Run 2 Plant to Help Increase Cebu’s Less Than One Percent Forest Cover

Of the ideal 60 percent, Cebu now has only 0.6 percent forest cover.

To help address this, the Cebu Provincial Government, Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. (RAFI), Municipality of San Fernando, and other participating local government units of Cebu will hold on September 9 the sixth Run 2 Plant.

“The 0.6 percent is alarming,” said Mayor Lakambini Reluya of San Fernando, host of this year’s main run, on the state of Cebu’s forest.

Anton Dignadice, RAFI Integrated Development Unit executive director, said that of Cebu’s 508,800 total land area, 305,280 or 60 percent is the ideal forest cover.

But, he said, Cebu now only have 2,000 hectares, or roughly 0.6 percent of its total land area that still have trees.

“It’s a province-wide problem. It’s not only a problem of San Fernando alone. It’s a problem of each and everyone of us,” also said Atty. James Abadia, RAFI vice president for social development, during a press conference last Sept. 2.

“It takes an entire province to solve the province’s problem,” he added.

Forester Alona Villarojo, head of the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (PENRO), said that having acknowledging the problem, the Capitol has partnered with RAFI in the last six years to mitigate the loss of forest cover in the province.

That is why Governor Hilario Davide III was set to issue an executive order enjoining all local government units of Cebu, not just San Fernando, to likewise conduct simultaneous tree-planting activities on September 9.

Run 2 Plant is an annual environmental advocacy of RAFI in partnership with the Cebu Provincial Government, Cebu LGUs, and private stakeholders to promote good health among people by running and health of the environment by planting native trees.

Dignadice said that Run 2 Plant activities and tree-planting initiatives by partner government and private organizations from 2011 to 2015 resulted in the planting of 3.9 million native trees all over Cebu.

But, he said, the overall survival rate is just 74 percent, or a wastage of over one million trees.

“We will really ensure that we will attain hopefully 100 percent survival rate. Kinahanglan mabuhi gyud na atong seedlings,” said Dignadice, adding that the medium-term plan is for San Fernando’s seven-hectare planting site to be converted to a mini-forest in 2020.

Mayor Reluya vowed to monitor the planting site from three to five years. “We will make planting a habit,” she said.

To encourage lot owners to monitor and take care of the trees, the local government of San Fernando agreed to their request that what will be planted in their lots are fruit-bearing trees.

Villarojo said the province will provide seedlings for fruit-bearing trees like guyabano, cacao and jackfruit.

Around 1,500 participants, comprising San Fernando and Capitol employees, private companies’ workers, barangay officials, church parishioners, Department of Education personnel, and other interested individuals from Cebu City are expected to join the annual activity.