6.3 million trees planted under progressive rehabilitation
The Philippine Nickel Industry Association (PNIA) through its 8-member companies have boosted their Environmental Protection and Enhancement Program (EPEP) and have reported a total of 6.3 million trees planted over 3,167 hectares in their respective mining areas.
Despite the slowdown in operations during the community quarantine period, PNIA member companies have planted an additional 809,656 more trees in the first two quarters of 2020 alone, covering 322 hectares of land or equivalent of approximately 600 football fields, which brings their total number of planted trees to over 6 million to date.
The increase in tree planting efforts from the association resulted in a 13.9% growth in the total number of trees planted as of the second quarter of 2020. Last year, PNIA reported 5.3 million trees planted.
“PNIA members have consistently delivered beyond compliance to demonstrate our commitment to environment protection and rehabilitation. PNIA members have invested over PHP 203M on continued EPEP activities and specifically PHP 59.7M on progressive rehabilitation this year despite the pandemic,” says PNIA Executive Director Charmaine Olea-Capili.
Capili emphasized that the implementation of the progressive rehabilitation program is based on research and follows rigorous scientific methods.
“PNIA members have full-time environment and technical experts who study the ecosystem and soil of each area that will be rehabilitated to identify which tree species will suit the environment and benefit the community. Member companies have planted over 70 different tree species including bamboo in their respective mining sites,” she added.
As of August 2020, the group reported over 23,100 bamboo seedlings have been planted across 43 hectares. Aside from rehabilitating the environment, bamboo-planting can also provide livelihood opportunities for the local communities by selling various bamboo-made products.
Apart from boosting tree planting activities for the year, the nickel industry members have also conducted numerous environmental programs for the benefit of their host communities, including 17 coastal clean ups in Surigao del Norte, Surigao del Sur, Agusan del Norte, and Palawan, and the planting of almost 95,000 mangrove seedlings as of August of this year.
The on-going reforestation is just part of the continuous efforts of the industry to help the local communities during the pandemic. As of July this year, the nickel group members have recently allotted almost PHP 30M in pandemic relief assistance under their Social Development Management Programs (SDMP) in the form of personal protective equipment (PPEs), food security packs, medicines and test kits, disinfection tents, organized transportation and intensive information dissemination campaign in their host communities to ensure that localities including the indigenous communities are taken cared of during the pandemic.
“We ensure that no one gets left behind especially in these trying times. In partnership with the local government, we continuously provide assistance through our various social development, crisis response and environment protection programs. Although production slowed down this year, PNIA members have ramped up their social development and environment programs to help the community throughout the pandemic and deliver our commitments to our stakeholders,” Capili adds.