Money grown on trees

NO HOLDS BARRED
Ike Señeres

MANILA -- Joyce Kilmer probably never imagined it, but if she is alive today, she might say that trees are even lovelier now, because money can now grow on trees, literally that is. And the wonderful thing is, money grows on trees nowadays not just once, but thrice and I do not mean that in a figurative sense.

Congressman Rodolfo “Ompong” Plaza of Agusan Del Sur is not only a lawmaker, he is also a money maker even as he sleeps, and that is because he has planted thousands of trees in his orchards, trees that are growing in value every day even as he sleeps.

Mr. Joseph Reynolds is not only a trader of goods, he is also a planter of trees and that is precisely where he gets his goods to trade, from the forests that he has revived out of denuded mountains. Just like Congressman Plaza , he too makes money even as he sleeps, from the trees that he has planted.

Both Plaza and Reynolds have probably made their own computations as to how much money they would make from their trees, but perhaps it was only later on when they realized that they could make money from these trees not just once, but thrice.

The debt-for-nature (DFN) swap is a scheme that is not new. It has been around many years. What is new is the new found realization that it is a scheme that we should have adopted many years ago as a means to pay for our national debt, instead of allocating more than a third of our budget for our national debt service.

The clean development mechanism (CDM) is relatively new, but what is even newer now is our realization that it is a real means of making money, by simply growing tress that could be used as a basis for claiming carbon credits that would convert into real money, aside from the money made from the income from the trees and from the DFN scheme.

Making money is already very good, but saving money on top of that is even better. What is even better than that is to save human lives that could not be valued in money terms. During the last floods, we realized that people would not only die in the floods, more would even die because of the diseases that came about because of the floods. This is just an example, because there are many other environmental problems that are killing people everyday.

It is already a known scientific fact that trees improve the water holding properties of soil in the mountains and in the lowlands. On the other hand, it does not require much science to plant trees, and it does not cost that much money either. Money should not even be a problem, because the carbon credits scheme would actually enable local governments and private companies to earn back whatever money they would invest in planting trees, plus more profits to earn.

If planting trees could enable our country to make money and create new value added, why are we not doing it aggressively? Since obviously the government is not in a position to lead the nation in this undertaking, could it at least provide the policy frameworks and the incentive packages? Obviously as well, it is going to be theprivate sector that could lead in the tree planting business, but it would certainly need the incentives that only the government could give.
To be precise, it is not only trees that could qualify for both DFN and CDM rewards. Looking at the overall picture however, planting trees should be part of an overall strategy to deploy a mix of solutions all of which could enable our country to engage in climate change adaptation (CCA) and disaster risk reduction (DRR).

Aside from the value of money, agro-forestry has the potential of addressing not only our food security but also our human security as well, in terms of reducing the natural hazards in and around our communities. Are we going to wait for mass hunger and more disasters to happen before we act?

On a related issue, I think that tree planting presents a good opportunity for our indigenous peoples to earn from the function of guarding our natural forest preserves, whatever is still remaining. On top of that, they could of course earn from the rewards of both DFN and CDM. By and large, they could possibly earn more from agro-forestry compared to mining activities.

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