Expert fights to save trees along Pangasinan road

URDANETA CITY, Pangasinan – A tree pathologist tapped to check trees along the Manila North Road here said he would try to save the trees that are supposed to be cut.

Ernesto Militante, a retired professor of the University of the Philippines-Los Baños, told journalists  that he conducted a sampling of different tree species to see if they could still recover from girdling, which involves removing the outer layer of a tree’s trunk in order to interrupt the flow of nutrients and cause the tree to die.

Militante was here Monday to check the trees that were girdled but were not yet cut.

He said each of the girdled trees must be tagged.

Militante said mahogany trees are sensitive to girdling. He said mahogany trees are not supposed to be planted along the road.

“They have big fruits, which can kill if they fall on a person,” he said, adding mahogany trees’ branches must be pruned.

Emmanuel Diaz of the 3rd Pangasinan Engineering District said the remaining 770 trees left standing along the MNR, which stretches from Rosales to Sison towns, are among the 1,829 trees due for cutting and are all girdled.—Eva Visperas