Geothermal leader Energy Development Corporation (EDC) supports the government’s efforts to rehabilitate Boracay island and restore its natural resources through the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
On August 13, 2018, the DENR will enter into a Memorandum of Agreement with its corporate partners including EDC, wherein the partners will adopt 9 wetlands found within the island.
EDC, through BINHI, its flagship environmental program, has committed to adopt wetland number 2, a 7.79-hectare area where only native trees will be planted and grown and an arboretum of native trees will be put up. The wetland is located in Brgy. Balabag.
The BINHI program does not just reforest EDC’s geothermal sites. It has also undertaken the task of propagating 96 priority threatened native species. Foresters of the BINHI program have successfully located samples of these species in the wild. These samples were collected and are currently being propagated in EDC’s state-of-the-art automated nurseries in Antipolo and Negros Oriental.
Unknown to many, 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.
Aside from the seedlings that will be planted in the wetlands, EDC plans to build an information center for visitors of the wetland and a bird watch 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 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.