Beyond the trees, a triumph in social mobilization
More than half a million trees planted in one day.
With this multi-sectoral feat, the Department of Environment and and Natural Resources scored a coup of sorts last August 25 with the opening salvo of the massive Green Philippine Highways project. It was an impressive illustration of the DENR's new strategic track: social mobilization.
"Stewardship of the environment is not the exclusive domain of the DENR and a fraternity of activist NGOs (non-governmental organizations)," Secretary Angelo T. Reyes explained. "It is a shared responsibility, and we want to emphasize that. The Department would like reach out more--to make its technical resources available to more sectors and communities through various programs--to make this happen."
Under the Green Philippine Highways project, more than 3,500 institutions, from companies and NGOs to schools and religious groups, stepped up to adopt stretches of the country's major roadways over the next three years. An estimated two million participants, including armies of schoolchildren, volunteered to help plant seedlings and saplings last Aug. 25.
To ensure an ample supply of saplings and seedlings for the project, the DENR regional offices tapped their own stock and those of private tree nurseries across the country. The Philippine Wood Producers Association (PWPA) contributed some 250,000 seedlings to the project.
Sponsors and volunteer groups included big companies like Unilever, Shell, Petron, Caltex, Total, PTT and Liquigaz and well-networked organizations like Couples for Christ and NAMFREL. In some areas, institutional partners enthusiastically took on the full-range of responsibilities for the project. In General Santos City, for example, Sagitarrius Mines, Inc. contributed narra, mahogany and tuai seedlings from its nursery in Tampakan, South Cotabato and mobilized B'laan and Christian communities and schoolchildren, along with its employees, in the tree-planting effort along the highway leading to the airport.
With the massive multi-sectoral support drawn to Green Philippine Highways, the project target has expanded from some 3,500 kilometers along the main national highways to 6,506 kilometers along major roads in 64 provinces in Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao.
Asked whether he thought Filipinos had set a world record for simultaneous planting of trees in a single day last Aug. 25, Reyes said: "That would be just icing on the cake. The important thing is tht we've achieved the short-term objective of mobilizing Filipinos from all sectors and all walks of life--across the political spectrum--to rally behind the environment."
"Over the medium-term, the challenge is to sustain that momentum so that communities and their fellow stewards would nurture those saplings to full maturity and add even more trees on vacant patches along our major roads and highways," he added. "If they are able to do that, then we can be assured of meeting the long-term goal of enhancing air quality in pollution-prone areas throughout the archipelago."