Rainy season is also reforestation season for Smart

MANILA, Philippines - For leading wireless services provider Smart Communications, Inc. (Smart), the rains reinforce the need to pursue reforestation efforts not only to make the earth greener, but also to help protect low-lying areas like Metro Manila from severe flooding.

Last July, Smart jump-started this year’s tree-planting season at the Marikina Watershed with some 1,250 seedlings planted with the help of its employees. As part of community service efforts, the telco has been encouraging its employees to take part in these worthy events, come rain or shine.

For 2012, the telco intends to focus on its existing planting sites throughout the country and sustaining a high survival rate for the seedlings through close monitoring and careful maintenance of each site.

Having embraced tree planting as one of the main initiatives under its Kabalikat sa Kalikasan program, Smart actively pursues partnerships with various institutions, local government units (LGUs), communities and other stakeholders in maintaining, preserving and rehabilitating the country’s forests. 

Japanese telco NTT-Docomo, through the PLDT-Smart Foundation (PSF), has so far donated a total of 12 million yen or nearly P6 million for Smart’s tree-planting activities since 2008.

While the tree-planting initiative formed part of Kabalikat only in 2008, Smart has actually been planting trees since 2005 to help offset the greenhouse gas emissions in its operations. 

From 2005 up to 2011, Smart and PLDT employees have planted a total of 1,126,075 seedlings and propagules for mangroves with the help of community stakeholders as well as volunteers from sister-companies and partner schools nationwide. So far, some 59.73 hectares have been planted with indigenous trees, and 16.86 hectares, with mangroves. 

Planting sites include the Ipo Dam and Marikina watersheds, Calatagan, Subic, Mt. Banahaw, Puerto Princesa and Cagsao in Camarines Sur for Luzon; Cebu, Lapu-Lapu, Negros Oriental and Occidental, Iloilo, Guimaras and Bohol for Visayas; and Misamis Oriental, Surigao, Zamboanga, Sarangani, Digos, Davao City, and Tawi-Tawi in Mindanao.

These sites are constantly being monitored and evaluated in order to ensure a high rate of seedling survival. The mortality rate is attributed to factors such as the improper maintenance of tree-planting sites, improper site selection, and inappropriate planting strategies.

Smart is one of the main proponents of the Marikina Watershed Initiative, a broad-based, public-private partnership launched in 2009 by the Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation (PDRF) to help protect, reforest and rehabilitate the Marikina Watershed.

The PDRF initiative aims to reduce the risk of severe flooding and adverse impacts of extreme weather events. It involves the reforestation of at least 9,520 hectares of the 28,000-hectare watershed, or about 34 percent additional forest cover, in five to 10 years.

Provision of livelihood in the area is also a crucial component of the project to discourage communities from making charcoal from old forest stands.

Smart employees planted 1,875 indigenous trees in three hectares within the Marikina Watershed last year.

The telco provides funding assistance for the planting of seedlings and caring for of trees endemic in the area. In coordination with the PDRF Technical Working Group, Smart has also identified tree-planting sites and sustainable livelihood opportunities for communities in the watershed. It has mounted public awareness campaigns on the importance of the watershed.

It is now working on linking with more institutional partners to maintain and protect the reforested lands and reforest the remaining hectares of the watershed. 

Since starting with a tree nursery in Sitio San Joseph in Antipolo in 2009, Smart, along with the PDRF and its partners, have produced 354,000 seedlings of endemic trees, mobilized 2,160 volunteers and planted 128.55 hectares with a survival rate of 80 percent.

The partnership among Smart, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Manila Waterworks and Sewerage System, Maynilad Water Co.and the National Coalition of Indigenous Peoples on the adoption of 90 hectares inside the Ipo Watershed in Norzagaray, Bulacan is now on its fifth year. Smart has so far planted a total of 105,375 seedlings in 84.3 hectares inside the watershed.

In Visayas and Mindanao, tree-planting activities were done through the help of LGUs, non-governmental organizations and schools. 

A total of 36,750 seedlings, including 16,000 mangrove propagules and 20,750 seedlings of indigenous tree species, were planted in various sites in the region.

Meanwhile, a total of 38,100 seedlings were planted in Mindanao. From this number, 35,800 were devoted to coffee and rubber seedlings; 1,000 were bamboos while the remaining 300 seedlings were a mixture of indigenous tree species. 

The resources of Smart and its partners PSF, NTT Docomo, PDRF, LGUs, local communities and other stakeholders, coupled with the spirit of volunteerism among its employees and that of its partners through various tree-planting initiatives could turn the world green and safer once more for our future generations….one tree at a time.