Eastern Visayas Media Without Borders
By Miriam G. Desacada
Tacloban City-‘The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and Samar BioSPV (a company established by French-firm aDryada and Samar Bamboo Corporation) signed a partnership agreement for the implementation of the Green Samar Project (GSP) in the 3 provinces of Samar. This will be the country’s biggest reforestation project.
The GSP is set to restore 90,000 hectares of denuded forest in the northwestern portion of the Samar Island Natural Park. The historic signing of the most ambitious environmental initiative ever set in the Philippines was done in Manila on May 29, 2024.
The project was born out of the need by Taff Hydroenergy Corporation which has two operating hydro plants and building more in Samar, to preserve its watershed. Taff Hydro’s president Benjie Picardo says “water is our power plants’ fuel. We need a healthy forest cover to ensure consistent flow of water through our turbines”.
Signatories for the memorandum of understanding (MoU) for GSP implementation were then DENR Secretary Maria Antonia Yulo-Loyzaga, Samar Bamboo Corporation (SBC) president Benjie Picardo, and Adryada’s chief executive officer Fabio Ferrari.
Fabio Ferrari, aDryada’s CEO said: “I am proud to launch this project, which is based on the three pillars that aDryada considers equally important to achieve a high level of quality: climate, biodiversity, and improving the living conditions of local populations.”
He added, “It is all the more promising as it draws on the strong experience of our partner (SBC) and the excellent work carried out by the authorities, both at the local and national levels.”
SBC president, Benjie Picardo, said, “I am and honored and excited to the spearhead the Green Samar Project, which will have a transformational impact on the province and its local communities. To prevent locals from engaging in illegal forest practices, we will provide sustainable livelihood programs.”
Samar Governor Sharee Ann Tan after signing the MoU, said: “This project is an example how national and local governments, as well as our bilateral partners, can work together with the private sector in a whole-of-government and a whole-of-society approach for climate resilience.”
She echoed the statement of France Ambassador Marie Fontanel, who witnessed the MoU signing: “This project exhibits that one should never have to choose between the environment and economic and social development.”
The Green Samar Project, while undertaking reforestation and restoring biodiversity in Samar Island National Park, will also generate jobs and livelihood to the people of Samar communities via bamboo economic activities that converts bamboo into industrial and household items to be sold here and abroad.
Further, the GSP backs the Philippine government goals, specifically the Enhanced National Greening Program (eNGP), which is aimed to reforest at least one million hectares of land in the country before 2028.
The wisdom of GSP is aligned with the Philippine government vision that nature-based solutions are crucial tools “to mitigate the effects of climate change and increase the resilience of local communities, by creating jobs and providing ecosystem services.”
A media report also stated: “The Philippines is also finalizing a carbon credit framework that aims to both facilitate the achievement of national climate transition goals and attract foreign investors.”
France-based firm aDryada has been known to be a developer, operator, and financier of large-scale nature-based projects, such as the GSP, on reforestation, land restoration, mangroves, wetlands and the like all over the world—that will have beneficial results on biodiversity, climate and people’s living conditions.
Ambassador Fontanel concluded with a statement on the significance of MoU signing for the GSP, by narrating this: “The Paris Climate Agreement was born in Manila, Philippines. In 2015, then Philippine President Benigno Aquino III and French President Francois Hollande launched the Manila Call to Action for Climate Change, after which the countries met in Paris for the Climate Change Convention.”
After nearly 2 years of extensive studies and consultations GSP is now poised the establish its nursery this October with planting activities slated in the first quarter of 2026—-Miriam G. Desacada
