Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, June 27) — The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is targeting two million hectares of land for reforestation, its chief said on Tuesday.
“We want to do two million hectares as a priority. Ang one million po niyan [The one million (hectares) of which] have been mapped adequately and we can show this to local decision-makers as well as the private sector, community-based management groups,” DENR Secretary Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga said during a Palace briefing.The initial areas identified are located across the Philippines, including certain areas in Mindanao, she noted.According to Loyzaga, the country’s forest lands stood at 15 million hectares, but only about 7 million hectares are classified as forested.Asked about the reforestation target of the Marcos admin, the DENR chief admitted that the current government “cannot finish the reforestation.”“What we’re doing is we’ve prioritized the first million,” she said, calling the initial target “modest.”
