THE Assisted Natural Regeneration (ANR) program launched by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and town officials/stakeholders has been cited by the Philippine Daily Inquirer in its editorial entitled “Reforestation” dated Dec. 27, 2011 as an example of intervention in reforestation. “Another is the assisted natural regeneration (ANR) program in Danao, Bohol. “Traditional” reforestation usually involves planting seedlings in deforested areas and costs P33,000 per hectare. In contrast, according to Neria Andin, assistant director of the Forest Management Bureau, ANR involves minimal cost and less effort,” the editorial pointed out. The editorial stressed the need of massive reforestation in denuded forest lands in the wake of flashfloods that wrecked havoc to thousands of victims and suffering survivors in the mega-cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan in northern Mindanao and Dumaguete, Negros Oriental.

The study on ANR has cited the pilot area in barangay San Miguel, Danao town. It said local residents are inter-planting valuable species, like nito and pandan for handicrafts. These plants provide resources the local people can depend on for livelihood. There’s more to livelihood, it says. With ANR, the community is assured of stable water supply, cleaner air and more pleasant surroundings.” Danao, a landlocked but agriculturally-rich and eco-tourist town, has become the first town in advancing the ANR application for effective low-cost forest restoration thereby helping mitigate global warming seen to have no sign of cooling down. ANR is launched in Danao recently by the Forest Management Bureau of the DENR with financial backing of Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO-UN) and implemented by the Bagong Pag-asa Foundation, a non-government organization with a good track performance in the ANR enforcement. It is said a viable approach fulfilling environmental objectives of the government and its obligation as a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Kyoto Protocol. The protocol deals with reducing toxic emissions especially from advanced countries to help mitigate global warming. To make this town an ANR capital of Bohol, Mayor Louis Thomas Gonzaga said the town adopted a municipal tesolution to this effect. Danao is the choice of the proponents as the pilot area because it showed keen interest and commitment and its potentials aside from the benefits derived from the project.

Cost of ANR

ANR is not expensive, the study says. It costs only half of the (P35,000-P40,000) cost of conventional reforestation undertaking. “With dormant seeds in the ANR area merely waiting assistance to regenerate, there is certainly no need to spend for costly seedling production, planting and replanting,” it said. Thus makes ANR a practical, affordable and very effective technology that communities involved in conservation work can easily immerse in and working in partnership with Mother Nature. Compared to conventional way of reforestation (direct planting other breed of trees) “often creates monoculture that are less stable and less capable than biologically diverse vegetative cover to support wildlife and minimize soil erosion. ANR helps restore robust forest vegetation at significantly lower costs, especially when applied in areas where cost-effective, environmentally sustainable timber production is not feasible,” the study says. Objectives or components of the ANR are to prevent forest fire, to control cogon and other fire-prone grasses, and to keep an eye on and nurse the growth of existing root stock and young tree seedlings.

Pilot ANR projects include sitio Ariada, Barangay Alangan, Limay, Bataan for Luzon, Danao, Bohol for the Visayas and barangay Balagunan, Sto. Tomas, Davao del Norte for Mindanao. They will serve as “training-cum-demonstration” sites in the ANR’s application. Through ANR stakeholders would be able to act locally while contributing globally to ease extreme climate changes, said project implementers during field visit of the project with 23.5 hectares of forest land in barangay San Miguel of this town. ANR is a form of intervention to let the naturally grown woody or hardy pioneer trees whose seeds literally transplanted by birds to rejuvenate because cogon and other grasses cover them. The project aims to let grasslands with natural environment of native trees to develop and the depleted forest to recover. It is a combined effort for man to nurture the nature. It is unlike reforestation by planting seedlings by man. ANR helps enhance biodiversity and forest cover because the country is one of the few countries that have a unique biodiversity not found in the entire world. (RVO)