TIJUANA The greenhouse is located in the city's east side, in one of the most arid neighborhoods in the region, among the industrial plants that spew workers and cargo trucks out at all hours.
Even though its location suggests otherwise, the La Morita greenhouse is the front line in the state's battle to create expanses of trees in areas sorely lacking them.
The greenhouse has a capacity to grow 500,000 trees. Since it opened nearly two years ago, it has yielded enough trees to populate sections of forests to help rehabilitate zones in Mexicali, Ensenada and Tijuana.
"It's the first time this kind of project is being done. The state is growing trees to reduce the number of areas without them," said Efraín Nieblas, Baja California's secretary of Environmental Protection, during a recent tour of the greenhouse.
To meet this goal, the state government has built another greenhouse in the Mexicali desert zone called Las Arenitas. It has the same production capacity as the one in Tijuana and is also built next to a water treatment plant that provides it abundant water all year long.
The state also has another tree farm in El Hongo, in Tecate, to grow pines to rehabilitate areas damaged by forest fires in the mountains. And next February, it will inaugurate a fourth greenhouse south of Ensenada, in the Maneadero area.
The state plans to grow a total of 2 million trees per year enough to populate a forest.
"We have invested about $553,500 in the three nurseries so far. That's an unprecedented investment for the state so we can grow our own plants and our own trees, which will help us build green corridors," Nieblas said.
These corridors – along traveling routes – will be populated by trees grown in the greenhouses, which are operated by solar power.
The man in charge of the La Morita greenhouse, Rafael Soto, explained that trees such as pines, alders, Italian cypress, chinaberry, ash trees, among others, are growing there.
"These are species that are guaranteed to survive in the region and can easily adapt to the climactic conditions found at the coast," Soto said.
The environmental agency provides the nurseries with the seeds for all trees and the greenhouse makes its own compost, he said.
A staff of 12 selects the seeds and plants them in trays. The trees are transferred to bags and grown under cover to get them used to the weather. When the trees reach three feet high, they are loaded onto trucks to be transported to the areas where they will be planted.
He explained that each greenhouse has a system of automated watering, heating and ventilation, and that each is kept at the ideal temperature for germination and growth.
The World Health Organization recommends that there be around 100 square feet of green area per inhabitant in an urban zone.
Nieblas, Baja California's environment chief, said that the state is 50 per cent below this recommendation.
Green areas in urban zones are important not only for their aesthetic value but because they offer recreational and social benefits to residents, according the WHO.
Thus, in the middle of the eastside's industrial zone, amid the assembly plants and the cargo trucks coming and going, few are aware that a greenhouse is growing a forest nearby to improve the quality of life of the region's inhabitants.
Omar.millan@sandiegored.com
