By Roy Ramos and Hader Glang
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines
Officials on the troubled island of Mindanao in the Philippines' Muslim south are claiming victory Saturday in a Guinness World Record attempt for the most trees planted simultaneously over one hour in multiple locations.
Luwalhati Antonino, the chair of the Mindanao development authority, said that initial validation of Friday's effort had shown that the hundreds of thousands of people that had turned out were triumphant "but we have to go through the tedious process of evaluation by the Guinness World Record team."
"All evidences such as videos, wrist bands, registration forms, and all other required proofs will be forwarded to them before the official declaration," she added.
With the trees still being counted, MinDA’s TreeVolution website said that 3,373,762 trees of the targeted 4,636,000 had been planted by 183,858 planters covering a total of 9,200 hectares.
The planting lasted for just one an hour – from 8:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. A pre-registration was required for participants who had to be 17 years old or above.
The current world record for the most number of trees planted simultaneously at multiple locations was achieved in India on August 15, 2011 when 340,200 participants planted 1,945,535 trees across 408 locations.
While Antonino called the effort “obviously successful,” the activity drew flak from several participants, with one of them calling the organizers “liars” after complaining of an unannounced grueling trek in the mountains that left some fainting from fatigue.
In a post on the Facebook wall of the "TreeVolution: Greening MindaNOW" organizers, participant Aj Hipolito lambasted them for not being straightforward in informing people of the actual location of the planting site.
“We ride for two hours aboard a truck going to the mountain. We thought it’s the actual location already. You did not tell us we still have to walk for two more hours to reach the main site,” he said in Filipino.
“The trek was really difficult. What you did was cruel. Many women fainted because of the punishing walk,” he added.
"TreeVolution" was co-organized by the Mindanao Development Authority, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior and local government as a re-greening initiative for Mindanao - the second largest and southernmost major island in the Philippines.
“While we are aiming to create a new Guinness World Record with Treevolution, what is more critical is for us to reforest Mindanao,” Antonino said on Facebook.
“Let’s bring back what we took away from Mother Nature,” she added.
Those who participated include soldiers, policemen, former Moro rebels, government employees, people from religious and business sectors, students, non-government organizations and even members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.
Under Guinness rules, digging machinery could not be used, and the actual digging of plots had to take place at the time of planting, not prior to the attempt.
