LEGAZPI CITY, Jan. 9 (PNA) -- The government's National Greening Program (NGP) in Bicol gained headway by surpassing its greening target by 12 percent with 6,303 hectares of open and denuded forestland planted with close to four million tree seedlings, a top official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in the region said on Monday.
When the NGP was launched in Bicol in May last year, various stakeholders across the region were able to plant 3.9 million tree seedlings in some 6,303.9 hectares of open and denuded forest land, way above (12 percent) its 5,584 hectares target for 2011, Joselin Marcus Fragada, DENR regional executive director said.
“Despite the fact that the NGP was carried out by the 2nd Quarter of 2011, we were able to exceed our target -- a significant achievement of our commitment to the government’s greening program,” Fragada in an interview said.
Fragada, quoting a yearend report from the Forest Management Service (FMS) on the agency’s National Greening Program (NGP) implementation in Bicol, said Camarines Sur led with 2,102,578 trees seedlings planted in 3,005.98 has.; followed by Albay with 478,999 seedlings planted in 854.5 has; Camarines Norte was third with 413,448 seedlings planted in 641.2 has.
Masbate has 357,305 seedlings in 714.5 ha, Catanduanes was fifth with 332,486 seedlings planted in 663.2 has., and Sorsogon with 227,561 seedlings planted in 407.3 has.
Based on the report, some 21,690 stakeholders have already enlisted in the program and took part in planting the seedlings during the year.
They represented a cross section of public and private volunteers from government agencies, schools, civic organization including the church, local government units, and business sectors.
Because of the positive development affecting the NGP Environment Sec. Ramon Paje announced recently that the DENR intended to double the national target at 200,000 hectares for 2012.
Meanwhile, Paje reiterated NGP’s goal of posting a minimum survival rate of 80 percent for the seedlings by tapping science and sound upland practices and confining identified NGP planting sites only in areas where there are communities who will be tapped to maintain and ensure growth of planted seedlings into mature trees.
The NGP targets to plant 1.5 billion tree seedlings in 1.5 million hectares nationwide from 2011 to 2016.
Priority areas for planting include mangrove and protected areas, ancestral domain areas, civil and military areas, urban areas under the greening plan of LGUs, inactive and abandoned mine sites, and all other suitable lands for reforestation.
“This year, we will double the effort to have practically all Bicolanos do their share in planting 10 trees each,” Fragada said. (PNA)
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