Magtanim ay 'di biro.

MANILA, Philippines - Planting Trees and World Peace – common clichés of most beauty pageants. And while the latter may sound a bit too utopian, the former is certainly much easier to execute. It is more realistic to accomplish, and very timely as well... as the country is down to a measly 24% of forest cover – not even half of the necessary 54% minimum forest cover to regulate ecological processes – as per the DENR’s records for 2004 (latest available data).

Hence, it is always a delight when nature-friendly private groups organize their own tree planting activities – because in a country where its government does not have nature preservation anywhere near the top of its national agenda, our resource-raped homeland needs as much help as it can get!

Having said that, I was able to join one of these nice forest-rehabilitation efforts last Saturday, August 6. It was a project of the Honda Foundation Incorporated (HFI) and involved planting 2,500 seedlings of native trees to help rehabilitate the Caliraya Watershed in Cavinti, Laguna.

Over 110 volunteers consisting of members from the HFI, Honda customers, dealers, suppliers and select members of the motoring media, participated in this tree-planting activity. This undertaking was in partnership with the Haribon Foundation, to support its “Road to 2020 project”. The gargantuan project aims to restore 1 million hectares of Philippine rainforest cover with native tree species, by the year 2020. This is in response to the country’s alarming deforestation rate and critical situation of many of its watersheds. The Caliraya Watershed in particular, was recommended as a good rehabilitation site by the NAPOCOR (National Power Corporation), as it is one of the more crucial watersheds that supplies water not only for drinking, but for power generation as well.

Tatsuya Natsume, President and General Manager of HCPI says, “Honda has been a devoted supporter of tree planting projects, and Haribon’s Road to 2020 is the most recent one. The Honda group of companies has pledged to rehabilitate 20 hectares of denuded land in a span of 10 years. So far, we have already covered three hectares, with the help of our dear volunteers.”

With the help of some warm sunshine and the inspiringly-proactive attitude of the members of our group, we quickly finished planting all 2,500 seedlings of Narra, Calumpit and Cupang trees. To be honest, I was quite surprised with how fast our mission was accomplished... Testament to the cheesy fact that it doesn’t really take that much effort to protect the environment, if we all worked together.

“And best of all,” adds Natsume, “Participating in tree planting is just plain fun!” I couldn’t agree more. It was a fulfilling out-of-town experience of giving back to nature (and perhaps learning how to properly plant a tree, too).

The HFI is composed of Honda Cars Philippines, Inc., Honda Philippines Inc., Honda Parts and Manufacturing Corporation and Honda Trading Philippines. The Foundation will continue to conduct further tree-planting activities until it completes the remaining 17 hectares it has pledged to rehabilitate. If you would like to take an active part in this movement, which I strongly urge you do (for both the fun and the social responsibility), you may visit their website www.hondaphil.com or any of their 28 authorized dealers nationwide.