BY: JENNIFER C. TILOS
DUMAGUETE CITY, July 15 (PIA)--With the growing intensity of typhoons visiting the country and in the province of Negros Oriental and the imminent prolonged dry spell brought by El Niño phenomenon, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR)- Negros Oriental has called on the public to intensify planting more trees.
In a recent training on "Disaster Preparedness vis-a-vis Climate Change Using Social Media" forester Raul Russel of DENR told local media and information officers to help them convince locals to plant more trees to preserve and make the environment more resilient against calamities.
Russel reported that Negros Oriental’s five percent remaining natural forest cover needs protection and urged the public to “move fast” in the rehabilitation efforts.
Russel said in pursuit of protecting the remaining trees and increasing forest cover, the government has launched the National Greening Program (NGP) that aims to plant 1.5 billion trees in 1.5 million hectares in six years which started in 2010.
It is noted that causes of forest destruction include pressure from an increasing population in need of land and wood, overexploitation of forest resources, lack of political will to curb illegal logging, low priority given to forest conservation and environmental protection among others.
In the same event, state weather bureau chief Engr. Oscar Tabada of PAGASA-Visayas also urged the public to prepare and save water for the occurrence of El Niño phenomenon which will hit the country in the last quarter of 2014 and may last up to the first quarter of 2015.
Engr. Tabada said saving water means to help mitigate the effect of El Niño and advised the public to stop cutting trees because this greatly cause ecological imbalance.
El Niño is characterized as unusually warm ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific (CEEP).
More than just disaster preparedness, information officers, local media & PDRRMC got to learn the power of social media in the entire disaster cycle.
Noel de Guia and Max Salazar of Get Ready PINAS (Prepare, Inform & Act Smart) highlighted the importance of delivering timely and accurate information before, during, and after disasters during the training organized by PIA-Negros Oriental, SMART Communications and the Dumaguete Press Club. (mbcn/JCT/PIA7-Negros Oriental)