350 trees planted in quarry restoration effort

Em­ploy­ees of Massy Group joined forces with IAMove­ment on Sun­day to plant 350 trees at the Na­tion­al Quar­ries, Sand and Grav­el Di­vi­sion in Guaico, San­gre Grande, as part of the com­pa­ny’s an­nu­al Day of Car­ing ini­tia­tive.

The ex­er­cise formed part of on­go­ing ef­forts to re­store and re­ha­bil­i­tate bar­ren quar­ry lands while pro­mot­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty in­volve­ment.

Work­ers from across the Massy Group, ac­com­pa­nied by rel­a­tives and friends, par­tic­i­pat­ed in the re­for­esta­tion project, which took place on May 24. The ini­tia­tive saw the plant­i­ng of a mix­ture of fruit-bear­ing, hard­wood and na­tive tree species in­tend­ed to im­prove bio­di­ver­si­ty and help re­store the for­mer quar­ry­ing site over time.

Massy Pres­i­dent and CEO James McLetchie said the Day of Car­ing re­flect­ed the com­pa­ny’s com­mit­ment to the en­vi­ron­ment and the com­mu­ni­ties it serves.

“The Day of Car­ing is a pow­er­ful re­minder that we are deeply con­nect­ed to the com­mu­ni­ties and nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ments that sus­tain us. To­day, Massy em­ploy­ees from across all the Massy busi­ness­es, with their friends and fam­i­ly, came to­geth­er as One Massy to help trans­form this for­mer quar­ry­ing site, plant­i­ng trees that will serve as a last­ing in­vest­ment in both the en­vi­ron­ment and the com­mu­ni­ty,” McLetchie said.

Or­gan­is­ers said the long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty of the project would be sup­port­ed through a three-year mon­i­tor­ing pro­gramme man­aged by IAMove­ment. Each of the 350 saplings will be dig­i­tal­ly tracked to en­sure their growth and sur­vival as part of the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion ef­fort.

En­vi­ron­men­tal con­sid­er­a­tions were al­so in­cor­po­rat­ed through­out the event. Par­tic­i­pants were en­cour­aged to car­pool to re­duce car­bon emis­sions, while re­fill wa­ter sta­tions and reusable bot­tles were used to min­imise sin­gle-use plas­tic waste. Com­postable ma­te­ri­als and on-site re­cy­cling mea­sures were al­so in­tro­duced as part of the eco-friend­ly ap­proach.

The ini­tia­tive is one of sev­er­al en­vi­ron­men­tal projects aimed at restor­ing de­grad­ed lands and en­cour­ag­ing cor­po­rate par­tic­i­pa­tion in con­ser­va­tion ef­forts across Trinidad and To­ba­go.