Bohol hilltop-town residents in novel, cheaper reforestation effort

Business Mirror
Sunday, 04 January 2009 22:46

DANAO, Bohol—Residents of this town on a hilltop literally in the middle of the forest are reviving and protecting their most valuable resource— the trees—in a very unique way. There are no usual nurseries, no seedlings and no tree-planting activities for photo-ops. It’s just the trees and good old nature doing the work with some helping hand from man.

Danao town (population 17,000) was once the impenetrable lair of the longest Filipino revolt against Spanish rule, which lasted for almost a hundred years led by Bohol’s pride, Francisco Dagohoy.

At present, it continues to lead in being the first in the country to adopt a new and very effective way of rehabilitating forests denuded by logging and destructive farming methods—assisted natural regeneration (ANR).

Instead of the usual and very costly planting of seedlings, which mostly die anyway, the people of Danao scour the grasslands to look for young trees, scattered by nature’s forces like the birds and the wind, and allow them to grow by removing obstacles like the ever-present cogon grass and other shrubs, giving the trees an opportunity to break out on own their own and scatter their seeds some more.

Mayor Louis Thomas Gonzaga said the forest is the town’s major resource and the local government is looking for ways for the people to reap the economic benefits of their movement, which they started in 2006. It is now a law in the town to adopt ANR.

Gonzaga said that by reviving their forest, they are positioning the town as a center for eco-adventure in central Philippines. The forest cover is also helping the town’s river basins and a power company is already talking with town officials for a possible construction of a hydroelectric power plant in the town.

“Our people have been in agriculture for so long and we have barely improved our economic situation,” Gonzaga told the BusinessMirror.

“We are not giving the people money to plant trees. We are motivating them to believe in this project. You just can’t tell them that it has to be done, you have to motivate them that there are actual benefits for them in the future.”

The town is also getting the support of other local governments. Gonzaga said they are currently talking with officials from Makati City for the country’s financial center to give financial assistance to Danao and the reforestation efforts to cover for Makati’s carbon emission. The carbon trade will require a number of trees enough to absorb the same volume of greenhouse-gas emissions in the urban center.

“This is being done in the international level but we are starting in a local level–town to town,” Gonzaga said.

“This is not required by law, but Makati is very conscious about its carbon footprint and we hope to partner with it.”

The town’s efforts are being assisted by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, as well as the Forest Management Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Bagong Pag-asa Foundation.

Neria Andin, assistant director of the Forest Management Bureau, said ANR is the most effective and cheapest way to recover the country’s lost forests. Aside from it does not require development and transport of trees up and down hills, it also allows local tree variety to survive in their natural environment.

Compared with as much as P44,000 per hectare for tree-planting activities, ANR will only require P20,000, Andin said.

“We are barely assisting nature in creating a new forest,” Andin said.

Pat Dugan, president of Bagong Pag-asa Foundation, said the mortality rate of natural grown seedlings or “regenerants” are also very promising. He estimates that at least some 9,000 regenerants can be found in a 150-square-meter area. At an average of 10-percent survival rate for every 100 square meter, then the forest is well on its way to recovery.

“People think the biggest cause of the destruction of the forest is logging. It’s not. It’s burning by farmers,” Dugan said. “It’s the humans who destroyed the forest and we can bring it back.”

Things are on a roll for Danao at present. A P17-million grant from the World Bank kickstarted its Extreme Eco Educational Adventure Tourism (EAT) Danao Project. Inside a 32-hectare complex lies every extreme activity one can think of—caving, river trekking, rubber tubing, rapelling, rock climbing, kayaking and root climbing.

Under construction is a giant zip line that will bring participants side by side the clouds on a good day, estimated to be completed by early 2009. Another round of assistance from the World Bank is also in the offing.

Danao, although still a bumpy 72 kilometers away from Tagbilaran City and the airport, is just under an hour from Tubigon town port, the closest port to Cebu City at just 30 minutes of sea travel, underlining its potential to draw in the big crowds for EAT Danao.

The provincial and national government is also pooling in money to fully develop the road network from Tagbilaran to Danao, as well as build the necessary facilities in the town. There is currently a tourist accommodation center—more like a clubhouse—several rooms and utilities already in place, but more rooms and more camp sites are needed if the town wants to bring in the big crowd and the big money.

Gonzaga said the ecotourism project is just one of the many benefits for the hard working people of Danao, all because they cared for their forest.