The activity is in celebration of the Philippine Arbor Day and the World Environment Month this June.

From the academe, to the local communities, city government officials and civil servants, other national government agencies based in the city, non-government organizations, lawmen and reservist, almost everyone who felt its high time to act collectively to fight environmental degradation showed up to get re-united with Mother Nature.

Around 1,000 gmelina seedlings were planted at the city’s 16-hectare tree park in just an hour, according to Gester Tolentino, Agriculturist II and in-charge of the park’s development.

Tolentino said the most of the seedlings were already locally grown at the city’s plant nursery.

The said nursery was established a year ago at the project site and is now supplying the forest tree seedlings requirement of the city’s 39 barangays.

The initiative, it was learned, was part of Mayor Hernani A. Braganza’s effort to encourage Alaminians to plant and nurture trees aimed at covering the city in lush green.

“But the bigger goal of our beloved mayor, is of course, contribute much to the worldwide effort to address global warming,” he added.

Tolentino disclosed that the seedlings are given to interested residents for free.

In exchange of the seedling though, recipients are advised to bring any kind of seeds of fruit bearing or forest trees or even high commercial crops or veggies to the nursery.

This will help replenish the seed bank which are being grown and nurtured by the park’s personnel at the plant nursery for future use in the barangays.

 Other seedlings that were planted at forest park come from the community environment and natural resources office (CENRO)-Alaminos.

City councilor Earl James Aquino, who earlier welcomed all the participants during the brief program, said the tree planting activity is one of the perfect ways to give back to Mother Nature what was taken from her.

This is the time of the year when we share the same commitment and act as one to save our environment from further destruction, said the SP committee chair on agriculture and the vice president of the Junior Chamber International (JCI) Hundred Islands.

“Hopefully, we could really sustain what we are doing right now because this does not only benefit our environment,” said city councilor Carolyn-Dizon.

“This is beneficial to us human beings, who should be taking good care of our environment in the first place,” added the president of JCI-Hundred Islands.

Sison expressed her excitement to be a part of the bigger campaign of re-greening the city especially now that thousands of the trees in the communities were uprooted or destroyed by typhoon Emong.

She also assured that the city council will continue to support all the environmental protection, conservation and rehabilitation program of the city government.

City administrator Wilmer Panabang, who called the tree planting activity as green day in the city, further stressed that this annual tree-planting activity is in line with the Alaminos vision of green and vibrant city in the next 10-15 years.

 “We are gathered here today to re-green our denuded mountains,” he said. Tomorrow, let’s plant more trees in our idle private lands but not near our houses, segregate our solid waste and encourage our barangaymates to do the same to fight climate change.”

Meanwhile, Forester Pacencia Votacion of CENRO-Alaminos challenged the city’s students to take giant strides to nurture the trees that they have planted.

Please find time to visit your plants regularly and plant more trees not only in our city’s tree park but within your school premises, she added.

For her part, OIC-city agriculturist Arceli Talania noted that with the flora and fauna present at the city’s tree park, the city residents could easily transform more idle hilly lands into forest parks in the future.

Talania, who was joined by some organic rice farmers in the city, took the opportunity to encourage the city’s youth groups, NGOs to join other movement that champions the cause of the environment

This include environmental awareness campaigns, coastal clean-up drives, and on proper disposal of solid wastes as well as supporting the Go-Organic Movement on which, the city government is one of the key movers to produce healthier food for the people, provide better yield for the farmers and ensure cleaner and sound environment.

In 2003, the city government of Alaminos was among the few cities or town in country that entered into a memorandum of agreement with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for the latter’s Adopt-A-Mountain Project, a program aimed at encouraging local government units or entities to adopt a portion of public lands for agro-forestry development.

Today, the city’s tree park is almost 95% covered with various plants and trees. Aside from its green landscape, it boosts cool ambience, biodiversity and the presence of some wild life in the area.

It is also perfect for family or group outings, camping, adventure sports such as hiking, mountain bike race, retreats, bird watching or nature photography.

And since the area almost saturated with trees, the city government is now looking for expansion areas which will soon be established as potential tree park or another tourist attraction in the city.

Noting that the program has so many benefits to the environment, both locally and globally, to the city residents in general and to the future generations of Alaminians in particular, plans for city to adopt more areas for development are already on the pipeline. (CIO)