the planting of forest trees, fruit trees, coconut, coffee, bamboo and mangrove propagules at the government sites and privately-owned land in the province.
School children, barangay officials and tanods, Pantawid Pamilya beneficiaries, fishpond laborers and ordinary citizens gave time to plant trees as their contribution to Mother Nature.
Dubbed as “One Million Trees in One Day Challenge,” the event which is on its second year now, is spearheaded by the Capiz Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (CaPENRO) led by lawyer Emilyn Arboleda-Depon.
“This is really a challenge to plant one million trees in a day because of the many challenging factors affecting the program, to include among others, the transition period for new local political leadership,” Depon said during the recent coordination meeting.
She added that the weather condition could somehow affect the tree planting activity especially when it would rain or it would be too hot on the scheduled tree planting day.
The planting materials for the tree planting activity here came from national government agencies, local government units and other provinces in Western Visayas, private entities and individuals.
Of the different agencies, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has given 500,000 seedlings for the activity aside from the coco planting materials from the Philippine Coconut Authority, and other planting materials from the Department of Agriculture, Capiz State University, local government unit of Iloilo and Aklan, and many others.
Per inventory prior to the “big day,” more than one million planting materials were ready for planting activity.
Last year, 1,148,875 trees were planted in different planting sites in the province.
Of the total planted trees, more than 600,000 were partially recorded to have survived per monitoring by the CaPENRO.
Depon said, “Imagine the power we have to restore nature. Imagine the capability we have to make a change. We can’t stop the development and we are running out of time. We have to do something to help the environment.”
“The One Million Trees in One Day Challenge is just the first step towards the real change. Do this for the future of our planet,” Depon said. (PIA)
