Volunteers of SM City Olongapo Downtown and SM City Olongapo Central, together with Barangay Pagasa chairman Rodolfo Catologan and members of PNP Olongapo Station 3, plant mangrove seedlings at the riverside of Barangay Pagasa. This was under a project of Barangay Pagasa in partnership with SM City Olongapo and other NGOs to rehabilitate and regrow mangrove trees in the area.

In the past years, SM City Olongapo has been very active in efforts to intensify the local environmental protection program. To date, SM City Olongapo and partners have already planted 1,000 seedlings of narra tree at Sitio Banca-Banca, Brgy. Gordon Heights; 2,000 at Sitio Redondo, Brgy. Cawag, Subic, Zambales; 5,000 trees at San Antonio, Zambales; and 12,000 narra trees at Sitio Yutang, New Cabalan, Olongapo as part of SM’s Grow A Million Trees (GAMT) project.

Mangroves are known to reduce shoreline erosion and protect coastal communities against coastal flooding, high winds and waves, and tsunamis. Mangroves also absorb more carbon than the other land-based forests. ~