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Apl.De.Ap's coconut project is more than just planting 100M trees
pl.De.Ap. has piloted his coconut project in Liliw Laguna last week, an ambitious project of planting 100M coconut trees across the Philippines, that he first shared with GMA News Online in July.
Together with some 20 farmers from across the province, the popstar displayed his know-how of intercropping, an old farming practice of planting different crops on the same land. At the 30-plus-hectare Esmeris Farm in Liliw, Apl planted various seedlings of malungay, cacao, and coffee between young coconut trees that were already standing, quelling initial fears of plantations and monocropping.
"Before I moved to the US, I come from a farming family, so I used to help my grandfather, tending to a lot of water buffaloes and also tending to crops like sweet potato, corn, and kamoteng kahoy," Apl tells GMA Integrated News.
By employing intercropping, the initial aim of planting 100M coconut trees has not only extended to 380M trees, but also ensures healthier soils and most importantly, is now poised to provide coconut farmers with additional crops to their portfolio.
"We're going to go above and beyond, creating a food forest," Apl said. "So intercropping around the coconuts can help replenish the soil and provide extra revenue for the farmers."
In the pandemic, Apl took the opportunity to go back to his roots in agriculture. In the same time, he met Sadhguru, an Indian yogi and mystic, "who taught me about soil degradation and the danger of degradation around the world."
"As a farmer, I took that as a challenge and a responsibility," he said. In going back to his roots, Apl found himself in Brooke's Point in Palawan sometime in 2023, where "we saw coconut husks rotting and being burnt to make space, and coconut water being thrown away and cooking the sheet. And we thought, there's a better way of capturing the value of the coconut," he said.
Apl got into biochar, a byproduct of organic waste that can improve soil, saying "Coconut has the best carbon to create biochar."
Pretty quickly, his initial project on biochar led him to the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) who made him a coconut ambassador and told him about a possible 100M coconut trees project. It sat well with him enough that in May this year, they even signed an MOA.
In September, Apl brought the project to the Senate, speaking with the likes of Senators Risa Honitveros and Kiko Pangilinan.
"We’re trying to create a system for the small farmers who own two hectares, small farms for their products to hit the global market. We're gonna figure out how to build industrial hubs so we could process the real value of these coconuts," Apl continues.
They plan to work with cooperatives, local government, and farmers themselves. "That's why we're doing the pilot here [in Liliw, Laguna], so it's easier for people to to understand. When you see it, you get it, you know?"
After Laguna, his team returned to Brooke's Point in Palawan and planted the first coconut tree of the project. "Such a circular moment to plant our first coconut tree here in Brooke’s Point, where I began my soil journey," he wrote on social media.
"This project is going to consist of new, barren land and existing coconut lands that need to be intercropped or supported. Thank you to the PCA and everyone for this continued mission," he added.
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pl's plan to plant 380M trees across the country is being touted as the world's largest reforestation project. It involves giving seedlings to farmers as well as indigenous peoples who are stewards of their ancestral lands. The seedlings should produce tangible products — fruits to sell, as well as other products from the trees like coffee and malunggay and their byproducts like coconut water, coconut oil, to name a few — that in turn can provide farmers extra income.
Apl's initial project has clearly increased in scale. From initially wanting to work in biochar to improve soil's health, it's expanded to planting 100M coconut trees, and then again to 380M intercropped trees to create food forests.
The food forest project is the centerpiece of OMTSE, or Our Mission to Save Earth, a venture studio he's now a part of. OMTSE aims to put the Philippines forward "as a place for people to come build their sustainability and agri-food, agricultural technology and prove scale," says Derek Ruth, one of Apl's partners.
Ruth admits funding remains a gap for projects such as Apl's. "One of the reasons why we wanted to get involved with this project is we had an opportunity to provide catalytic capital to get this project to come together," he says, adding they had started "working with the Climate Institute and the work that they were doing with the UN's shift to Article 6."
He's referring to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, the global accord signed by 196 countries in 2015 that aims to limit global warming to 1.5C.
According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), "Article 6 establishes international cooperation to tackle climate change and unlock financial support for developing countries."
It covers the highly controversial carbon markets, which a 2022 blog post by the United Nations Development Program defines as "trading systems in which carbon credits are sold and bought. Companies or individuals can use carbon markets to compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions by purchasing carbon credits from entities that remove or reduce greenhouse gas emissions."
"One tradable carbon credit equals one tonne of carbon dioxide or the equivalent amount of a different greenhouse gas reduced, sequestered or avoided. When a credit is used to reduce, sequester, or avoid emissions, it becomes an offset and is no longer tradable," he added.
That means, if you own a land and build a forest, you can sell that forest to a polluting company to help them meet their sustainability targets.
T
he ground work for carbon markets were laid out at COP26 in 2021 Glasgow and since then, companies have been trading carbon on a voluntary basis. Note the word "voluntary." Because everything is voluntary, there hasn't been real regulation, resulting in forests being sold twice, or worse, in ghost projects. Most recently for example is a carbon forest in Zimbabwe that has resulted in junk credits.
At COP29 last year, Article 6.2 of the Paris Agreement was finalized, which provides clarity on "country-to-country trading."
For Apl, Derek and their team, Article 6.2 is simply a way to fix the problematic carbon markets and regulate carbon trading. "When they're regulated in that way, then there's proof that each one of those carbon credits is only sold once," Derek said.
How does this translate to Apl's project? They've developed an app called Earth Sama that tracks each tree planted, identifies the farmers, and pays them for those credits via an e-wallet. Developed by Vietnamese-Canadian Uynghiem Ngo, the Earth Sama app uses blockchain technology, which the IBM defines as "an immutable or unchangeable and tamper-proof digital ledger or record of all transactions within a network."
Everything is recorded and tracked down, meaning no tree or farm can be sold twice. There will be no such thing as a ghost forest project that will come from the project, emission offsets will be correct, and most importantly, farmers will be paid directly. It will all be transparent, and with a highly visible pop star like Apl.De.Ap. at the center of it all, accountability is almost certain.
"For us, it's all about visibility, making sure there's press that will see what we're doing, making sure people all over the government will understand what we're doing. Visibility is our our shield in some ways," Ruth said
The Earth Sama app is voice-assisted too and has Filipino as its main language to ensure farmers can understand what they're getting into.
"We want to come to the farmers and say, 'you're not paying anything. There's nothing to pay. Show us where you wanna plant.' They come into an agreement that they get something like 40% of revenue, they get the most benefit out of the whole thing," Ngo explains.
According to Ruth, "there's a lot of climate sustainability, agricultural technologies around the world" and the scale of Apl's project will "plant a flag on the Philippines as a place for people to come build their ventures and make impact."
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nterestingly however, the Philippines does not yet have an Article 6 strategy. Aksyon Klima Pilipinas National Coordinator JL Algo tells GMA News Online, "the over all strategy of the Philippines under Article 6 is still being finalized."
They are expecting the country's blueprint will be ready by next month at COP30, though "details like carbon registry will probably be ready by next year."
Algo, who has attended meetings about carbon markets says the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will take the designated national authority position, or the lead for the Philippine government when it comes to Article 6 or Carbon Markets.
Last week, the Department of Energy released its circular on the controversial topic, which included guidelines for the generation, management, and monitoring of carbon credits and "covers pretty much all the broad aspects of carbon credits and trading in the energy sector," Algo said.
He admits that it feels rushed, but "we can understand why DOE issued a circular [ahead of the overall strategy]. The energy sector is the highest emitter of greenhouse gases in the Philippines so it's urgent for them."
According to Algo, the Philippine government is all in on Article Six, "with its mitigation positions largely anchored on it."
"[In the event that] developed countries do not want to give enough money, or means of implementation, how do we exactly reduce or avoid emissions? So that's why the government is all in on Article Six," Algo said.
Last year's negotiations at COP29 had an outcome of $300B as the new climate deal — a big difference from the $1.3T that developing nations were asking for.
In this regard, Article 6 — carbon markets — can most definitely help countries like the Philippines.
But Apl and his team are cautious in calling their project a carbon credit project. "We are not a carbon project," Ruth emphasizes. "The value is so much more. For us it's about the trees, it's about the farmers. Like Apl always says, 'how do we make farmers, rockstars?' The carbon is just our way of facilitating that."
Algo points out that the Apl's project is aligned with the government's plans. "Massive coconut planting is one of the proposed NDC solutions of the government," he said.
But he adds, "I hope it's science-based. I hope it also practices the necessary environmental and social safeguards, especially when it comes to time when carbon is generated and traded in the market."
He brings up the idea of permanence, and says "there has to be a mechanism, safeguards to ensure the risk is minimized if not completely avoided because if the coconut trees get chopped off and the carbon credits are invalidated, then I don't know — is it a case of greenwashing? Maladaptation?"
"We need to be cautious because we have seen the reforestation efforts of the government before, right? The national greening program. We've seen how it's lacking in so many ways, and that's being polite," he said. — GMA Integrated News
