Sánchez: Rainforestation in NGP

Friday, January 6, 2012

THE first time I heard of “rainforestation” in P-Noy’s National Greening Program, I heaved a sigh of relief. For a country and province reeling from a series of natural disasters such as the flash floods in Ormoc, Quezon Province, and lately in Cagayan de Oro and Iligan, and in Negros Oriental, NGP seems to be the answer to our prayers and recovery from our losses. Trees are guardians of our topsoil and help prevent water run-offs which could translate into flash floods.

P-Noy’s Presidential Executive Order 26 proclaims the NGP as a platform for poverty reduction, resource conservation and protection, productivity enhancement, climate change mitigation and adaptation as a high government priority.

Have something to report? Tell us in text, photos or videos.

To achieve these goals, government will plant 1.5 billion trees covering 1 .5 million hectares of public lands from 2011-2016. Impressive goals.
What I found more impressive is Memorandum Circular 01, Series of 2011 talked of developing upland farms through agroforestry and rainforestation.

“Rainforestation sets us apart from other reforestation program which is to plant fast-growing exotic trees not native to the Philippines, like mahogany and gmelina,” explained Dr. Paciencia Milan, the former Visayan State University president and now chairs the Philippine Tropical Forest Foundation, Inc, which is funded by the debt-for-nature swap between the Philippine and US government.

DENR MC 06, Series of 2004 emphasizes Dr. Milan’s point on rainforestation more clearly. It said that as a “concept of forest restoration, only indigenous and endemic tree species which include but not limited to dipterocarp species, premium tree species.

But when it came to crunch numbers, however, the NGP MC talked of quantitative targets of 50 million seedlings broken down for 2011 as follows: 5 million seedlings of dipterocarps, narra, and other premium and indigenous forest tree species; 25 million of mahogany, gmelina, bagras, various species of acacia, rubber, fast-growing, and other production/protection forest tree species; and 20 million seedlings of mango, coffee, cacao, cashew, guyabano and other fruit tree species.

In other words, the national priority turned out to be exotic species, so-called because these species are not native to our rainforests. Ranforestation as the world of forest conservation knows it has been reduced to tokenism while the lion share of the NGP budget will go to exotics.

Here in Negros Occidental, a source at the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office told me of the 60-20-20 formula, which seems a lot better than the national agenda. The 60 is the percentage that will go toward seedling production of endemics, with the remaining 40 percent divided equally into fruit and exotic species.

Mountain tree farmers who raise seedlings then hole, stake, hole and plant hardened seedlings could find themselves among the nouveau riche. The government will pay them P145 per seedling. With such incentives, who could care about sugarcane, when can follow the money and plant trees?
When it came to its pricing scheme, however, the DENR will pay seedling growers P45 per seedling of fruit trees, and P12 of endemic species. In other words, a seedling of coffee is deemed more precious than say a seedling of a red lauan or of narra. My source said the pricing scheme came straight from the DENR central office.

Why would a seed grower produce endemics when they can earn FOUR times from selling fruit tree seedlings? Collecting wildlings from mother trees are back-breaking work inside forests compared to fruit trees that are usually planted in backyards.

I asked my colleagues in Metro-Manila to double the pricing and the 60-20-20 scheme. But from what I read and heard, it’s a messy policy formulation, with so many inconsistencies. As a child game says, one of the pictures do not belong in the set. In NGP’s case, many components do not belong to concepts and policies formulated by DENR itself. The confusion reeks from top to bottom.

There will be a dialog between DENR Secretary Ramón Paje and my colleagues who are big on forest conservation this coming January 10. Among them will include former DENR Secretary Bebet Gozun. I hope the dialog clears up the air of inconsistencies and produce new guidelines. NGP is too good a program to be hobbled by policy confusion and conflicting provisions.

Please email comments to bqsanc@yahoo.com