BY LEANDER C. DOMINGO
QUEZON, Nueva Vizcaya (March 13)— FCF Minerals Corp. is stepping up its reforestation efforts in the communities hosting its mining activities.
James Carmichael, FCF country manager, said the firm’s nursery is now home to a big number of high-quality planting materials of different endemic species of trees including fruit trees.
“Our central nursery has been the key in attaining the mine’s high survival rate on reforestation,” Carmichael said.
He said the variety of endemic species at their nursery include white lauan, mayapis, guijo, ranguike, kalantas, tuai, narra, among other species, that are found in the Philippines.
“We also have high-value crops like rambutan, lansones, durian, guyabano, coffee, cacao, duhat, kasoy, citrus and bamboo species,” Carmichael said.
Their facility was designed to produce from 200,000 to 300,000 seedlings per year.
“We have established a water misting system for water conservation, uniform coverage and gentle precipitation, thus eliminating mortality of germinant and transplants because of uncontrolled watering that can cause injury to the plants,” he added.
FCF has also been into cloning forest tree species to come up with quality planting materials for the company’s rehabilitation and reforestation initiatives.
“Our clonal facility was established which uses macro-somatic clonal propagation technology,” Carmichael said.
He said forest tree species such as guijo, yakal and bagtikan from the Dipterocarpaceae family and other endemic species present challenges
in natural seed propagation because they have seed-off years.
Dipterocarpaceae is a family of largely South Asian and African timber trees comprising of more than 17 genera and 695 species.
Earlier this year, representatives from the Manila and Tuguegarao City offices of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) conducted an initial and offsite validation of FCF’s reforestation efforts for the Best Mining Forest Contest 2020. The MGG is an agency under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
Carmichael said the validators have seen and commended the company’s best practices for nursery operations, progressive mine rehabilitation, mining forest program, and biodiversity conservation programs.
“With this, we are aiming for gold and hoping for a better future,” he said.