The Sierra Madre mountain range is the Philippines’ shield against the worst of typhoons, heavy rains, and flooding that barrel through the country from the Pacific Ocean. Stretching for more than 500 kilometers, the series of mountains serves as a protector for Filipinos from Cagayan in the north to Quezon province in the south, including those in Metro Manila.
However, data from the Haribon Foundation notes that the nearly 1.4-million-hectare forest is disappearing at a rate of 9,000 hectares per year, mostly due to illegal logging, mining, and quarrying, making flash floods and landslides more common. In response, both the private and public sectors have conducted reforestation drives to restore lost forest cover.
One such project is the GCash in-app platform, GForest, which enables users to contribute to various environmental initiatives on their phones. Supported by over 25 million registered users, as of today, the Philippines’ leading finance superapp initiative has led to the planting of more than 4.2 million trees covering more than 18,000 hectares of land, supporting both reforestation and agroforestry projects while providing incremental livelihoods to over 15,000 farmers and foresters, and their families.
For its latest endeavor, GForest teamed up with the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB), for a broader collaboration that supports multi-year forest rehabilitation, research, and community-based livelihood development within the Sierra Madre Land Grant.
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