GENERAL SANTOS CITY (29 September 2014) – The “TreeVolution: Greening MindaNOW” sprouted hope in the mountains of Upper Labay where thousands of seedlings were planted in an hour on September 26.
From 8:30am to 9:30am, 35,000 seedlings of Mahogany and Nabol trees were propagated in the mountains of Purok Daan Banwang and Purok Abtu-is in Barangay Upper Labay by more than 4,000 volunteers.
The seedlings were provided by the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (CENRO) of the local government unit of General Santos City (LGU-GSC).
CENRO did not expect the TreeVolution to exceed the number of volunteers needed. CENRO had to reduce the number of seedlings per person so that everyone will have a chance to plant.
One of the eager planters was City Mayor Ronnel Rivera who arrived early in the site at Daan Banwang.
The mayor said the TreeVolution is an opportunity to restore the damaged forests here in Mindanao.
“Even our mountains and forests here are not really deforested compared to the other regions in Mindanao, it is still our duty to protect, preserve and make them flourish. We want the succeeding generations to still see what we are seeing today,” Mayor Rivera said.
The TreeVolution is a national greening program of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and Mindanao Development Authority (MINDA) which aims to plant 4.6 million trees in 9,272 hectares of land in the six regions of Mindanao, namely region 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and ARMM for an hour.
The massive tree planting activity is also an attempt of the Philippines to break the Guinness Book of World Records’ “Most Trees Simultaneously Planted in Multiple Locations” set by India.
India’s current record stands at 1,945,535 trees planted by 340,200 participants in one hour.
According to DENR Region 12 director Datu Tungko Saikol, they wanted to cover 1,000 hectares of land in the 20 planting sites within SOCSKSARGEN’s four provinces and five cities for the TreeVolution.
The director also conveyed that they distributed 504,500 seedlings to the participating LGU’s in Region 12 for the TreeVolution.
DENR Secretary Ramon Paje was also present in Davao City to observe the tree planting there, along with the representatives from Guinness World Records.
Undersecretaries of DENR were delegated by Secretary Paje in selected planting sites such as in General Santos, Butuan, Cagayan de Oro, and Zamboanga to also observe the activities. (Gensan CPIO/ Ian John M. Lagare)
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