TREES offer a multitude of benefits to the environment and well-being as they contribute to energy conservation, water preservation and even heat absorption. Trees provide sustenance and economic opportunities while also serving as habitats for wildlife.

Most importantly, trees are a natural carbon sink as they absorb more carbon than they produce, all this while releasing oxygen to the air. Consequently, trees help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and play a crucial role in sustaining life on earth.

This Earth Month, Aboitiz Power Corp. (AboitizPower) recognizes its business units, located in different parts of the country, that take action in empowering year-round efforts to plant over two million trees and create carbon sinks for a healthier planet.

Along the way, significant bonds with local communities and stakeholders have also been formed and strengthened, showing how camaraderie, responsibility and a sense of communal ownership are needed to scale carbon sequestration activities, and ultimately, bring about sustainable environmental and socioeconomic changes within localities.

Carbon Sink Management programs

AboitizPower subsidiaries Therma South Inc. (TSI) and Therma Visayas Inc. (TVI) have built carbon sinks in Davao del Sur and Toledo City, Cebu, respectively, en route to planting one million trees each within their host communities.

TSI has begun its Carbon Sink Management Program in 2015, and it recently completed its goal of planting one million trees in Davao City, including areas covering the ancestral domains of indigenous peoples (IPs).

Through a collaborative effort with Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. (RAFI), alongside the Matigsalug Council of Elders Marilog District Davao City Inc. and the Matigsalug Manobo Tribal People Council of Elders Davao Inc., TSI has successfully planted a variety of endemic, fruit-bearing and high-value trees in the Marilog District. It has also resulted in restoring and rehabilitating over 845 hectares of the IP's ancestral domain.

TSI and RAFI have also held several technical training sessions in farm planning; nursery establishment and seedling production; site preparation and plantation establishment; and plantation maintenance and monitoring. Collaboration with the local public agriculture office will also bring more opportunities for the IPs, including upskilling in cacao production, marketing and networking.

Meanwhile, TVI has begun its 10-year Carbon Sink Management Program in 2016. To date, it has planted and nurtured 770,000 trees with the help of RAFI and the hard work of 277 farmers in Cebu. As of the end of 2023, the program has covered a land area of 1,084 hectares, spanning the municipalities and cities of Balamban, Toledo, Borbon, Asturias, Barili, Tuburan, Pinamungahan, Ronda, Cebu and Dumanjug.

Under the program, partner-farmers earn a livelihood from payments for their seedlings and maintenance services as well as added income opportunities from the produce of fruit-bearing and high-value trees.

Native trees of mixed fruit and timber, planted since 2017, include narra, lanutan, cacao, coffee, lomboy, nangka or jackfruit, guyabano, rambutan, lanzones, avocado, Kunawom, molave or tugas, duhat or java plum, labana, calamansi, malaruhat, sangil, agoho del monte, caimito or star apply, conalum and taguilomboy.

If one plants trees, birds will come

The eight-hectare Aboitiz Cleanergy Park in Punta Dumalag, Matina Aplaya, Davao City actively promotes decarbonization in an urban area, showcasing a mangrove reforestation site, nursery and botanical garden for the propagation of multiple native tree species. As a direct result, many species of birds, including migrants, residents to localized endemics, consider the trees their home.

Following a recommendation by the University of the Philippines Mindanao and University of Southeastern Philippines back in 2013, the park has steadily propagated trees in the area through years of joint efforts from the public and private sectors, enabling an increase in the number of bird species residing there, rising from just five in 2015 to 106 in 2023.

As observed by birdists, who frequent the park, more trees means more food and shelter that accommodates the influx of more bird species. This growth has been further sustained by habitat conservation activities and proper biodiversity management, which makes it a safer reserve for the birds, especially since too few people move around it. The site is jointly managed by AboitizPower subsidiary Davao Light and Aboitiz Foundation Inc.

Mangrove protection and restoration

Meanwhile, in Bataan, GNPower Mariveles Energy Center Ltd. Co. (GMEC) continues its 5-year mangrove adoption and protection project for the province through a series of activities, including a 2-day workshop and a planting activity.

Last year, GMEC has signed a memorandum of agreement for an estimated P6.8-million 5-hectares Orani Mangrove Adoption and Protection Project to improve the existing conditions of the mangrove areas in the allotted five hectares for a period of 5 years, which is subject for a possible extension.

A recent workshop — spearheaded by GMEC and conducted by the Wetlands International Philippines — had 46 attendees from the provincial government of Bataan, various relevant local government offices and community partner, Tubo-tubo Fisherfolks Association, who have learned the ins and outs of mangrove protection and restoration.

A few days after the workshop, 1,000 mangrove saplings have been planted by 35 volunteers from the Tubo-tubo Fisherfolks Association in GMEC's 5-hectare adopted area in Tubo-Tubo, Sitio Pulo, Barangay Kabalutan, Orani, Bataan.

Together with the provincial government of Bataan, the municipality of Orani, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and the Tubo-tubo Fisherfolks Association, the project will help advance GMEC's flagship environmental program called P.R.O.G.R.E.S.S., with focus on the letters "P" and "R," which stand for "protect marine life" and "reforest land," respectively.

For AboitizPower and its partners and neighbors, commemorating Earth Month is about working together for the year-round practice of its core message, ultimately leaving the planet better than when we found it.