Top firms to fund Marikina watershed effort

MANILA, Philippines - Top companies Smart Communications, Ayala-led Manila Water, fast-food giant Jollibee Foods, Citibank, Coca-Cola Foundation, Accenture, Milward Brown and logistics company DB Schenker-Philippines have banded together to help raise much needed funding for the Marikina Watershed Initiative.

The Marikina Watershed Initiative is a broad-based Public-Private Partnership launched in July last year by the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation (PDRF) to protect, reforest and rehabilitate the Marikina Watershed.

The denudation of the Marikina Watershed has been cited as one of the factors in the deadly flooding caused by Typhoon Ondoy in September 2009.

According to Darwin F. Flores, coordinator of the PDRF Reforestation Committee, a total of around P75 million has been raised already in support of the Marikina Watershed Initiative.

However, Flores pointed out, the Marikina Watershed Initiative will need so much more.

Under the Marikina Watershed Initiative, only 9,520 hectares of the 28,000 hectares watershed is being targeted for reforestation in five to 10 years.

A rough calculation of the funding needed, Flores said, would already amount to P1.5 billion.

The initiative hopes to attract more companies to participate in the reforestation effort through adoption packages.

At a contribution of P200,000, the adopt-a-hectare package includes the provision of ready-to-plant seedlings, a preparation of the planting site, site maintenance for a period of three years and contribution to a community fund.

A smaller contribution of P120,000 for a seedling nursery package would involve the gathering and care of some 20,000 seeds/seedlings that will be used for tree-planting activities.