DENR says ANR among the

INREMP Wahig strategies 

TAGBILARAN CITY, July 20 (PIA)-- The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) picks a time-tested and easy forest regeneration method which it is using as a strategy to implement the Integrated Natural Resources and Environment Management Project for the Wahig-Inabanga watershed catch-basin. 

DENR, in its meeting with INREMP beneficiaries last week bared that among the interventions that they are adopting to implement the P412 million funds from the international Food and Agriculture Development, Asian Development Bank, Global Environment Fund, and Climate Change Fund is through the adoption of more Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) sites in Wahig watershed. 

INREMP aims to address unsustainable watershed management at the Wahig Pamacsalan areas and hopes to reduce and reverse watershed degradation, DENR through PENRO Nestor Canda explained.

Authorities have been tracking the degradation of forests due to over exploitation, slash and burn and other unsustainable farming practices, so that interventions need to be implemented to arrest its effects, DENR said. 

At this, INREMP picks 17 Bohol towns feeding the Wahig Inabanga basin, as beneficiaries for community based interventions in the Upper River Basin of the Inabanga River where the DENR National Greening Program, Upland Development Program and Community Based Forest Management Agreement are implemented. 

And within these interventions, the common strategy for reforestation and afforestation is the ANR.

Reforestation is refers to establishment of forest on land that had recent tree cover, while afforestation is planting trees to a land that has been without forest for much longer period of time. 

Pilot tested in San Miguel Danao, Bohol in the early 1990's, ANR is an old method but is considered a systematic means of restoring biodiversity in a forest and keeps its rehabilitation apace for it helps speed up the growth of young tree seedlings pressed down by pesky cogon grasses which compete with them in the soil nutrition and sunlight. 

All you need to do is look for these seedlings that struggle under the thick cogon cover and clean up its immediate surroundings so it can survive past the cover and increase its chances of getting sufficient sunlight to grow. At times, you would have to replant them elsewhere if these are all too close to each other, foresters explained. 

INREMP is implemented in 17 towns in Bohol: Talibon, Getafe, Buenavista, Inabanga, Danao, Sagbayan, Dagohoy, San Miguel, Trinidad, Ubay, Alicia, Pilar, Sierra Bullones, Carmen, Jagna, Duero and Garcia Hernandez. 

The project indicative budget as allocated about P142.5 million for Bohol INREMP, according to PENRO Canda. (rac/PIA-7/Bohol)