Trees are always tagged as "life" because of its usefulness as a resource for every living being. Using all of its part without leaving anything from its roots and up to the end of its fruit-bearing branches.
The Giant Dao (Dracontomelon Dao) is a fruit tree that is indigenous to the tropical forests of Southeast Asia. This tree can grow up to 30 meters tall and produce large, spherical fruits which has a sweet, juicy flesh with a large seed in the center. This tree is located at Biak-na-Bato National Park in San Miguel Bulacan and is considered to be the biggest of its kind in the Philippines and is estimated to be around 210 years old.
Just like how gigantic the Giant Dao is, its value is also immeasurable. As an essential part of the ecosystem, the Giant Dao is used for furniture-making, food, and medicine. While the tree's trunk and branches are often used for furniture-making, the notable value the Dao tree has is that its fruit, besides being edible, it has medicinal properties. Dao fruit has anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, cooling properties and it also acts as an antidote. But sadly, with the growing population and hunger for technological growth, trees like the Giant Dao are much lesser than the buildings built on deforested lands.
The Giant Dao is one of the native trees in the Philippines and is deserving to be protected. However, native trees such as the Dao tree are becoming more rare as people pave more way for technology via deforestation, indeed, it is one of their greatest adversaries. The Earth is losing more than 24 billion trees each year, according to a study published in the journal at Nature. That's a tree loss of more than 3 million acres every year. The study found that the tropics are particularly the ones to be hit by global warming, with the loss of more than 15 million acres of tropical forest each year. Dao trees are more susceptible to growth in areas with high rainfall activity. Although, we are a tropical country, there are more sunshines than rain here. Another factor is the poor forest management, nature are often taken for granted believing that it can sustain itself, but with the growing limit of its resources, it cannot grow itself back to health without outside help.
Trees are essential to our survival. It is a known fact that these trees play a vital role in the way of life. There exists advocate groups in pursuit of saving native trees such as the Giant Dao, but with the impending global warming and depletion of resources, it is time to join forces with them. With the cooperation between advocate groups, communities, schools, and the government, procurement of Dao seeds from its fruits can be done and distributed to communities and schools. Give it as a requirement that they plant trees. Also, researching and marketing of the tree's medicinal properties while replanting it will greatly help not only the technology, but also the mass.
As much as we use Earth's resources for our needs, it is only right and appropriate of us to have courtesy to our greatest provider. By joining the act of preserving and caring for these resources, we must embody the principle of give and take.
Resources:
Dao (Dracontomelon Dao)
Giant Dao of Biak na Bato National Park