DENR eyes 1.5B trees for Aquino’s reforestation program

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on Sunday bared its plan to plant 1.5 billion trees around the country during the next six years as part of President Benigno Aquino III’s reforestation program. DENR chief Ramon Paje said the target number of trees will replenish 1.5 million hectares out of the eight million hectares of denuded forest areas nationwide. “At least during his term, President Aquino wants to grow back the lost forest cover of the country," he said in a statement Sunday. The DENR’s target is more than twice the government’s accomplishment of 730,000 hectares of reforested areas in the past 25 years, he added. Paje said the DENR will harness the help of 1.2 million government employees nationwide to plant at least 10 seedlings each to accomplish its target number of trees. Around 14 million students and 20 million residents in upland communities will also be tapped for the program. The program will cover not only forestlands but also mangrove areas, ancestral domains, civil and military reservations and urban zones, Paje said. DENR’s reforestation program is in accordance with Executive Order 26 signed by President Aquino last month. The EO tasks the DENR to spearhead the administration’s national greening program. “With EO 26, the President has effectively put order and complimentarity to all past greening efforts to regain the country’s verdant past and self-sufficiency in its timber needs," he said. — Andreo Calonzo/KBK, GMA News