The Nordson Forest Park is a 60-hectare man-made community forest that was created in 1996. It can be found in Victorias City, Negros Occidental in the Philippines. For many generations, the land was used for sugarcane plantations until the current owner Atty. Nordy P. Diploma initiated planting the first batch of trees with the help of several students from La Salle.
The island of Negros, in the Visayas region of the Philippines, has for generations been one of the most prosperous parts of this nation of islands. It’s a prosperity based on sugar. The rich farmland and ideal climate were recognized by the island’s colonizers – first Spanish, then American – as a sweet, sustainable source of wealth. The almost inevitable consequence was the development, across the landscape, of swaying stands of sugar cane in a mono-crop economy. But this came at a cost: the island’s rich tropical forests were almost wiped out – less than 5% remained by the time the Negros “sugar bowl” was fully developed.
Atty. Nordy Diploma, a native of Negros Occidental, decided that things didn’t have to be this way for ever. It should be said that Atty. Diploma is not your conventional courtroom lawyer, bound by custom and precedent. As a law student, the young Diploma had helped pay his law school bills by organizing boxing contests; he continued his promotional activities even after graduation as one of the top attorneys from the prestigious Ateneo de Manila law school.
“I saw the potential for jump-starting the re-building of the forests of northern Negros, which had been degraded for generations,” the Attorney says. “I also saw the potential for developing, in conjunction with the City of Victorias, first-class technological institutions based on the solid foundations provided by the nearby Don Bosco Institute and the Negros Occidental Science High School.”
For almost two decades now, the Nordson Forest Park has been dedicated to re-greening Negros Occidental and preserving the environment for future generations. It is a real-world laboratory replete with a Seedlings Bank, test beds for the assessment of best-practices for forest development, and facilities and programs developed in conjunction with the Negros Occidental Science High School.
