The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in the Philippines announced that they have an ongoing project to rehabilitate four major river basins in the country.  The four watershed are (1) Upper Bukidnon River Basin, (2) Upper Chico River Basin, (3) Lake Lanao Watershed, and (4) Upper Wahig-Inabanga. 

This will be a project that will use native species to deal with the deterioration of the land and water resources in the watersheds.  The project hopes to restore one million hectares by planting 58 million native species of tree seedlings. This is similar to the National Greening Program.  This project will not only help to rehabilitate the watersheds but will also provide livelihood to the communities that live around the area. 

The program is important because of the effects of climate change and losses in our biodiversity. The program tries to blend the relationship between livelihood that comes from the watershed and conservation activities in those river basins.  This program is important because it protects the watersheds that is home to many plants and animals and is source of water for the communities.  This watersheds are also sometimes source of  power and tourism activities.

It might take a while for the watersheds in our City of San Pablo to get into the program. For now, our community has to be the one to take care of our watershed because we humans depend on it for water, cleaner air and for protection from erosion in case of typhoons.  We should continue to plant trees not only in our watersheds but in every vacant lot that we can find.