THE National Greening Program (NGP) has exceeded its 2014 target of planting 300,000 hectares with native and fruit-bearing trees as of December 6, an official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) said.
Forest Management Bureau Director Ricardo Calderon, who is also the national coordinator of the NGP, said that, so far, 309,000 hectares of open, degraded and denuded forests have been planted with more than 168 million trees throughout the country.
The NGP, President Aquino’s flagship reforestation program, aims to plant 1.5 billion trees in 1.5 million hectares by 2016.
So far, more than 900,000 hectares have been planted to trees since the program started in 2011.
Calderon said that nearly half of the trees planted this year since June are high-value crops as part of the strategy to help address hunger and poverty, particularly in upland areas.
A climate-change mitigation and adaptation measure, poverty alleviation, and food self-sufficiency program rolled into one, the program was given a budget of more than P6.8 billion this year.
Next year, around P7.2 billion will be spent to plant 220 million trees in 300,000 hectares.
Calderon said more timber and fuel woods will be planted next year as compared to this year, when focus was given to expanding coffee, cacao, and rubber tree plantations particularly in Mindanao.
While he said that the DENR prioritizes non-governmental organizations, farmers’ organizations and cooperatives as suppliers of planting materials for timber, fuel woods and other fruit-bearing trees, of the P3.6 billion to be spent by the government.
Half of the P3.6-billion budget will be for the production of high-value crops such as rubber, coffee and cacao, which will be outsourced to certified seedlings providers to ensure the supply of quality planting materials.
The official said that to maintain over 900,000 hectares of NGP areas, the government will spend around 1.6 billion next year and will continue to tap community stakeholders and upland dwellers as seed producers, planters and forest caretakers, to create more green jobs.
“Tree-planting activities will continue until the end of the year. So far, we have already exceeded our target,” Calderon, told the BusinessMirror.
This is the fourth straight year that the government exceeded its annual NGP target.
From 2011 to December 2013, a total of 397,769,713 trees have been planted in 683,481 hectares, or 33,160 hectares, in excess of the 2011, 2012 and 2013 combined targets of 600,000 hectares.
Calderon attributed the successful implementation of the NGP to the support of various national government agencies, local governments, and the DENR’s private-sector partners.