Tree nurseries set up in Cordillera schools

MANILA, Philippines - The narrow, uphill one-lane road to Bineng Elementary School in La Trinidad, Benguet is rocky and winding. It’s a community not often visited by tourists seeking colder climes up north.

But for students of the University of the Cordilleras and environmental advocates, the trip to Brgy. Bineng is well worth the effort. Bineng is one of the beneficiary communities of the Roots and Shoots program, where a nursery was established to provide seedlings to sustain forest-building efforts in the Cordilleras.

The seedling nursery in Bineng Elementary School is just one of the 20 nurseries established by Globe Telecom in 2012 in North Luzon along with local partner Cordillera Conservation Trust (CCT).

For the past three years, Globe and CCT have joined hands to raise awareness for the need to reforest the Cordillera region via the biking event dubbed Globe Cordillera Challenge. The biking challenge engaged both recreational bikers and conservation advocates to ride for the environment and raise funds to support forest-building activities. The most recent one, held in May 2012, raised P800,000.

According to JP Alipio, executive director of CCT, “The Roots and Shoots nursery program is a sustainable approach to forest-building because not only do we involve the beneficiary communities, but we also transform them to become stewards of the environment.”

The Roots and Shoots program also aims to include environmental education for the children in public elementary schools, providing a possible livelihood source for the school and community.

The nursery-building efforts in the Benguet area have also fostered a community of volunteers among student leaders. Joem Landell Parungao, 18, of the University of the Cordilleras and one of the student leaders of the Globe-sponsored Leadership Communities (LeadCom) in Benguet, joined the nursery-building activity in Brgy. Bineng.

“The recent Leadership Communities program helped nurture us to become servant leaders. We took it a step further by being volunteers for the Roots and Shoots nursery-building activity in Bineng. After all, the activity is really for our community and there is no better way to become servant-leaders than by serving our own community,” he shared.

Other seedling nurseries were also established in public elementary schools in Wangal, Lubas, Alno, La Trinidad and in Tuba, Kabayan, Kapangan and Itogon, Benguet. The seedlings in all 20 nurseries will be nurtured by the students and the teachers in the community until they are ready to be sold and re-planted for forest-building.