TONGONAN, LEYTE – First Gen-owned renewable energy leader Energy Development Corporation (EDC) is unveiling its fifth BINHI Vegetative Materials Reproduction (VMR) Nursery today – a corporate social responsibility initiative that seeks to elevate the environment and propagate the most vulnerable Philippine native trees in the region.
BINHI is EDC’s landmark 15-year-old greening legacy program that has been bridging forest gaps and propagating 96 flagship Philippine native tree species, a number of which have already been classified as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the global authority on nature conservation.
The VMR nursery will help the EDC BINHI team propagate the Philippine threatened native tree species that are endemic to the region, such as Katmon Bayani, Mapilig, Almaciga, and other dipterocarp species. This facility is critical to the company’s thrust of mainstreaming native trees as it addresses the non-availability of planting materials or the rarity of tree species due to their threatened status.
The event will be attended by Forester Estella Polinar, who is representing the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Region VIII Executive Director, For. Arturo Fadriquela and other guests from DENR Region VIII.
Through this nursery, EDC BINHI will then be able to provide Philippine native tree species to its partners in the region and spread awareness of reforestation as a vital solution to our warming planet.
EDC’s 711-megawatt Leyte geothermal facility currently supplies more than 30% of the country’s installed geothermal capacity. It is also responsible for putting the Philippines on the map as the world’s 3rd largest geothermal producer and has been providing a reliable supply of clean power to the Luzon and Visayas regions for almost 40 years.
