18 March 2025,
On March 18, 2025, Mr. Mario Lopez, who had dedicated many years to the Nueva Vizcaya Reforestation Project in the Philippines, passed away at the age of 71. After observing the green mountains of Japan while undergoing one-year training in 1982, he struggled for over 40 years to restore forests to his hometown, creating more than 600 hectares of forest.
Prior to World War II, Nueva Vizcaya was a dense rainforest area. However, after the war, deforestation became serious due to logging for development, cattle grazing by local residents, and frequent forest fires and pests. The loss of forests has resulted in the drying up of water sources, especially in the village where the project site is located, which is named Kirang, meaning “waterless area”.
Concerned about the devastation of these devastated mountains, Mr. Mario Lopez and other OISCA trainee alumni living in the area stood up and started an attempt to restore their own forests. In response to their efforts, volunteers from OISCA members in Japan decided to provide support, and a full-scale tree-planting project was launched in 1993.
In line with the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) signed between the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and OISCA Philippines Technical Trainees Association (OTTAA), tree planting activities in collaboration with the local and Japanese volunteers were started for reforesting and rehabilitating the 600 hectares degraded mountains in Nueva Vizcaya.
More than 30 years have already passed since the Project started in 1993, and today the project site is an oasis in the desert with diverse vegetation. However, the road to this point has not been an easy one. At the beginning of the project, many different types of trees were planted, but because the land had been bald for many years, it was too infertile for some tree species to grow adequately. In addition, this area is also a typhoon passing through. Typhoons hit the area every year, knocking down the poorly grown trees and killing many of them. The only trees that remained were the fast-growing type, which can grow even in rough terrain. Nevertheless, these trees grew and the fallen leaves gradually enriched the soil.
After these efforts, in 2012, they began their renewed challenge to create a forest where a variety of tree species can grow, which was our original wish. The plantation of native species, which were difficult to grow when the soil was infertile, has been gradually expanded each year, and the biodiversity of the forest has increased year by year. Furthermore, before the project began, farmers at the foot of the mountain were only able to cultivate rice once a year due to lack of water, but now water flows into the river even during the dry season, making it possible to cultivate rice three times a year.
On the other hand, even today, there are some difficult challenges. One is that fires in the surrounding bald hills can extend into the plantation and burn parts of the forest. There are a number of causes, including spontaneous combustion and unintentional throwing of cigarettes. On windy days during the dry season, it is not easy to prevent fires from spreading to distant areas. As a countermeasure, they have installed firebreaks 7 to 15 meters wide and 12 km long, but fires sometimes spread beyond the firebreaks. Once a fire breaks out, Mr. Lopez and the entire staff worked together to extinguish it, sometimes working all night long. The fires were so fierce that the staff risked their lives every time, but fortunately, the entire plantation has never burned down, and they have managed to protect the greenery of the forest.
One day, one of the staff members at OISCA headquarters asked Mr. Lopez what he thought of the well-grown forest. Smiling and proudly he replied, “It is my legacy.” It seems that he was expressing his hope that the 600 hectares of lush green mountains he has spent his life building with many people would be passed on to the future, and that his future children would live happily in these lush green mountains.
And Mr. Lopez is now laid to rest not in his family grave but at the site of the reforestation project.
Thank you, Mr. Lopez. Please rest in peace.
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