The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) Negros Occidental Field Office actively engaged in reforestation efforts with Central Philippines State University’s Natural Resources and Environmental Management Services (NREMS) today, October 30.
Regreening CPSU’s Legacy Park 4, twenty-one DAR VI personnel including their Program Beneficiaries Development Division (PBDD) personnel, and District 4 DAR Municipal Office (DARMO) representatives participated in the tree planting activity where they planted wild native Philippine fruit trees locally known as the “lumangog” in attempts of helping provide the local fauna with habitats and more food sources.
SUC President, Dr. Aladino C. Moraca, NREMS Director, Sir Gregorio D. Predo, and Gender and Development (GAD) Program Director, Ma’am Shirley A. Calugcugan welcomed the participants and briefed them about the current biodiversity situation and conservation measures.
“We pursued the realization of this activity for our GAD program and in compliance with the mandate that government employees are required to plant at least ten trees annually, which we faithfully practiced. As officials and employees of DAR, we want the land that we endow to farmers to be not barren but productive and resilient, especially in times of calamity. We have witnessed how our lands were dried up in the recent El Niño phenomenon. Farmers also suffered because of the scarcity of water, and what we want to become is to be exemplars for our farmers to plant and nurture,” answered Provincial Agrarian Reform Program Officer (PARPO) I, Ms. Edna Villaruel, when asked about their objective for the tree planting endeavor.
DAR VI and local farmers whom they train under their Farm Business School program also previously participated in a tree planting activity organized by the NREMS last September 20 at CPSU’s Legacy Park 3.
“Not just “tree planting, but tree growing” so we chose to partner with CPSU and to have CPSU as our location for this activity to ensure that what we have planted will be well looked after. We’re also thinking of naming the trees we planted so that we will be even more driven to return and check on them in the future, which is something that I believe will invoke happiness and fulfillment in the team because it's something we all contributed and worked out for our environment,” Ms. Villaruel added.
Aligned with the CPSU GAD program, Director Calugcugan, who toured the DAR team in CPSU’s Main Campus, also emphasized the significance of women’s roles and empowerment in leading climate change mitigation and flora and fauna protection measures.
Director Predo is welcoming public and private institutions that are interested in the university’s reforestation efforts as the call for flood control measures is recently increasing due to the devastation brought by flooding in previously non-flooding prone areas throughout the Philippines—CPSU advocating for a nature-based solution by restoring the health and eventually capacity of forests to hold water and protect communities.