'Now's the best time to plant trees' - DENR

[GLT]

Posted By: Jovie Sison
To: Members in Plant Trees
'Now's the best time to plant trees' - DENR

By Tarra Quismundo, lifted without permission from the Philippine
Daily Inquirer
Thursday, June 23rd, 2011

Saying the wet season is the perfect time to go green, the Department
of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is calling on the public
to take advantage of the weather and plant trees in aid of
government’s National Greening Program (NGP).

Environment Secretary Ramon Paje made the call as the DENR geared for
the celebration of Arbor Day on Saturday, saying the commemoration is
“more significant… as the effort to win back the country’s forest has
been launched” under the NGP.

The NGP seeks to reforest some 1.5 billion trees on 1.5 million
hectares of government-selected lots from this year until 2016. The
program covers just part of roughly eight million hectares of
Philippine forestland that is currently “open and degraded,” Paje
said.

“It behooves all nature-loving Filipinos to observe Arbor Day every
day, and this call becomes even more compelling for all of us
considering that the prevailing weather conditions in most parts of
the country allow for this very important civic duty,” Paje said in a
statement.

He said the rainy season provided the perfect opportunity to grow
trees and other plants.
Paje said some 250 volunteers will mark Arbor Day by trekking some two
kilometres up the Ipo watershed in Norzagaray, Bulacan on Saturday to
plant some 2,500 seedlings of narra and cupang.