A 38-year old farmer from Dinagat Islands received more than P300,000 by just planting seeds in three months, thanks to the greening program of Cagdianao Mining Corporation (CMC).

One of the participants of CMC’s ECOmmunity Program—Bernjie C. Fruta from Barangay Diegas received P326,340 for producing 37,000 seedlings, mostly fruit trees and native shrubs.

Fruta and his sub-contractor, Diosdado Duhiling, 48, grew the seedlings in their own nursery over a period of three months.

“We are very thankful to CMC for such kind of program because it provides income not only for my family but for the rest of the community,” said Fruta.

CMC initiated the “ECOmmunity Program” to directly engage community stakeholders in the company’s rehabilitation and reforestation commitments.

Fruta and Duhilig are only two among the 71 contractors and 124 sub-contractors carefully vetted to be part of the said program.

To date, CMC’s ECOmmunity Program has already paid up some P4.4M to participants of this livelihood program from the mining company’s five host barangays – Boa, Cuarinta, Diegas, Legaspi and Valencia.

The participants already produced more than 1 Million seedlings and planting materials that CMC uses for its various mine rehabilitation and greening programs.

In 2019, the year before the pandemic hit hard on the communities, CMC, a subsidiary of Nickel Asia Corp. (NAC), initiated the seedling production program that continues to benefit residents in the Dinagat Islands financially and proves that there is money in greening and in environment protection activities.

Engr. Arnilo C. Milaor, CMC’s Resident Mine Manager, said the program also aims to uplift the lives of beneficiaries through contracted seedling production, raising awareness about the environment, its protection and conservation.