New law requires all graduating students from high school, college to plant 10 trees each

Students in The Philippines will now be required to plant at least 10 trees each before they graduate.

This is after a new law was passed in a bid to combat climate change.

Philippines’ forest cover has significantly dropped in the past few years and the country is now seeking to plant roughly 175 million trees every year.

"With over 12 million students graduating from elementary and nearly five million students graduating from high school and almost 500,000 graduating from college each year, this initiative, if properly implemented, will ensure that at least 175 million new trees would be planted each year,” said The Philippines’ Magdalo Party representative Gary Alejano, who was the principal author of the legislation.

Adding: “In the course of one generation, no less than 525 billion can be planted under this initiative.”

The initial plan is to plant the trees in existing forests, some protected areas, military ranges and some abandoned mining sites.

Recently in Kenya, President Uhuru Kenyatta led State House staff in a tree planting exercise at State House Nairobi gardens and urged Kenyans to take advantage of the current rains to plant more trees in an effort to conserve mother nature.

A section of online users wondered whether Kenya’s government would be bold enough to ask students to plant trees before graduating.

Some of the students we interviewed lauded the initiative in The Philippines but questioned its practicability in Kenya.

Some private universities already have mandatory units that involve giving back to the community but none is yet to introduce a tree planting exercise for students before graduating.