Slowly But Surely Approach

Seeds of Change

One gigantic task that Filipinos have been trying to accomplish countless times is tree planting. Many administrations in recent memories have dwelt on this activity, spending a lot of financial as well as human resources but only to fail miserably. I recall in the 80’s, World Bank had financed Hundreds of Millions of dollars in reforestation but only a few hectares can be shown by a government agency entrusted with the project. There was one Cabinet Secretary who made tree planting along the Maharlika Road from Aparri to Jolo his centerpiece project for his term. Many participated with good intentions and many also participated just for photo opportunities. Results: Nada.

But why did tree planting projects in the Philippines fail? First and foremost is the lack of care. In my plantations, after planting seedlings, we see to it that we clear their surroundings every other month or say, 4-6 times a year. They are also protected from strong winds during typhoon season with a stick tied to every seedling/ tree. It’s actually a neverending caring since even when trees have grown up to maturity, they are still subjected to vagaries of weather: drought or typhoons (Typhoon Glenda felled 50% of the trees in our plantations. But thanks to our anticipation, we made planting denser than normal, so even if the 50% was destroyed what was left was still within the ideal trees population per hectare).

We have likewise planted in a property within the fringes of Clark, a lahar country. This had proven to be a very expensive operation as we had to build water pumps at the center of the plantations. Not only does lahar not offer any food nutrients to the trees, it is also warm during summer. So we fertilize and water the trees at least once a week which makes it very expensive in terms of input materials and labor costs. Hopefully, we will be the only “fool” who have planted and grown trees in the lahar country. In our plantations in Southern Luzon, no need to fertilize as the soil there is suitable enough for planting and rains are also enough to grow trees.

In conclusion, most of the government and or civic oriented tree planting projects fail because of the absence of strong motivations to grow trees in the light of their realities and difficulties. After growing the trees through the sweat of their brows, who owns them? What is in it for me? I think the civic or environmental intention is not enough to motivate people to grow trees (not to plant as the latter is easy). Besides, growing trees is not cheap, especially, nowadays in this part of the world where we have erratic weather condition, too wet and too dry or even too windy during typhoon seasons.

For a Rotary tree planting project to succeed, my recommendation is for RCM to take the “slowly but surely approach”. Maintain a small and highly doable tree planting/ growing projects in some selected areas, a scale of say 1-2 hectares that the club can fully finance (a hectare or 2 can be tended by one man, at minimum wage plus government mandated benefits or about 10,000 per month or 120,000 per year. This amount does not include yet fertilizer and tools which are not as substantial as labor). In order to ensure survival, the assignment must be for two years, after which the tree could be self sustaining.

The above tree planting should serve as showcase to skeptics and the like to prove that Rotary tree planting is not only for photo opportunities but for real. Rotary has to create a reputation of good results if it wants to be rewarded with respect and consequently, donations from corporate or foreign grants. The Philippines needs billion trees to make an impact on global warming. To attain this, it may really take years and tears. It’s alright . After all “Rome was not built overnight”!