During my
first year in college, one of our ROTC activity was to plant mahogany seedlings
on top of a hill called “The Dome”. A year later, we did the same thing on
exactly the same place. Many years later, I went back to the same place to take
pictures of birds and it seems that not one seedling have grown. Why is that
so? My theory is that the way it was planted or perhaps the roots were
disturbed.
Now, I have
this idea that instead of planting seedlings, why not plant seeds? Just
broadcasting method. Anyway that is the natural way. But sadly, as of the
moment I can not test it myself because of a personal problem.
However, I
think some groups can do it with little effort, hikers or mountaineers for
example. If every time they climb a mountain for fun, they will bring seeds and
throw them to the empty parts of the mountain, maybe in some years some parts
of the mountain will get reforested.
What kind of seeds they should bring?
I was told
that the best way to reforest a forest is re-virginazation. It means that you
plant trees that was growing in the area. Maybe LGU, environmental groups, or
the DENR have that data. And, how are they going to get so many seeds? The help
of schools will be great.
When I went
to Barangay Bucari and Barangay Camandag in Leon some years ago, I saw huge
parts of mountains were bald. If we can ask the locals to throw seeds in those
areas, maybe it might get reforested. Or maybe, the military can pour seeds
from a helicopter. But, using a helicopter should be done with caution since if
a seed hit a person it might be lethal.
