Uy, Marielle S.

ABM 11-B SOCSCI 01 09/18/19

“Puso Para sa Puno”

Our world would never be as habitable as it is today without its trees. Trees perform numerous tasks that
counterbalance human pollutants, balance the water and carbon cycles, and improve the quality of land making
it more suitable for life to thrive.
Let’s talk about the Amazon Wildfire, you’ve heard of it right? When did you hear of it? Was it yesterday,
last week, or maybe even last month? Or maybe you’ve never really caught wind of it yet? My point is, a
majority of those who know of this thinks that the big wildfire is only a recent issue when in reality the Amazon
rainforest has been experiencing such wildfires since way before you were born. There are over 40,000 recorded
cases of Amazon wildfires through the years and around 906,000 hectares of land was lost. The vast majority of
the fires burning in the Amazon right now were started by humans in service of mining, logging, and
agriculture. I can’t even begin to imagine how many trees we have lost because of our carelessness.
However, such a case is not the first of its kind. I mean, how many forests have we cleared, how many
mountains have we balded , how many of mother nature’s best gifts have we destroyed for the sake of our own
selfishness? Let’s be honest, the environment has been made to suffer our wrong-doings and now we’re reaping
the harvest of our abuse and indifference.
Imagine a world without trees; the energy and pollution levels would explode, the effects of climate change
would surely worsen, various infrastructures could be hindered, and the number of fruits we could eat would
decrease. Now imagine our country without trees. Cebu is already this hot with the number of trees we still
have. Without these, the air would become more polluted, droughts would spread, oxygen levels would drop,
floods would occur more often, and various other natural disasters would also increase in both number and
intensity.
Let’s face it, one of the major factors in our survival is the trees. Knowing this, we as the youth should not
only spread hashtags and sad or angry reacts on social media platforms because it has never been enough to
simply be aware of the destruction of mother nature. We who were labeled as the hope of the future should act.
I’m saying that we should not limit ourselves to reacting but challenge our capabilities to fight for our
tomorrow.
My advocacy called the Puso Para sa Puno empowers such individuals to wholeheartedly dedicate
themselves to the survival of trees. This shall be done through various tree-planting events and forest clean-up
activities. Join me in my mission to preserve and protect the very trees that gave us the life that we are living
today. Together, let us stop the destruction of mother nature by giving our devoted hearts to the trees that
surround us.