(Photo courtesy of PNA)
BAGUIO CITY – The Baguio Correspondents and Broadcasters Club (BCBC) has formalized its decades-long forest conservation efforts through an agreement with the Baguio Water District (BWD) to protect and maintain a portion of the Busol Watershed.
The memorandum of understanding (MOU), signed Wednesday, covers a 500-square-meter area of the watershed, one of Baguio City’s vital water sources.
BCBC President Dionisio Dennis said the agreement formalizes the organization’s tree-planting and maintenance activities, which began in the 1990s.
“This is just to formalize what we have been doing for decades, planting and nurturing those planted as our contribution to forest protection and ensuring watershed will continue to provide water for the city,” Dennis said.
The BCBC, an organization of print, radio and television journalists, became the 38th group to formally adopt a watershed area under BWD’s Adopt a Forest program.
The Busol Watershed is the club’s second adopted conservation site, following its ongoing development of a bamboo forest at the media camp in Burnham Park.
BWD Forester Assistant Johnver Puno said the program encourages long-term community participation in forest protection, extending beyond tree planting to regular maintenance and preservation.
“The program is conceptualized as a long-term community forest protection initiative to ensure not just reforestation efforts but tree caring and protection effort that holistically aims to protect Baguio’s watershed,” Puno said.
Under the agreement, BWD will provide technical assistance for planting and maintenance activities and may supply pine tree seedlings from its annual production of approximately 4,000 seedlings.
The BCBC may also obtain additional seedlings from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the City Environment and Parks Management Office.
Each Adopt a Forest agreement covers three years and may be renewed upon mutual consent.
BWD Public Information Officer Mark Victor Pasagoy said the program was launched this year, following the model of the city government’s Adopt a Park initiative.
He explained that the water district invited the BCBC to formalize its existing conservation work after recognizing the group’s longstanding activities in the Busol Watershed.
“We saw that while we know the BCBC had been regularly doing activities at Busol, there was never a formal document, so we opted to invite them to have an MOU with BWD,” Pasagoy said.
The BWD encouraged other organizations to participate in the program to strengthen community involvement in watershed protection and help preserve Baguio City’s water resources.
