SAN FERNANDO CITY—One summer in the early 1970s, Osamu Nakagaki began to eat as many ripe mangoes as he could so he could retrieve good seeds he would plant at a denuded mountain in Barangay Cataclan here.

Only 25 at the time, Nakagaki was a volunteer of Japan Overseas Volunteer Cooperation (JOVC), an affiliate of Ja-pan International Cooperation Agency (Jica).

“In April and May, I would eat ripe mangoes, then planted the seeds which were ready for replanting in December,” Nakagaki said.

Nakagaki and volunteers who came after him and their Filipino friends had to eat 2,000 mangoes to generate the seeds that soon grew into a mango orchard where the city’s botanical garden, established in 1995, is now located. The garden was opened to the public in 1998.

Former San Fernando City Mayor Mary Jane Ortega said the botanical garden was selected by botanist Ronaldo del Rosario of the National Museum precisely because of the full-grown mango trees there.

Nakagaki, now 71, was a horticulturist, who later served as Jica’s country director. He was initially involved in a project to raise tomatoes and other crops during rainy months. But during his travels, he noticed the balding mountains and decided to shift from planting crops to reforestation.

“I learned that people were practicing ‘kaingin’ (slash-and-burn). They burned the trees to plant crops, but they were destroying the forests in the process. I came up with the idea of a forest conservation project and told (then) Governor (Juvenal) Guerrero about it, and he was receptive,” Nakagaki said.

He chose Cataclan, which was accessible only by a trail, even though it was only 8 kilometers from the city center. “From the foot of the mountain to the site, we had to walk for two hours,” he said.

Nakagaki decided to plant mango trees, after observing that “residents seemed not to care about forest trees and tended to cut them down. But they didn’t destroy fruit trees.”

“They waited until the trees grew and bore fruits which they could eat or sell. But before we could plant, we had to eat mangoes to have seeds,” he said, chuckling.

Nakagaki arrived in La Union province in November 1970 and stayed until January 1974. It was in 1972 when he started the mango planting project.

When he left the country, three more JOVC volunteers continued the project until about 20 hectares were covered with the sweet fruit-bearing mango trees.

In 2002, Nakagaki returned to La Union as Jica country director and was surprised to find a forest where he planted seeds.

His bond with La Union has not ended. Three years ago, when JOVC celebrated its 50th year, Nakagaki and other former volunteers returned to the botanical garden, this time to plant guyabano (soursop) seedlings.

The place, where the garden is located, was named Sitio Hapon in honor of the Japanese who reforested the mountain: Nakagaki, Yoshiro Kodera, Hitoshi Naguchi and Akio Yamamoto.

Last week, Nakagaki visited the city with his son, Naruhito, bringing along Japanese friends who invested in information technology (IT) enterprises. They were interested in hiring IT course graduates.

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