BALER, Aurora-The chief of the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (PENRO) appealed to Aurorans to protect the country’s most forested province from denudation.
“Aurora is the most forested province in the Philippines at 65%. A record that might soon be gone if each one will not do his or her share to protect it,” Lucena Mercado told residents of barangay Buhangin in Baler town during the recent Kapihan ng Mamamayan of Philippine Information Agency.
Mercado cited the province’s five natural defenses against storm surges: coral reefs, tidal flats/shore areas, mangrove forests, beach forests, and tropical rain forests.
“We can no longer stop climate change but we can mitigate its ill effects if we work together as a community. Proper solid waste management and support to the National Greening Program (NGP) are among the keys to save our natural defenses here,” Mercado added.
NGP was created under Executive Order No. 26 of President Aquino to pursue sustainable development for poverty reduction, food security, biodiversity conservation, and climate change mitigation and adaptation.
It aims to plant 1.5 billion trees covering about 1.5 million hectares for a period of six years (2011-2016) in lands of public domain.
These lands include forestlands, mangrove and protected areas, ancestral domains, civil and military reservations and urban areas. (Jojo S. Libranda)
