EO 26 enjoins students, govt workers to plant 10 trees a year

Starting this year, students and government employees will be required to plant a minimum of ten seedlings per year as part of the Aquino administration’s initiative to grow 1.5 billion trees in six years. The planting of 1.5 billion trees in about 1.5 million hectares of land was stated in Executive Order 26, declaring the implementation of the National Greening Program (NGP) as a government priority, which President Benigno Aquino III signed last month. The other priority programs of the government are poverty reduction, resource conservation and protection, productivity enhancement, and climate change mitigation and adaptation. The NGP is the consolidation of the government’s various greening efforts such as Upland Development Program and Luntiang Pilipinas, as well as similar initiatives of civil society organizations and other private groups. Under EO 26, all government institutions, especially Department of Agriculture, Department of Agrarian Reform, Deparment of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of Education and Commission on Higher Education are tasked to produce good-quality seedlings annually for the NGP. The technical assistance shall be provided by DA, DENR, and DAR under the Convergence Initiative. To ensure the successful implementation of the NGP, "all students, identified by the DepEd and CHED and all government employees shall be individually required to plant a minimum of ten (10) seedlings per year in areas determined by the Convergence Initiative." The National Convergence Initiative is an approach for implementing development projects that entail close coordination among the DA, DAR and DENR, as suggested and supported by the World Bank. "Private sectors and civil society groups shall likewise be encouraged to participate in the NGP," the EO states. The trees will be planted in the forestlands, mangrove and protected areas, ancestral domains, civil and military reservations, urban areas under the greening plan of the local government units, inactive and abandoned mine sites, and other suitable lands. With appropriate assistance from the government and the private sector, the community organizations will be given the primary responsibility of maintaining and protecting the established plantations, EO 26 states. It also says that all proceeds from agroforestry plantations, duly accounted by the DENR, will accrue to the NGP beneficiary communities to address food security and poverty reduction. The NGP beneficiary communities will be considered priority in the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Program. Appropriate incentives will also be developed to encourage reforestation, particularly in the protected area. The executive order states that DA, DAR and DENR will develop a centralized database and provide regular monitoring and timely report on the progress of the NGP. The private sector, civil society groups and academe will also be involved in the monitoring and evaluation of the NGP.—JV, GMA News