Aboitiz Group Plants 76,000 Native, Fruit-bearing Trees

Some 2,600 team members and partners of the Aboitiz Group of companies have planted more than 76,000 native tree and fruit-bearing trees in 21 areas in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, the company said in a statement.

The simultaneous activity is part of the Aboitiz Group’s annual tree planting program, under its commitment to create a better world, the statement said.

In Cebu, volunteers from Aboitiz subsidiaries East Asia Utilities Corp., Cebu Private Power Corp. and the Visayan Electric Company planted native tree seedlings in Cansomoroy, Balamban town in western Cebu within the Central Cebu Protected Landscape.

Therma Visayas, Inc. planted bamboo and tree seedlings around the construction site of its two 150-megawatt coal-fired power plant in Barangay Bato, Toledo City in western Cebu.

In San Carlos City, volunteers of the San Carlos Sun Power, Inc. planted fruit-bearing trees in Barangay Punao, the host community of its solar power plant.

The Aboitiz Annual Groupwide STP forms part of A-Park, the Aboitiz Group’s firm commitment to grow nine million seedlings by 2020, which was raised from an initial goal of three million seedlings by 2015, after it was met a year ahead of schedule.

The tree-planting activity upholds the importance of a healthy ecosystem by shrinking the Aboitiz Group’s overall carbon footprint, the statement said.

The Aboitiz Group, through A-Park, is one of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’s largest National Greening Program (NGP).

“A-Park is the Aboitiz Group’s contribution to reforestation and a healthy ecosystem. Under this, we conduct our annual simultaneous tree planting as well as our other year-round tree growing activities that are led by our SBUs nationwide,” said Erramon I. Aboitiz, Aboitiz Equity Ventures Inc. president and chief executive officer.

“The Aboitiz Group’s commitment to help restore the planet’s forest cover encompasses nearly four decades of watershed development and looking after forest lands,” Aboitiz said.

As of 2015, the Aboitiz Group has grown 3.8 million seedlings in various locations nationwide, with each seedling having an average survival rate of 78 percent.

This puts the Aboitiz Group well on track to growing nine million seedlings by the end of 2020, which are then estimated to sequester 450 million pounds of carbon dioxide annually. (PNA)
FPV/EB-PR/EDS