Planting one million trees is no small feat, but this is exactly what the entire Philippine Lasallian community is doing as part of the Green for Life: One Million Trees (OMT) and Beyond project of De La Salle Philippines (DLSP) and the Lasallian Institute for the Environment (LIFE).

OMT is one of the concrete responses of the Lasallian community to the call of being “stewards of the earth,” as cited in the Lasallian Ministry
Action Plan (LS MAP) #7 of Stewardship of God’s Creation, and to the Philippine Lasallian Family Convocation Resolution 2.4 on Environmental Concerns and Advocacy. Launched in 2006, the OMT project gathered together volunteers from various La Salle schools in the Philippines to conduct the initial tree planting activities in Mt. Palay-palay/Gulod National Park in Cavite. By 2007, volunteers have gone to the site four more imes to plant species endemic to the place. According to De La Salle University (DLSU) alumni and OMT program director Jorge Buenaventura, all 17 schools of the DLSP network contribute to the project and are responsible for the tree planting sites nearest to their locations. Tree planting sites are situated in different parts of Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, and each La Salle school, Buenaventura explains, are represented in the OMT Council that oversees all the tree planting efforts of the Lasallian community.

For its part, DLSU, through its Center for Social Concern and Action (COSCA), leads the tree planting in Lake Caliraya, Laguna, and San Mateo, Rizal. COSCA was able to push within the OMT the use of native or indigenous trees for reforestation, establishment of nurseries, and the raising of funds to sustain efforts and partnership with local communities, local government units and other stakeholders.

However, Buenaventura adds that this project should not be perceived as a Lasallian program that only Lasallians can take part in. “While it is a Lasallian initiative, we have partnered with other schools, groups, and local communities that are now actively supporting the project,” he says.

The role of local communities, in particular, is vital in sustaining the project because they are responsible for the nourishment and growth of the tree saplings after they are planted. Ensuring the growth of the trees, Buenaventura admits, was one of the challenges that the project aced during its initial phase; though the problem was eventually remedied when local communities extended their support to the project, organizing their own tree planting activities, and donating funds to buy or grow tree saplings. Thus, together with local communities, volunteers from different parts of the country sustain the project through various tree planting activities.

Since the project started in 2006, there are already an estimated 200,000 seedlings planted in several OMT sites in Luzon, as well as in Bacolod, Iligan, and Cebu. 

With the project already in full swing, the Philippine Lasallian community and all other stakeholders are hopeful that one million trees will be planted by 2011, in time for the celebration of the 100 years of Lasallian education in the Philippines. “And we will not stop at one million,” Buenaventura ends.