Lessons from the acacias
After several exchanges, to ensure protection of people and trees, an agreement was reached to have a tree pathologist check on the trees soonest time possible and his diagnosis to be considered final by both DENR, MLC, and other participants in last Tuesday's meeting.
DENR-7 asked the participants if it was ok for their tree pathologist in their DENR head office in Metro Manila to do the "tree health" check. A neutral third party was agreed on instead.
Why did not the DENR-7 earlier request their tree pathologist from their head office to conduct the study or to confirm the 2012 DENR-7 study results of the acacia trees in Naga and in San Fernando? DENR-7 participants in yesterday's meeting are sticking to their findings. They insisted that foresters in their office did the study for a longer period of time than the rapid appraisal survey of Dr. Roger Guzman, who described himself as a forester and a silviculturist, one subject short of being a tree pathologist and with 38 years of field work with trees. Marc Canton and Joy Martinez-Onozawa of Movement for Livable Cebu asked about the details of the research methodology used by the DENR-7 foresters.
Through this acacia issue, we are introduced into the world of trees and those who specialize about trees and their research methodologies. According toyourdictionary.com, silviculture is the art of cultivating a forest and comes from the classical Latin term silva meaning forest and cultura, culture. As a silviculturist, Dr. Guzman, among other tasks, "may devise plans for planting and growing new trees, monitor trees for healthy growth" (http://www.mymajors.com/career/silviculturist/). A forester is "a person who practices forestry, the science, art, and profession of managing forests…which include activities like timber harvesting, ecological restoration, and management of protected areas to meet varying objectives such as extraction of raw material, outdoor recreation, conservation, hunting and aesthetics and managing forestlands for biodiversity, carbon sequestration and air quality, and according to a notable forester, Jack C. Westoby, " is concerned not with trees, but with how trees can serve people." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forester).
For sure, both silviculturists and foresters have more distinct academic interpretations than those presented in dictionaries but what we are learning now is that while both groups may study trees and forests, there is diversity in their focus and methodologies findings, and goals.
Through this acacia issue, we are learning that the fate of trees (or any other natural resource) cannot just be done by LGUs, politicians, agencies, without solid evidence validated by reliable, qualified, unbiased experts and without effective and participative consultation and agreement with other resource stewards. The care of this earth, of our people, of our trees (and other resources) as MLC Marc Canton beautifully emphasized, is everyone's responsibility.
Resource education is a crucial subject that should be mainstreamed as early as possible in our schools and especially in offices, agencies, and organizations (including media and businesses) tasked with resource management. The resource management educational program should not be a short knee-jerk information campaign to justify cutting of trees or road widening.
More policy directions and suggestions can be culled as valuable lessons handed to us by this current acacia issue. One crucial lesson is to view the acacia problem comprehensively, integrating road widening, history, heritage, eco-stewardship with genuine pro-people development.
To borrow certain insightful and beautiful words of Yumi Espina of MLC, "there must be better ways to address this problem. It seems that we have not reached that level of competence to be able to solve this age-old conflict between development and preservation. Looking at the bigger picture, we see the need to preserve, yet the current situation demands us to give way to development. If we only plan further into the future, we might have better chances at preventing such conflicts from ever happening."
"Plans are currently being made for Metro Cebu… and although this is still at a very preliminary stage, a coastal road all the way to San Fernando or a diversion road up to Carcar may be one solution to ease traffic in the main corridor and in essence save those trees. For such heavily populated areas along the main corridor, we might just need to slow down traffic. Wider roads and sparsely spaced trees will encourage higher vehicular speeds which could only mean more vehicular accidents in the area - certainly more than falling trees. One can only observe the many accidents happening in the SRP because of the wide roads and no trees. On the other hand, narrower roads and closely spaced trees, reduce vehicular speeds - they call this "traffic calming."
Yumi concluded, "it is for us to finally decide whether to widen those roads along populated areas to increase vehicular speeds or to preserve those trees to make those communities more livable. Meanwhile, let's learn more about caring for trees SCIENTIFICALLY. They might just survive and take better root. There is just no guarantee that those trees won't fall just as there is no guarantee that people won't die crossing that road especially if it gets widened."
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