The Vegetative Material Reproduction (VMR) nursery of the Energy Development Company (EDC), located at its Mount Apo Geothermal Plant (MAGP) in Brgy. Ilomavis, Kidapawan City, continues to propagate native trees of Mindanao.
Beej Lagmay, spokesperson for EDC Mount Apo VMR Technology, shared during a site tour at the Mt. Apo Geothermal Production Field in Kidapawan City, Cotabato Province, on Friday that the center utilizes both conventional and unconventional techniques in propagating seedlings.
Lagmay explained that the nursery hosts the majority of EDC’s priority native species in Mindanao, such as narra, molave, and almaciga, as part of its flagship environmental program BINHI, which aims to preserve Mt. Apo’s biodiversity.
According to EDC, VMR involves duplicating a single plant organism. The process creates populations of genetically identical individuals, a method observed in nature when organisms reproduce asexually.
EDC further detailed that its VMR program has three main components: The hedge garden: A collection of trees grown as hedges, serving as the source of germplasm; The greenhouse facility: A space housing the rooting laboratory; The hardening area: Where seedlings are acclimatized before planting.
In 2008, EDC launched BINHI, the country’s only private-led forest restoration program. Its goals include sustaining geothermal resources, bridging forest gaps, and restoring the abundance of 145 endangered Philippine native tree species.
Since 1992, MAGP has planted and cultivated nearly 950,000 native tree seedlings across over 1,400 hectares within the Mt. Apo Natural Park area, including Kidapawan City, Magpet, Makilala, Arakan, and Bansalan in Davao del Sur. This effort has enabled MAGP to maintain 90% of the forest cover in its operational area, resulting in a carbon sequestration increment of 972 metric tons annually.
