Established by virtue of Executive Order (EO) 26 signed by former President Benigno S. Aquino III on February 24, 2011, the National Greening Program (NGP) is one of the most ambitious reforestation programs to be launched by the Philippine government.
It targets to grow 1.5 billion trees in 1.5 million hectares of open, degraded and denuded forests from 2011 to 2016, with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) taking the lead.
The NGP, according to design and character, is all about partnership with people in the communities, Environment Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez said.
“I want the community involved. We will allow them to plant trees, they will provide the seedlings and they will be the ones to plant. We will help them with marketing and they will make money,” Lopez added, in describing how the NGP partnership with the people will be from now on. Lopez had earlier called for an audit of the NGP, saying that she is not happy with the accomplishment, even as she vowed to continue its implementation.
Social entrepreneurship
Lopez said the DENR, though the NGP, would invest in enterprise development in partnership with rural communities through the Natural Resources Development Corp. (NRDC), an attached agency of the DENR, created by EO 786 signed on March 19, 1982, by former President Ferdinand E. Marcos.
The law mandates the NRDC to undertake business and development projects, and to engage in the production of charcoal pig iron and small- and medium-scale steel mills, as well as the necessary support fuel wood; and encourage the private sector to engage in reforestation and industrial forestry operations.
The law also mandates the NRDC to ensure a stable market for natural resources-based products by coordinating the production and marketing activities of critical natural resources-based products, and promote investment in natural resources-based industries.
Lopez’s idea is for the DENR to create joint-venture agreements with rural communities to start business ventures anchored on the country’s natural resources.
Reversing deforestation
During the first five years of NGP implementation, the government had spent over P25 billion for the project. This year, its last year of implementation, the NGP has been allocated a whopping P8.2-billion budget.
Despite initial flaws, mainly because of planting the wrong species for specific NGP sites, the NGP’s implementation was a success. In fact, the Aquino administration can lay claim to it as one of its legacies—for reversing the trend of environmental degradation as far as forestry is concerned.
Former President Aquino also signed EO 193, expanding the coverage of the NGP from 2017 to 2028 to cover the remaining 7.1 million hectares of open, degraded and denuded forest.
Before its implementation, the rate of deforestation in the Philippines is 42,000 hectares a year, owing to legal and illegal-logging activities, slash-and-burn farming and charcoal production.
To complement the NGP, Aquino signed and issued EO 23, which declared a total log ban on natural and residual forests.
Because of the country’s depleted natural-resource base, forestry contribution to the GDP shrank continuously and is currently below 1 percent. Forest cover grew by 1.35 million hectares as of December 2015.
The DENR projects forest cover to grow by another 300,000 hectares, exceeding its overall, six-year target of covering 1.5 million hectares by at least 100,000 by the end of the year.
Through the NGP partnership, the DENR created over 2 million jobs, benefiting more than 320,000 people, mostly upland dwellers, being the DENR’s NGP partners.
Multipurpose partnership
The NGP is a reforestation, antipoverty and food-security program rolled into one. It is also a climate-change adaptation and mitigation strategy, which aims to address the impacts of climate change.
Former Environment Secretary Ramon J.P. Paje, in his last official state-of-the-environment report, credited the NGP for reversing the trend of environmental degradation as far as forestry is concerned as early as December 2014. From losing an average of 250,000 hectares annually, forest cover has already expanded.
He attributed this to the strong partnerships forged by the DENR with various stakeholders, particularly those enrolled under the DENR’s community-based forest management (CBFM) program, who are at the forefront of the government’s ambitious reforestation program.
A National Convergence Initiative, three national government agencies implement the program—the DENR, the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).
The partnership extends to local government units (LGUs), private sector, academe, research and development institutions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), people’s organizations (POs) and community-based organizations.
Seed production, planting, maintenance
To produce planting materials for the program, the DENR forged ties with 32 state universities and colleges (SUCs) for the establishment of clonal nurseries.
The DENR-funded research and production of planting materials by its SUC-partners, which established clonal nurseries in various sites.
It also established five mechanized tree nurseries, with five more currently in the pipeline.
The DENR forged ties with the private sector, academe and LGUs to boost seedling production; and tapped NGOs, POs and community-based organizations to establish regular tree nurseries for planting and maintenance of NGP sites.
Marj Marasigan, former NGP coordinator of the Foundation for the Philippine Environment (FPE), said the FPE and Philippine Tropical Forest Conservation Foundaton (PTFCF) mobilized its network of community-based organizations and indigenous peoples’ (IPs) groups on the ground to partner with the DENR for the NGP.
“It is a great opportunity for the civil-society organizations when we entered the NGP, although we cannot completely say it has been a fulfilling partnership because of the many challenges in its implementation,” she said.
Marasigan said FPE’s contribution to the NGP is only about 1 percent to 3 percent, given the limited number of community-based organizations under its network that got involved in the NGP.
Forest management through NGP
The bulk of the DENR’s NGP partners comes from its Community-Based Forest Management (CBFM) programs.
Nevertheless, FPE and PTFCF, she said, paved the way for the partnership to take shape in the early goings of the programs.
“We have received reports from POs about their success, others are challenging. We are working to have a case study to come up with a better recommendation to improve partnership with the DENR,” Marasigan said.
The tripartite partnership between the DENR, FPE and PTFCF started on February 20, 2012, and ended in June 2016. The NGP partners also act as protectors of the forest, being committed to a three-year contract with the DENR in the implementation of the NGP.
Partnership for social justice
An environmental advocate, Lopez has been consistently making pronouncements against social injustice brought about by irresponsible mining operations. So far, Lopez had caused the suspension of 10 mining operations, and issued show-cause orders to 20 others, for failing to meet environmental standards that cause suffering to people in mining communities.
As chief steward of the environment and natural resources, Lopez vowed to weed out irresponsible mining and stop environmental destruction, and vowed to use NGP as a tool to address hunger and poverty in mining-affected communities, as well as help displaced mine workers.
“I am committed to the people. I will help them,” Lopez said. Lopez added that, unlike mining, taking care of the forest can provide sustainable jobs and livelihood for the people.
Lopez said the capital-intensive extractive industry is not labor-intensive, citing that only 250,000 Filipino workers are employed in the industry, or 0.6 percent of total employment in the country.
Worse, she said irresponsible mining has a perverse vicious cycle: mining businesses produce mining-related jobs for affected communities.
She said communities stay long after mining operations close down.
“The people are not given sustainable livelihoods that outlive mining,” she said.
Lopez added that the DENR could tap the displaced workers for the NGP as part of the agency’s move to shift focus from being a regulatory arm to a more development-driven agency that will utilize its resources to pave the way for sustainable development.
As an alternative to mining, the DENR chief is eyeing to promote ecotourism in NGP sites, citing the La Mesa Ecopark in Quezon City.
La Mesa Ecopark, she said, generates P40 million in revenues annually. “That is a lot of money and the people can earn from ecotourism,” she said.
According to Lopez, the La Mesa Ecopark is an example of superb ecotourism following the basic concept of preserving the country’s natural resources without extraction, while generating revenues that can possibly beat the 1 percent of GDP the mining industry is giving the country.
The key to this, Lopez said, is to partner with other NGAs like the Department of Tourism, DA and the Department of Trade and Industry, to help jump-start the economy using the country’s resources through the NGP.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes
1 comment
NGP is indeed a very good program. Kindly consider distribution of dwarf fruit trees planting materials for the idle lands of Cagaut, Salcedo Eastern Samar https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1c6ca39110962221acce911cc02f0ab184b9859af3af12f94f829f00eab0fc91.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/92c0d9cae7057d43a46e7589a86317ddda59397950f3c79ecafc1856389c739f.jpg https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ab386e26f2ba3edd2a9a2c09ebc20e95ac620d1e1f9c4c1326730b9d7d4db982.jpg and other areas devastated by Supertyphoon Yolanda.
Thanks and God bless!!