The municipality of Ayungon is the rice bowl of Central Negros, a peaceful community of healthy and God-fearing people who live in a sustainably managed and ecologically balanced environment. Located on the midriff of Oriental Negros’s northern stretch and approximately two hours away from Dumaguete City, Ayungon is home to a 9.4-hectare tree nursery, the biggest in the Philippines.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), under its National Greening Program, has established the Mechanization and Modernization of Forest Nursery (MMFN) as one of its strategies to attain the goal of planting 1.5 billion trees covering about 1.5 million hectares for a period of six years, from 2011 to 2016, as stipulated in Executive Order 26.
The five pilot sites are in Bicutan, Taguig City (National Capital Region); Solana, Cagayan (Region 2); Sipocot, Camarines Sur (Region 5); Ayungon, Negros Oriental (Region 7); and Bislig, Surigao del Sur (Region 13).
Like many places all over the country, forests in Ayungon have become denuded. Because of the overgrowth of cogon grass—as well as the intensifying effects of global warming—the hills of Ayungon have been rendered barren for years.
The DENR, with the support of local people’s organizations, and local government officials are currently in the middle of nursing the forests of Ayungon back to health through the mechanized nursery, the only one in the Visayas. The nursery can produce about 30 million seedlings in six months using the machines for the automated bagging of soil and planting. It taps some 500 workers from Ayungon and neighboring municipalities.
“It’s a big help to Ayungon,” Banban Barangay Captain Jose Montelibano said in the local dialect.
Montelibano is also the head of the Asosasyon sa Katawhan sa Lamigan, Banban ug Nabhang nga Nagkahiusa, which manages the nursery and has also taken charge of planting the seedlings.
The fast-growing mangiums act as great nurse trees that are meant to provide shelter and shade for the smaller, slower-growing dipterocarps, which are hardwood trees that are a good source of timber. The mangium trees will also acclimatize the soil to make it conducive to the dipterocarps.
Aside from the trees, the DENR said agricultural crops were also planted in Ayungon. This ensures that famers will have a steady source of income while they await the growth of the trees.
Ayungon’s nursery not only supplies mangiums and dipterocarps to be able to restore forests in the second-class municipality, but it also supplies seedlings to Regions 6 and 8 and other regions that do not have their own nurseries.
Working together, residents and local government officials of Ayungon hope to transform their municipality into a greener area.
“I will transform the entire place into a forest,” Mayor Edsel Enardecido said in the local dialect.
While it has been revving up its growth engines to boost its economy, Ayungon has been able to retain its charm and beauty. The municipality features vast and scenic rice fields, dense coconut groves and expansive plantations of sugarcane, bananas, mangoes and pineapple.
Ayungon is endowed with abundant natural resources from its forest to the corals in the shorelines. The highlands of Ayungon nurture one of the only three remaining virgin forests on Negros Island.
Nature lovers will be regaled by sights in Nabingka Caves, vast areas of mangrove forest, the cool water of Maaslum Falls and the Ayungon People’s Park, while being warmth by the friendly Ayunganons.
“To consolidate these resources, the municipality endeavors to develop productive human resources and infrastructure to promote and strengthen agri-based ventures, support ecotourism and sustainably manage an ecologically balanced environment,” Enardecido added.
Ayungon is a second-class municipality in the province of Negros Oriental. According to the 2015 census, it has a population of 46,303 people.
It is said that Ayungon is derived from the name of a deaf man, Ayung, who cut down a dungon tree. Old municipal profiles refer to Ayungon as “Todos los Santos” though there are no legends to explain that Hispanic name, just as there are no tales elaborating on the ruins of apparently Hispanic fortifications on the Tampocon II shoreline, perhaps because Ayungon’s colonial past was not entirely its own: for many years it was a mere barrio of Tayasan, until 1924, when Governor General Leonard Wood came to establish Ayungon as a full-fledged municipality.