THE Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has flashed the green light for two mining companies to use activated carbon or “biochar,” which can be useful in rehabilitating mined-out areas.
Environment Senior Undersecretary Leo L. Jasareno, and Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) Regional Directors Alilo Ensomo and Lope Cariño Jr. of Caraga and Central Luzon, respectively, approved the projects of Surigao nickel miner Marcventures Mining and Development Corp. (MMDC) and Zambales’s Benguetcorp Nickel Mines Inc. (BNMI).
The project is in line with the new policy direction of the DENR to provide sustainable livelihood programs for host communities of mining operations, particularly the rehabilitation of mined-out areas for other beneficial land uses during and after mine life.
MMDC and BNMI signed agreements to each put up 50-hectare pilot farms to be started immediately in both provinces where there are plenty of organic materials, like rice husks, a key input to biochar.
Philippine Biochar Association (PBiA) estimates that each 50-hectare plot will generate about P8 million in revenues for the communities. More important, the project will result in renewable and continued income-generating cash crops and species of trees, like falcata.
BNMI is one of the 10 mining companies suspended by the DENR during the first phase of the mine audit ordered by Environment Secretary Regina Paz L. Lopez for failing environmental standards.
MMDC and BNMI have entered into an agreement with the PBiA, organized in 2011 by its current President Philip Camara to advocate the extensive use of Biochar, which has proven effective in soil enhancement and environmental protection and maintenance.
PBiA and its affiliates, Sambali Beach Farm and Microbial Technology Solutions, have developed specific inoculants, such as nitrogen-fixing, root-enhancing, rock-drilling microbes, that are fed into the biochar to “activate” it for optimum performance in assisting and facilitating plant and life-giving microbial growth in heavily degraded surfaces, such as mined-out areas in Zambales and Surigao.
In a statement, Marcventures Vice Chairman Isidro Alcantara is in compliance of the company’s final mine-rehabilitation plan, which happens to be in line with the company’s initiatives of providing sustainable, organic and environmentally enhancing livelihood activities.
“The idea is to apply biochar and convert mined-out lands into arable lands, which can be planted to renewable cash crops, which then gives livelihood that is continuing to the communities, especially indigenous peoples,” Alcantara said.
Marcventures plans to tap companies that engage in contract growing of cash crops, like coffee, to help in this activity.
Under Lopez’s leadership, the DENR is pushing for the progressive rehabilitation of areas affected by mining operations and wants communities to benefit more from mine- rehabilitation efforts.