Eco warrior eyes Samar regreening

Although ambitious, Allana Montelibano, director for business development at Audax Global, recognized the significance of implementingthe largest reforestation effort in the country as a crucial step in combating climate change.

The Green Samar Project is the first largescale reforestation project in the Philippines. The project aims to restore some 90,000 hectares of degraded forest in the northwestern part of the 335,105-hectare Samar Island National Park (SINP).

It is initiated through a collaboration led by Audax Global. Montelibano emphasized the need for foreign assistance due to the lack of budget and resources required to implement such a large-scale project.

“We need foreign funding to at least recreate part of the island,” she said during DAILY TRIBUNE’s Straight Talk.

Creating typhoon-resilient country

When Montelibano reached out to Audax Global s.a.r.l. founder Jeremy Knight, she thought of the project as sustainable.

“When I stumbled into this project, I thought this was good because there’s no cost to the government and it’s a project with purpose and yet it’s also sustainable,” Montelibano explained.

“The more I studied it, the more I realized, it can work here because the Philippines is known as one of the most biodiverse countries in the world,” she continued.

There is already a bamboo plantation in Samar, she added.

“We thought that the bamboo would be a good socioeconomic component of the project because Samar is always having typhoons and bamboo is resilient,” she added.

To make the project more doable, Montelibano said they also partner with local government units and local project management boards.

“Without the locals, it cannot work,” she added.

Carbon credit

According to Montelibano, the Green Samar Project will also yield high-quality carbon credits.

Carbon credits, also referred to as carbon offsets, are permits that authorize the holder to emit a specific amount of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases.

One credit permits the emission of one ton of carbon dioxide or the equivalent of other greenhouse gases.

On 29 May, Samar BioSPV, a joint venture between the French company aDryada and Samar Bamboo Corporation, along with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, signed a memorandum of understanding to implement the Green Samar Project.

SINP is vying to be a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The government plans to reforest at least one million hectares of land in the country before 2028.