Puerto Princesa Mayor Edward Hagedorn plants a tree with Cory Quirino (left) and Mrs. Ellen Hagedorn(right) during the city's 'Pista Y Ang Cagueban' or Feast of the Forest. Photo by Arnold Montenegro, InterAksyon.com)
PUERTO PRINCESA, Palawan—Two million trees were planted by the up to 60,000 people who flocked to the mountains of Irawan on Saturday to celebrate Puerto Princesa’s “Pista Y Ang Cagueban”(Feast of the Forest).
The tree planting, which marked the 21st year of the festival, was led by Mayor Edward Hagedorn and winners of the Miss Earth pageant and is intended to rehabilitate over 200 hectares of ravaged forest cover in Barangays Irawan and Sta. Lourdes by planting fast-growing fruit-bearing trees to prevent soil erosion.
It is also in line with President Benigno Aquino III’s vision of planting 1.5 billion trees over 1.5 million hectares nationwide.
At 5 a.m., participants were ferried from the Puerto Princesa Coliseum on military trucks, buses, jeepneys and other vehicles to Irawan, a watershed that serves as the city’s major source of potable.
“I was so astounded,” Hagedorn said. “In the many years that we’ve been planting trees, this is my first time to see this many people, mga naglalakad (many of them walking) with smiles on their faces.”
The mayor, who is serving his last term, said he is confident whoever succeeds him will continue the rehabilitation of the watershed.
“Alam ko (I know) we have created enough awareness among the people, lalo na sa mga bata, nakikita ko na sila ang magdadala ng ating programa sa hinaharap (especially the youth, I see that they will carry on our program in the future),” Hagedorn, the first non-Puerto Princesa native to become mayor, said.
He admitted that before he became mayor, his family owned one of the largest logging concessions in the city.
“We were the first logging operator and mining claimants here in Puerto Princesa,” he said.
But he said he reached a turning point “upon realizing the destructive effects of the (logging) … So after the people voted me as city mayor, I made a vow to protect, preserve and restore the city’s natural resources.”
The city government created the Bantay Puerto or Puerto Princesa Watch, composed mainly of city employees and civilian volunteers backed up by police personnel handpicked for their integrity to take the lead in the rehabilitation and conservation of Puerto Princesa’s forests and marine ecology.
But Hagedorn acknowledged much remains to be done and that they have yet to survey other denuded forestlands for inclusion in the rehabilitation program.
Zero-carbon city
Puerto Princesa City is the first city in the country and Southeast Asia to be declared carbon-neutral under guidelines set by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Fr. Jose Villarin, president of Ateneo de Manila University and IPCC member.
Villarin worked in partnership with the SEED Institute and Manila Observatory to conduct the first complete Greenhouse Gas Inventory of the city.
Not only is Puerto Princesa City carbon-neutral, it is actually carbon-negative because it removes more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it creates.
And Hagedorn, in a video presentation on the state of the city’s environment, said they are looking at achieving “negative-zero carbon” status with the launch of electric tricycles or “e-trikes.”
Puerto Princesa has a net carbon dioxide emission of 1,456 kilotons (kt) and removes 1,662 kt of CO2, technically making it carbon-negative.
The emissions come from two sectors—electricity generation (52 percent) and road transportation (30 percent)—with no emissions from industrial processes.
Forests and croplands, on the other hand, account for nearly 99 percent of the removal of greenhouse gases.
Puerto Princesa City has a forest cover of 64.99 percent.
