No Valentine’s Day date? Hug a tree and win a prize!

Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu. (File photo by GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE / Philippine Daily Inquirer)

MANILA, Philippines— Any plans for this Valentine’s Day? The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) may just have something for you.

While climate activists across the globe are calling on governments to adopt systemic ways to address the worsening state of the planet’s climate crisis, the DENR came up with a gimmick that they believe to be a “measure to address climate change” — for people to hug a tree.

In a bid to raise awareness about and fight climate change, the DENR’s Forest Management Bureau (FMB) will launch a weeklong activity called “Tree Hugging Campaign” from Feb. 14 to Feb. 18. The launching date will coincide with Valentine’s Day on Monday.

Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu said on Saturday that this activity was meant to make the Filipino public aware of the trees’ importance and nurturing forests “as a measure to address climate change.”

“Trees help fight climate change and this event dramatizes the need to take immediate, drastic reductions in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which trees absorb,” Cimatu stressed.

As head of DENR, Cimatu chairs the Cabinet Cluster on Climate Change Adaptation, Mitigation and Disaster Risk Reduction.

‘Online challenge’

He also counts the tree-hugging activity as part of the “collective actions” for the environment, which he believes will play a “crucial part in the DENR’s agenda for Filipinos to adopt a positive lifestyle shift in the way we relate to our environment, especially to trees in facing the challenges of climate change.”

The activity, Cimatu added, will be an “online challenge,” with the DENR picking 10 entries as winners. The entries will be accepted during the entire duration of the activity.

To join the online challenge, participants should do the following: like the FMB’s Facebook page and follow their Instagram account. Share the event post from the FMB’s Facebook or Instagram accounts. Post a photo showing a “creative way of hugging a tree.”

Extra points will be given to those who will hug indigenous trees. The post must include a short caption of the entry using the hashtags #TreeHuggingDay, #PunoNgPagmamahal and #ValentinesDay2022. Lastly, make the post public on social media.

Cimatu said that each of the 10 winners will receive a “special token” from the DENR. He did not say what the prize would be.

For the environment chief, he said that such a campaign should be “encouraged,” especially in the Philippines, to “sustain our economic goals to reduce poverty without undermining our environmental programs.”

He also cited findings by the US-based nonprofit think tank Center for Global Development, which stated that developing countries like the Philippines account for 63 percent of the world’s annual carbon emissions.

Another study Cimatu cited was from the Arbor Day Foundation, a nonprofit organization from the United States, which said that a mature tree “will absorb about 22 kilograms of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and release oxygen in exchange in one year.”

“It’s only fitting that we show our gratitude to the trees this Valentine’s Day,” Cimatu said. “Hug a tree in gratitude for the gift they give us — the very air we breathe.”