The government has completed a program aimed at restoring mangrove and natural beach forests in coastal areas battered by Super Typhoon “Yolanda” in 2013, Environment Secretary Ramon Paje said on Saturday.
Paje said some 50,417 hectares of coastal areas in 43 Yolanda-hit provinces were covered by the Mangrove and Beach Forests Development Project, which was carried out by the Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
“Although ERDB only had a little over one year to implement the MBFDP, it was able to achieve the target of 50,000 hectares and 125 million seedlings,” Paje said.
He added: “MBFDP mirrors the commitment of the Aquino administration to build back better the communities ravaged by the disaster, and the ERDB has done well in amplifying that commitment.”
MBFDP is a special coastal reforestation initiative under the National Greening Program that was created to hasten the establishment of mangrove areas and beach forest belts in areas devastated by one of the strongest storms in history.
Of the more than 50,417 hectares, around 90 percent or 44,800 hectares of the rehabilitated areas were planted with native mangrove, while the remaining 5,617 hectares of beach forest belts were planted with indigenous beach tree species like talisay, agoho, apatot, antipolo, alagawdagat, bitaog, dampalit, kalumpang and katmon.
The MBFDP had also exceeded its seedling production target for the NGP from 2011 to 2014, having produced 139 million mangrove propagules and beach forest tree species or 293 percent higher than the program’s regular seedling production for coastal reforestation.
The project likewise generated 87,500 jobs and benefited 12,500 individuals who were hired as workers doing planting site preparation tasks and seedling production activities.
Of the 10 regions targeted under MBFDP, Region 8 topped the list of having the highest number of areas covered at 13,633 hectares; followed by Region 4-B with 8,096; Region 5 with 7,943; Region 7 with 4,947; Region 9 with 4,731; Region 6 with 3,468; Region 13 with 4,452; Region 11 with 1,768; Region 4A with 1,000; and Region 10 with 378.