Naga-based cement firm backs environmental drive in Sta. Fe

CEBU, Philippines - As part of its continuing commitment to the conservation of biodiversity, a cement corporation based in Naga City, Cebu will give its full support to the protection and rehabilitation of marine life in the coastal town of Sta. Fe, Bantayan Island.

“We were fairly successful in Donsol, so we’d like to replicate that project here in Sta. Fe,” Darwin Mariano, Cemex’ public affairs director said.

Mariano, in an interview with the media during the launching of his firm’s tie up with Batas Kalikasan in Sta. Fe last March 15 and 16, said that Cemex Philippines Foundation finds it a “groundbreaking initiative” to develop a sustainable, science-based framework to protect threatened species and prevent their extinction. Batas Kalikasan is another of lawyer and environmentalist Antonio Oposas’s projects.

Three years ago, in May 2007, the foundation launched in Donsol, Sorsogon its Adopt-a-Wildlife-Species (AAWS) program, which is aimed at protecting the country’s whale sharks from extinction.

“Three years after and as a result of concerted efforts with our partners Conservation International, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Department of Agriculture, a joint Administrative Order on AAWS is ready to be signed,” said Mariano.

The order will allow organizations, companies and individuals to participate in the government’s campaign to conserve biodiversity and prevent species extinction.

With the success of the project, Cemex moved to Sta. Fe to join its concerted effort to pump up more support for the protection of the environment there, which has been started by Oposa with his School of the Seas.

One of the plans, according to Mariano is to build artificial reefs, made of Cemex cement, to be placed in one of the marine protected areas in the island. He explained that the area with the kind of weather it has has already lost most of its corals there, mostly destroyed by waves, hence, artificial reefs, which will be specially designed to withstand seawater, will be dropped there soon.   (FREEMAN NEWS)