The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has partnered with geothermal leader Energy Development Corp. to rehabilitate and restore Boracay Island through BINHI, a flagship environmental program of EDC where only native trees will be planted and grown in its adopted wetland.
EDC supports the government’s efforts to rehabilitate Boracay Island and restore its natural resources, the company said in a statement.
DENR signed a Memorandum of Agreement on Monday with its corporate partners, including EDC, which will adopt nine wetlands within Boracay.
EDC, through BINHI, has committed to adopt the island’s wetland number 2, a 7.79-hectare area in Barangay Balabag, where only native trees will be planted and grown and an arboretum or botanical garden will be put up.
The BINHI program does not just reforest EDC’s geothermal sites; it also grows 96 priority threatened native species.
Foresters of the BINHI program have successfully located samples of these species in the wild and collected and are currently being propagated in EDC’s state-of-the-art automated nurseries in Antipolo and Negros Oriental.
EDC said planting of native species is beneficial to the local ecosystems, as they adapt to local conditions better and can support native fauna better than exotic species like acacia, mahogany, and gmelina.
EDC also plans to build an information center for visitors of the wetland, and a platform to allow visitors to view the birds and bats that have been sighted in the area.
Now on its tenth year, the BINHI program has planted 9,196 hectares across its geothermal sites located in Leyte, Bicol, Negros Oriental, and North Cotabato. To help propagate these native tree species, BINHI now has 162 partners across 16 regions.
EDC is the world’s largest vertically integrated geothermal company, and the only diversified renewable energy firm in the country, with an installed total capacity of 1,456.8MW of purely renewable energy.
