Sánchez: Mother trees

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

I’M SURE many Filipinos can connect with Madonna images. Well, the Madonna-and-Child, the Blessed Mother of God. But this is not a theological piece. This is about a mother and her offspring. Of mother trees and their seedlings.

I got a reaction from Dr. Paciencia Milan who emailed me her comments, especially after my column “Exasperation over exotics” were posted online. Dr. Milan commented that it’s not about the offspring or the seedlings. It’s also the source of seedlings, what foresters call “mother trees.”

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She wrote, “I have been asked...what is a mother tree? My usual answer is a mother is one who can produce offspring; a mother tree is one who could produce seeds and/or wildlings for propagation.”

Milan then shared that in ViSCA (now the Visayan State University)’s Tropical Program from 1990-1999, they implemented a program component: Protect Mother trees in Mt. Pangasugan, Visca, Baybay Leyte.

Their aim was protect those big trees about 20-80 yrs old like almon (Shorea), dao (Dracontomelon), narra (Pterocarpus), red lauan (Shorea), white lauan (Pentacme), molave (Vitex), Kalumpit (Terminalia),
Yakal (Hopea), tangile (Shorea) and other lesser-known native trees.

In fact, the ViSCA Tropical Program was the inspiration for the implementation of rainforestation that I managed in 2008-09 in the buffer zones of the Mt. Kanlaon Natural Park. An important component of that project is exactly to protect the endemic mother trees in agrarian reform areas around MKNP.

I emailed her that I’m biased toward community-based NRMs, and that protecting mother trees make full use of local experts and indigenous knowledge, in contrast with clonal technologies that rely on outsider, “expert” driven knowledge, which if memory serves has not even been mentioned in P-Noys Executive Order 26, the policy framework of the National Greening Program.

I rhetorically asked why the government should rely on clonal technologies when mothers can produce sturdier offsprings? I suggested that we should bring this point to policy-makers and require it in our rainforestation projects and the NGP money to be invested in clonal technology could perhaps better be invested in inventories of mother trees and the study of their flowering cycles.

On her part, Milan said that in Leyte, particularly in our area, their strategy is to disprove the claim of people in government that it is difficult to raise native tree seedlings or we do not have enough of native tree seedlings for reforestation; hence the use of exotics.

“We want to prove that if we put our mind and heart on it (as well as resources, of course) farmers can raise native tree seedlings provided they are provided with incentives. That is another reason that we
consider this as a way to enhance their income. They have done enough planting trees or reforesting areas destroyed by loggers. It is high time they get something in return. Di ba justice is served then?”

I am totally convinced of what she said. Narrative reports and PowerPoint presentations are easy to sell to those who want to study ViSCA’s experiences. But the proof of the pie is not in the pudding but in tall standing endemic species that I saw in many planting sites during a study tour of Leyte in 2008. No one can fake standing trees and their sturdy roots, belying the smirk that I often see from DENR foresters about the the impracticality of using native tree species for reforestation.

Milan insists “that in any reforestation, restoration or greening program that is initiated be it done by government, POs, NGOs or whoever, this should be coupled with forest protection. No amount of planting trees will mean anything if we don’t put a premium on maintenance of planted trees and at the same time protecting standing trees.”

Early on, Milan mentioned that as the chair of the Philippine Tropical Forest Conservation Foundation, she voiced the institution’s concern about the disturbing trend of how DENR is promoting exotic forest trees over our own native flora/forest trees in reforestation/greening program among other similar programs. EO 26 could be interpreted as just a greening program where any tree or plant for that matter can green the land; coconut palms, rubber trees. Even vetiver grass could be candidates.

So now, my question in Negros: whither are we going with our NGP version. Exotics or endemics?