Broadcasting Seeds for Reforestation

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.

Mine is just a theory, but I think it is feasible since the birds have been planting seeds the same way for so many years and they were succesful.