DENR’s Green Philippine Highways

The metro’s major highways (in particular SLEX, NLEX and C5) were buzzing with activity last week and not because of heavy traffic but because of a new project from DENR.

The GPH or Green Philippine Highway project started last August 24 and over 516,000 seedlings of trees like narra, mahogany, acacia and banaba,were planted throughout the major highways that cover the country.The project covers the ,176-kilometer Pan-Philippine Highway from Laoag City to Davao City, the 439-kilometer Manila North Road from Laoag City through La Union-Bulacan; and the 824-kilometer West Nautical Highway linking Batangas City to Mindoro, Aklan, Negros Oriental and Zamboanga.

In the Metro, C5 was a primary target where students, NGOs and local government units helped out in planting the seedlings throughout the highway. C5 is a primary target becuase it still has pockets of green unlike EDSA which is a concrete jungle in itself.

Why green the highways?

According to studies, 70 percent of pollutants in the country’s air come from vehicular emissions. Since there are presently around five million registered motor vehicles in the countrywhere around 1.55 million are in Metro Manila.

Additiaonlly a single tree can “clean” about 0.56 metric tons of carbon dioxide in its lifetime, and around 10 trees are needed to capture the emissions of one car. Therefore, about 50 million trees are needed to clean up the five million registered cars in the country and what a better place to start than the highways?

More Information:
DENR – Reyes: “All systems go for DENR’s Green Philippine Highways”
Malaya – Nationwide roadside tree planting launched to combat pollution