Mt Makiling in Los Baños Laguna is the site of the premier school for forestry and environment in the Philippines with the oldest and first forestry school – the College of Forestry and Natural Resources of UP Los Baños! It is also the site of the first reforestation activity in the Philippines! To date, nobody knows how much of the country has been reforested. And with the current state of our forests, forest destruction outpaces forest restoration by a mile (read: thousands of hectares!). With the advancement in ICT or information and communication technology, we would like to change all that! Imagine if you could see on a map what you planted?! Moreso, see it grow!
I plant a tree today for the future
For years, the Makiling Center for Mountain Ecosystems of UP Los Baños has been partnering with companies to adopt a portion of Mt Makiling for Tree Planting and Nurturing! To date, much of the mountain has been reforested. We are going to expand our tree planting and nurturing by putting the plant and the planter on the map and see them grow through the iTREE project.
iTREE is the acronym for Individual Tangible Response to Ecosystem Enhancement. The program is a byproduct of MCME’s Habitat care program and efforts on tree planting and nurturing. The tree planting and nurturing program is a forest rehabilitation and restoration initiative of MCME in partnership with corporate entities. iTREE extends this program to take advantage of ICT including GIS, social media, and mapping technologies to allow for online viewing of planted trees under the iTREE project. iTREE encourages Filipinos to visit iTREE planting areas and plant trees for the world to see.
iTREE’s will be launched during the founding anniversary activities of MCME and the College of Forestry and Natural Resources on 25 June 2015 at the Biodiversity Park. Each tree planted shall be georeferenced and attribute information including tree common and scientific name, name of the person who planted the tree, date planted, and basic metrics such as height and diameter shall be recorded. Location and attribute information will be uploaded to Mount Makiling’s website www.mountmakiling.org viewable to everyone. Each tree planted will be cared for thru donations and contributions from tree planters and our corporate partners.
For further details, send us an email through ncbantayan@up.edu.ph or message us through www.facebook.com/makilingcenter or visit iTREE at https://makiling.center/itree-viewer or our website at www.mountmakiling.org.
Let us care for our common home by restoring our forests. Join us now!