ARMM gov't confident 10-M trees will be planted by 2016

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - The natural resources department of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) is confident it can achieve its target of planting 10 million trees in denuded lands before the ARMM is replaced with a Bangsamoro entity by 2016.

Kahal Kedtag, regional secretary of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in ARMM, said personnel of their field offices, assisted by various non-government organizations and the military, already planted 2.3 million trees in barren areas from late 2011 up to the first quarter of 2014.

Kedtag said the most active supporters of the DENR-ARMM’s reforestation projects are the Army’s 603rd Brigade in Maguindanao, and the office of Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu.

Kedtag said the provincial government of Maguindanao has been distributing for free rubber tree seedlings, by the thousands, since Mangudadatu’s first election as governor in 2010.

“Rubber trees can also become good `forest cover’ for mountain tops and plain fields. When farmers start harvesting rubber sap from these trees, they will also protect the trees to the best they can,” Kedtag said.

Members of the Army’s 603rd Brigade based in Camp Abubakar, a 13,400-hectare plateau at the tri-boundary of Maguindanao’s adjoining hinterland Buldon, Barira and Matanog towns, have also been planting forest tree seedlings in the surroundings of their camp since early this year.

Kedtag said their efforts to curb illegal logging activities in the autonomous region got a much-needed boost when ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman, while still an appointed caretaker of the regional government, declared a moratorium on cutting of trees in areas under his administrative jurisdiction.

The suspension order issued in early 2012 by Hataman, who was elected ARMM governor on May 13, 2013, will remain as long as he is chief executive of the autonomous region, said Kedtag.

“This has resulted to a `zero illegal logging’ in the autonomous region. Over and above this regional moratorium is the Executive Order 29, which was issued by President Benigno Aquino III that effectively banned all forms of logging activities in the Philippines,” Kedtag pointed out.

Kedtag said the Hataman administration is grateful to the Department of National Defense and the Philippine National Police for helping carry out its anti-illegal logging thrusts in the component provinces of the autonomous region – Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur,  both in mainland Mindanao, and the islands of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

Kedtag said the ARMM’s “regreening program” is also being supported by the Hineleban Foundation, Inc. under the Mindanao Rainforest Initiative program.