DENR’s increased budget to benefit reforestation program

MANILA, Philippines — With an increased budget for next year, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is poised meet its target to reforest 1.2 million hectares of land until 2022.

In a statement, Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu thanked the members of the House of Representatives for approving the DENR’s P27.1-billion proposed budget for 2018.

The agency’s budget, approved in the plenary last week, was 1.77 percent higher than this year’s allocation of P26.6 billion.

“The DENR will work towards ensuring ecological integrity and improving the socio-economic conditions of resource-based communities by sustaining biodiversity and the functioning of ecosystem services, improving environmental quality, and increasing the adaptive capacity and resilience of ecosystems,” Cimatu said.

Based on the DENR’s approved budget, P7.1 billion of the allocation would go to its Enhanced National Greening Program (eNGP). 

Cimatu said that with this allocation, the agency is poised to plant some 198 million seedlings in 210,852 hectares next year.

The DENR data show that a total of 303,188 hectares have been planted with tree seedlings from 2016 to June of this year, generating some one million jobs.