Alvarez places Itogon town under integrated watershed management

ITOGON, Benguet – Upon the urging of the towns local officials, Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Heherson Alvarez has placed this entire town under a management plan formally called the Itogon Integrated Watershed Management Project (IIWMP).

Alvarez was here recently for the lowering of the time capsule for the project’s main building and to distribute a total of P43,658,681 in pledges for the town’s nine barangays for use in water conservation, livelihood and forest protection.

Alvarez’ visit to Itogon – which is the nearest watershed for the controversial San Roque Multi-Purpose Project – caps the earlier memorandum signing last month of memorandum order no. 14 "placing the entire municipality under the IIWMP covering a total land area of 49,656.7 hectares in response to Resolution Nos. 16 and 109 and 126 of the Municipality of Itogon calling for the implementation of a Watershed Management Plan."

During the same visit, the environment secretary also inaugurated the sub-project site management office where a cloning laboratory will soon rise "for the mass production of seedlings that will be used to reforest not only the Itogon watershed but other parts of Luzon as well."

The clonal laboratory, which covers more than a hectare at 600 meters above sea level, is foreseen to produce the following per year; macrosomatic propagation of forest crops at 600,000 marcots of fast-growing tree species and 300,000 indigenous species; macrosomatic propagation of fruit trees at 3,000 or more planting materials from the trees’ trunks and branches, and bamboo materials at 2,000 or more.