MANILA, Philippines - In a churchyard in Mabalacat, Pampanga, along the McArthur Highway, stands a gnarled, spiny tree, one of the few remaining balacat trees (Ziziphus talanai) that gave the town its name.
"Ma-balacat" in the native Kapampangan dialect means "full of balacat" trees. According to historical records, when this erstwhile Pampanga settlement of Negrito tribe became a town in 1712, it was a virtual forest of balacat trees. Today, however, less than half a dozen of these trees can be found in the town.
This sad scenario is replicated in most Philippine towns that, like Mabalacat, were named after endemic trees.
Patrick Gozon, a self-confessed plant enthusiast who writes a very interesting and highly informative blog (pinoytrees.blogspot.com), lists a few of these towns, with the sad commentary that their tree namesakes have become rare - if they could even be found at all - in these places. Gozon's roster includes the Laguna towns of Cabuyao, which was named after the kabuyaw tree (Citrus hystrix), and Lumban, picked up from the lumbang (Aleurites moluccana), the Bulacan town of Calumpit, christened after the kalumpit (Terminalia microcarpa) and the Batangas seaside town of Anilao, in Batangas named after the anilao tree (Colona serratifolia).
While these trees are already endangered in certain places, they are being felled at an even more alarming rate in the country's forests. According to figures from the Forest Management Bureau, the country's remaining forested lands has dwindled to only seven million hectares (covering about 24 percent of the country's total land area), with old-growth forests comprising less than a million hectares (roughly percent of the total land area).
In fact, Philippine forests are declining at a fast rate that the country is now considered a "biodiversity hotspot." This dismal situation has been cited as a major reason why the country has, of late, become very vulnerable to disasters brought about by climate change.
There is a ray of hope, however, as both the Philippine government and the private sector are now aggressively implementing programs and projects designed to arrest the decline of the virgin forests and mitigate its many adverse ecological effects. Reforestation and tree-planting have become regular activities in large companies' corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
Among such notable CSR program is BINHI, an ongoing reforestation program of the Lopez Group of Companies being spearheaded by one of its subsidiaries, Energy Development Corporation (EDC).
Launched in 2008 using EDC's three decades of experience in integrated social forestry as platform, BINHI has become a model for corporate-led reforestation programs among Philippine businesses. It infuses a new dimension to reforestation with its holistic, scientific and multi-pronged approach in reviving the country's forests. The program was one of the country's Commitments to Action made by Oscar M. Lopez, EDC chairman emeritus, during the Clinton Global Initiative Meet held in December 2008.
At the program's launch, Lopez said: "BINHI will show that there is always a new, innovative and more audacious way of providing a truly Filipino solution to the environmental crisis. But most importantly, BINHI will share in the collective effort and in the responsibility to protect the environment and to safeguard this land for the Filipinos yet unborn."
The program also capitalizes on the public-private partnership (PPP) thrust of the Aquino administration as it mobilizes support in the form of material resources, manpower and expertise from other private companies, business associations, government instrumentalities, academic institutions, socio-civic groups, and even private individuals. This year, to help drum up broad-based support for its activities, BINHI highlights the United Nations General Assembly's declaration of 2011 as the "International Year of Forests" to raise awareness on sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests.
