PBSP to kick off largest reforestation caravan

15 Saturdays to help save the earth
PBSP to kick off largest reforestation caravan


More than 600 volunteers from 18 institutions are taking active role in protecting Cebu's environment by planting trees at the start of the rainy season.

This is the biggest assembly the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) will bring to the Cebu Hillylands for the kickoff of its annual reforestation caravan on June 19.

As of this month, San Miguel Corporation, Jollibee Foods Corporation-Vismin, Cebu Daily News, Punongbayan and Araullo, Qualfon Philippines, Inc., Primary Structures Corporation, Lexmark International Philippines Inc., TMX Philippines Inc., Cebu Energy Development Corporation and Cebu Microelectronics Inc. are among the companies that will take part in the kickoff.

For the event, PBSP targets to plant more than 20,000 tree seedlings on a nine-hectare area in Sitio Cantipla I & II of Barangay Tabunan, Cebu City.

PBSP, the largest corporate-led foundation in the country committed to social development, has been organizing annual reforestation caravans since 1988 with help from its member companies and other groups. It aims to reforest the barren areas of the 29,000-hectare Central Cebu Protected Landscape (CCPL), Metro Cebu's major source of potable water.

For this year's caravan, PBSP targets to enrich 124 hectares by planting more than 300,000 endemic, fruit-bearing and forest trees. PBSP also hopes to further increase the number of volunteers they will gather for the annual activity.

The reforestation caravan will run for 15 Saturdays and will end on September 25. More than 1,000 planters from 31 institutions were already pulled together by PBSP as of June this year.

Companies that already booked a Saturday to help PBSP plant trees are NKC Manufacturing Philippines Corporation, Dumaguete City Development Bank, Lear Corporation, Cebu Dynamic Youth, MSM Cebu, Inc., Taiyo Yuden Philippines, Inc., Vivant Corporation, and Visayan Electric Company, Inc. (VECO).

PBSP encourages other companies and individuals to get actively involved in its reforestation efforts by adopting a hectare to be reforested or by bringing employee volunteers on any scheduled Saturday of the annual caravan.

For inquiries and details, interested corporate sponsors or individuals may contact Malu Largo at 2325270 or 2325238 or email mblargo@pbsp.org.ph/malu.b.largo@gmail.com.