Geoaxioma Philippine Permaculture Project "Plant The Trees And Light The Villages" Brings Real Progress.

Online, September 22, 2013 (Newswire.com) - In early 2012, Bentley House International Corp and Geoaxioma launched a reforestation program to rehabilitate the decimated Sarangani Rain Forest, in Malungon, Sarangani province, Philippines.

The project site is the traditional ancestral lands of the Blaan and Tagakaulo tribes with history dating back to 500BC. This area was selected as it was impoverished, being a land-locked municipality where the inhabitants live deep in the mountains, without traditional fishing as a livelihood income source.

In 2013, the project was re-named "Plant The Trees And Light The Villages" a strategy to encourage the indigenous people, to accelerate the re-planting of the Sarangani Rain Forest with the reward of free home solar kits to every family that plants 500 or more trees in the Project.

The since the launch of the project, over a quarter of a million trees have been planted and more than 200 remote native houses now have solar lights

Project Managing Partner and President of Bentley House International, (BHIC) Mr. Jonathon Bentley-Stevens said, "We have been undertaking Agro-Forestry projects to assist the indigenous tribes in Mindanao since 1994, but this partnership with Geoaxioma is clearly the most successful project to-date. We have really connected with the indigenous people in each of the seven villages, who now earn money from potting seeds, growing seedlings in the nurseries, transporting mature seedlings to the mountain tops, then planting and weeding".

He continued, " The lasting benefit of the solar lights is a direct saving of around $5.00 per family per month ( 250 Pesos) on kerosene, formerly used for lighting, which had to be carried more than 40 kilometers to the mountain villages. With this saving the planting families are now responding by building community sheds for tribal gatherings, day care centers and kindergarten, using their own funds earned in the Geoaxioma - Bentley House Project".

BHIC Management visit to the nursery of the Tagbungan Growers Association, on Saturday, September 22, revealed a completed day-care center with Solar lighting, and a kindergarten complete with blackboard and volunteer teachers.

In third quarter 2013, two more villages have constructed Nurseries as expansion of the Geoaxioma "Plant The Trees And Light The Villages" Project, in Sitio Candice, Patulang and JP Laurel, areas of Malungon, Sarangani. Each of the 7 existing nurseries have seedling capacities of between 30,000 to 70,000 growing trees at anytime.