Summertime

April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

Winter kept us warm, covering

Earth in forgetful snow, feeding

A little life with dried tubers.

Every April, when summer is really and fully upon us, I revisit TS Elliot’s iconic and intriguing poem, The Waste Land, which begins with the lines quoted above. While the scorching sun in these here shores singe rather than stir dull roots, in April we celebrate the Earth, and we start by looking at the National Greening Program being undertaken by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

The enthusiasm of DENR Secretary Ramon Paje, a true forester, is quite infectious. I must confess to some degree of skepticism when he offered to give STARweek a comprehensive briefing on the NGP, as we recall previous tree-planting projects that went nowhere, including a law that mandated every citizen to plant a tree a year, even if you lived in a tiny apartment or shanty in the urban jungle where even a potted plant wouldn’t grow.

Our briefing was held at the Ninoy Aquino Hall at the Parks and Wildlife center, a surprising oasis of green in the middle of Quezon City. As we viewed the presentation annotated by the good secretary, complete with tree species and location of barangays (he sometimes even describes the terrain) and photos geo-tagged with coordinates and date and time stamps, we began to realize that, slowly but surely, the country could be green again.

The crucial difference of this greening program lies in the fact that the residents benefit – directly – from the trees they plant; they get to harvest the fruits (including coffee and cacao), sell the wood (for fuel or construction or furniture) and tap the rubber trees when they mature, thus they are motivated to take care of the trees and replant what is cut or felled by nature or man. For trees that cannot be harvested or cut – such as mangroves – the residents understand the vital role these play in the life and safety of their community. Besides, when mangroves thrive all kinds of marine creatures make their home there, thus also providing direct benefit to the community.

We will continue to share with you the positive strides that have been achieved, not just in reforestation, but in other aspects of protecting and rehabilitating the environmental, and not just by government but by the private sector and civil society as well. There are a lot of exciting stories about residents’ efforts in taking care of their community, and of beautiful places that Mother Nature has bountifully blessed us with.