ILOILO CITY – Over 118,982 hectares in Western Visayas have been planted with trees under the Enhanced National Greening Program (ENGP) since its implementation in 2011 until 2023, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said on Thursday.
The ENGP, the flagship initiative of the DENR, aims to cover the remaining 7.1 million hectares of open, degraded, and denuded forests in the country.
DENR OIC Regional Director Raul Lorilla said they have a target area of 309,000 hectares in Western Visayas, which they aim to complete by 2028.
“We have a long way to go about reforestation. However, this cannot be addressed by planting trees alone. We have natural regeneration where forests, when effectively and well-protected, will regenerate. What is important is that our reforestation in NGP should be coupled with forest protection,” he said during the Kapihan sa Bagong Pilipinas.
The DENR tapped the services of 1,819 contractors for the reforestation and protection armed with the community-based forest management agreement (CBFMA), giving them the authority to manage their area.
“In totality, we can really close the gap between the open access and our reforestation. We intend here to develop the area because we know that this is the only strategy that is so potent to address climate change,” Lorilla said.
He said they are planning to implement Project Transform, where they will enlist the support of private individuals, groups, and companies in the rehabilitation efforts.
He said the NGP has helped increase the forest cover in the region, which is now at 12.89 percent.
The percentage is not ideal since the forestland area should be at 32 percent of the over two million-hectare area of the region.
To complement the ongoing efforts, the DENR from 2022 until June 2024 has produced 3,982,007 million seedlings and planted 2,648,906 for the same period. (PNA)
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