From left: Allana Montelibano of Audax Global; Assistant Director of DENR FMB Atty. Ray Thomas Kabigting. On June 23, DENR and aDryada signed the Memorandum of Agreement for the Green Samar Project.
Before the Green Samar Project reached the signing table, it had already taken its champions deep into the mountains, forests and communities of Samar.
At the center of the effort are people who saw the project not merely as an environmental agreement, but as a long-term commitment to restore forests, protect communities and leave behind something that would outlast them.
Samar Island Natural Park. Photo courtesy of Samar Island Natural Park (SINP).
On June 23, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and aDryada signed a long-term agreement for the Green Samar Project, one of the country’s largest nature restoration initiatives, with Samar Bamboo Corporation as project partner and Audax Global as project convenor and strategic partner.
The project seeks to restore 120,000 hectares of degraded rainforest inside Samar Island Natural Park, a 335,000-hectare protected area considered the largest terrestrial protected area in the Philippines.
The park is also a candidate for UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to the Philippine Eagle, one of the rarest eagles in the world.
Courtesy: Allana Montelibano
For Allana Montelibano of Audax Global, the project carried a deeply personal meaning. Despite coming from a family name known in influential circles, she did not treat the initiative as a boardroom exercise. She went to the mountains of Samar herself to study the land, the people and the realities of reforestation on the ground.
The work took almost three years of preparation, including field visits, community consultations and a pilot effort covering around 500 hectares in Samar.
“The real mandate of the Department of Environment [and Natural Resources] is to do the real flood control, which is to plant trees although we don’t have the funds to plant 120,000 hectares of degraded forest . So it has a very good impact to the environment, to the people, especially Samar is one of the poorest here in the country na laging binabagyo,” she noted.
Montelibano emphasized that the project was not only about planting trees, but also about creating livelihoods for communities living within and around the protected area. The Green Samar Project is expected to generate 800 to 1,000 jobs during its first seven years and improve the living conditions of more than 20,000 people.
She admitted that she first doubted the scale of the initiative, which is being positioned as one of the biggest reforestation projects in the country.
“When the chairman of Audax Global, who I do business with, presented this project to me,at first, I said, it’s very ambitious. And I said, the biggest? But then, when it was explained to me, because before you say you’re just reforesting, I did not realize that, you don’t think about the part of the people, that they have become poor due to the constant flooding,” Montelibano pointed out.
She also spoke of her dream to help lift Samar out of poverty, saying the project goes beyond conservation and speaks directly to the lives of people who have long carried the weight of disaster and deprivation.
“ [This project] alleviates poverty. I want to take them out of the top 10, I believe Samar is the top 4 of the poorest. But then, also… all my life, I’ve been doing socials, restaurants, you know, businesses that… are very good when you’re young, but now, I want to do something with purpose,” she said.
“It took almost three years to get to this point. But I feel like it is a legacy. That I’ve done something nationally significant, environmentally significant, for my children, to be proud of. To help the country… I’m proud of the other things I’ve done. But this, so far, is what really gives me meaning,” Montelibano added.
Assistant Director Tom Kabigting of the DENR Forest Management Bureau. Photo by IISD/ENB | Sean Wu
But Green Samar is not only Montelibano’s story.
Beside her through the long process was Assistant Director Tom Kabigting of the DENR Forest Management Bureau, whose career in government had been shaped by the same cause: forests, restoration and the search for ways to fund conservation beyond the limits of public money.
Their partnership gave the project a human thread, but Kabigting’s role gave it institutional weight. He understood the regulatory hurdles, the technical demands and the safeguards needed for a reforestation project of this scale to move from ambition to implementation.
For Kabigting, Green Samar was not just another signed agreement. It was the kind of forest investment he had been advocating for since joining the DENR, one that could bring private capital into restoration work without removing government oversight.
“It’s been my advocacy for the longest time. I think since 2015-2017 when I started here in the DENR, forest investments have always been a center of my government and public service. The most important thing for me is not to be limited by public funding,” he explained.
Kabigting became one of the key voices assuring that the project would not be left to promises alone.
He stressed that the project carries a strong accountability framework, with monitoring not only from the DENR but also from third-party validators and auditors linked to the carbon credit system.
“There’s actually a very rigorous reporting system dito po sa ating MOA because not only on the side of the DENR will do the monitoring. But isa rin po riyan ay ‘yung kanilang validator or iyong third party na auditor na magbibigay ng carbon credits nila,” Kabigting said.
He further assured that only endemic and native trees would be planted in the area, underscoring their survival rate and the real essence of reforestation.
Under the agreement, the project will run for an initial 25 years, with an option to extend for another 25 years. Restoration work will involve direct planting of native tree species, assisted natural regeneration and enrichment planting in degraded areas of the park.
DENR officials said the Green Samar Project demonstrates how environmental protection, community development and private investment can work together in protected areas.
aDryada, Samar Bamboo Corporation, Audax Global and their technical partners are also positioning the initiative as a high-integrity nature restoration project that could serve as a model for future conservation efforts in the Philippines.
For the people behind it, however, Green Samar is more than a project measured in hectares, carbon credits or signed agreements. It is a promise to rebuild a forest, protect a province and give communities in Samar a better chance at a more secure future.