Philippine Government Reaffirms Its Commitment to the BHIC / Geoaxioma Philippine Permaculture Project

Island garden City of Samal, Philippines, June 25, 2015 (Newswire.com) - In early 2012, Bentley House International Corp and Geoaxioma launched a reforestation program to rehabilitate the Sarangani Rain Forest, in Malungon, Sarangani province, in Southern Mindanao, Philippines, which had been decimated by previous logging operations.

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.

As a partner in the project the Philippine  Government through the office of Mayor Reynaldo F. Constatino, pledged to construct a village to market road almost 20km into the mountain following  along the former horse trail. On their part project partners BHIC and Geoaxioma pledged to give every family planting 500 trees, a free home solar light kit.

The since the launch of the project, the road has been renovated many times and resulted in a major increase in income to these mountain village households, who now have access to the highway, using motorcycles and vehicles to deliver their organic vegetables, and bringing polybags, fertilizer, spraying equipment  and seeds back to the village nurseries. 

As a result over a third of a million trees have been planted and almost 500 remote native houses now have solar lights  

Project Managing Partner and President of  Bentley House International,  (BHIC)  Mr. Jonathon Bentley-Stevens  who visited the area last week said, “ we are very pleased with the ongoing commitment of the Philippine government through the Mayors office, wherein the road maintenance program is ongoing, which, given the remote are a and mountainous terrain is a sincere commitment. Which would normally burden the budget of most projects”.  

 Project sites are in Tagbungan, Kadala Dalaan, Sitio Candice, Patulang, Patulang Centro and   Sabangan, each of the 7 existing nurseries have seedling capacities of between 30,000 to 70,000 growing trees at anytime.

The project is now one third of the way to its target of one million trees, and a bronze plaque has been  mounted at the foot of the trees planted by Project benefactor Vanbessa Salvi, commemorating the milestone achieved.

The project is family oriented with mothers and fathers and even children participating the filling of poly bags, propagating of seedlings, nursery care and planting, with payments to the families for every segment of the seedling production, transportation, planting and even post planting maintenance.