The Office of the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (City ENRO) of Puerto Princesa through its Forest Management Services Division conducted recently an i-Tree Eco Assessment at Palawan State University –Main Campus recently, expanding the reach of its urban forestry program to different schools, hotels and resorts, parks within this city.
They have a total of 1,588 trees in inventory.
The program utilized the United States Forest Service (USFS)-developed i-Tree Eco tools providing tree analysis including ecosystem services and its corresponding value in peso.
i-Tree Eco is a software application utilized to quantify the structure and environmental effects of urban trees and calculate their ecosystem services and value to the society. Data from an i-Tree Eco survey can be used for making sound resource management decisions, formulating policies and setting priorities for towns’ and cities’ greenspaces.
The assessment include tree inventory and measuring specific parameters like total tree height, diameter at breast height (DBH), crown base height, canopy size, crown light exposure, among others.
The City ENRO also utilizes the tool to save and protect its remaining urban greenspaces, emphasizing the trees’ ecosystem benefits and its importance as habitat to wildlife.
Known as i-Tree Eco, a digital applications is a tree analysis and assessment tool that provides data on trees’ benefits, such as carbon sequestration, carbon storage, oxygen production and avoided runoff, among others.
The concept and implementation of Puerto Princesa’s Urban Forestry Program took an unprecedented leap after City Environment and Natural Resources Officer, Atty. Carlo Gomez, attended the International Seminar on Urban Forestry by the United States Forest Service (USFS) in Chicago and New York, in 2017. Since then, he and his Office was introduced to the iTree Eco tool.
The city’s urban forestry program is now supported by a USFS-developed digital application known as i-Tree Eco. It is a tree analysis and assessment tool that i-Tree Eco.
It has been piloted in Puerto Princesa City’s public parks, privately-owned resorts, hotels and other accommodation establishments, public and private schools, etc., providing relevant ecosystem services data and information, including the ecosystem services of the trees in Philippine peso value. Recognizing its importance to other cities, Puerto Princesa’s i-Tree team composed of City ENRO personnel shared its learnings to Iloilo and Tagbilaran, four years ago. Iloilo and Tagbilaran are both USAID-Cities Development Initiative (CDI) assisted cities.
Atty. Gomez said that i-Tree is a mainstay project of the City ENRO. Since it was introduced in 2016, their office has conducted tree assessments in several priority sites such as Plaza Cuartel, an old military headquarters transformed into a plaza, New City Hall complex located in Barangay Sta. Monica and the sprawling Balayong People’s Park, Acacia Tunnel, schools, privately-owned hotels and beach resorts, among others.
i-Tree Eco is designed to use field data from complete inventories or randomly located plots throughout a community along with local pollution and meteorological data to quantify urban forest structure, environmental effect and value to communities. The field personnel will collect and encode data such as tree height, diameter forest height (DBH), base crown height, crown light exposure, species, among others, which will be interpreted by the i-Tree application.
It is a freely available software that helps planners understand their urban forest resource and the ecosystem services it provides and use that information to support sustainable urban development and economic growth. Understanding urban forest’s structure, function and value can promote management decisions that will improve human health and environmental quality.
In a tree assessment conducted by City ENRO in Palawan National School (PNS), the city’s biggest public school, they inventoried a total of 412 trees which constitutes 1.865 hectare tree cover.
In the analysis using the i-Tree Eco tools, trees in PNS are estimated to store 112.6 metric tons equivalent to 112,600 kg of carbon per year with an associated value of more than P1Million, or P1,020,000.00 to be exact.
The carbon sequestration of trees in PNS is about 9.423 metric tons (9,423 kg) of carbon per year with an associated value of P85,600.00 per year. They are also estimated to produce 25.13 metric tons (25,130 kg) of oxygen per year.
These trees also help to reduce runoff by an estimated 315.1 cubic meters (315,100 liters) a year which as an associated value of P36,000.00 per year.
Other schools and establishment that have their i-Tree Eco tools analysis are Michelle Pension, Dang Maria, Ponce de Leon Garden Resort, Plaza Cuartel, Emerald Playa Beach and Nature Park, Mateo Jagmis Memorial Elementary School, Francisco Ubay Elementary School, HTU Sienatel, Tiniguiban Elementary School, Puerto Princesa Pilot Elementary School, Western Philippine University, among others.
“i-Tree tool is an aggressive approach in combating climate change and to save the remaining trees and urban forests of the city,” explained Atty. Gomez.
As part of their next steps, the City ENRO plans to develop a system to rate the environmental standings of tourism establishments based on the ecosystem services provided by the trees, a policy to encourage resort and hotel owners to dedicate a space for planting trees.
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