By Ercel Maandig/PNA
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY — To mark its 51st founding anniversary this year, the provincial government initiated a tree-planting activity involving all its five municipalities.
The activity on Jan. 4 planted a total of 10,095 seedlings within the province’s declared watersheds, Gov. Maria Luisa Romualdo said.
Romualdo said planting trees to mark Camiguin’s provincehood on June 19 signified the island’s embrace of ecological initiatives, which aims for each municipality to plant and grow at least 2,019 trees this year.
The planted seedlings included over 4,000 hardwood species provided by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), while the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) also supplied coconut seedlings.
Local government units, meanwhile, gave 5,000 bamboo seedlings.
Romualdo hopes that the planted seedlings would help the province become resilient to natural calamities, such as typhoons. She noted that trees are also reliable protection against landslides and soil erosion.
Camiguin has a total land area of 238 square kilometers, or only around 2 percent of Northern Mindanao’s total land area.
Recently two of the island’s sites were declared by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines as national heritage treasures, namely the sunken cemetery and the Hibok-Hibok old church ruins.
