Growing G.R.E.E.N.

Activities ReportJanuary -December 2013

ENR Environment Department

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Table of Contents

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About the CoverPictured here is EO Macy Anonuevo’s winning photo for the Responsible Tourism Awards 2013. Coastal clean-ups are a part of El Nido Resorts’ staff routine. It is very easy to get everyone together to cleanup the coasts whenever possible. It has even become a stress reliever for everyone especially since we have food and games afterwards. it sure is a great bonding activity for all!

Every year, the Environment Department finds cre-ative ways for the company to become more involved in responsible tourism. From additional staff trainings to increasing guest participation, we are proud to say that we are continuously...Growing G.R.E.E.N.

4About the Company

5Company History

6Message from the Director

7The Environment Team

8-92013 At A Glance

10-13Celebrating the environment

14staff training

15ENR Managers’ Sustainability Tour

16-17Environmental Education for Guests

18-19Environmental Education for the Local Community

20-21campaigning for sustainable tourism

22-23Awards

24Social Responsiblities

25Showcasing Successful Eco-Tourism

26New Protocols

27Site explorations

28-29Expanding Horizons

30-31Media Releases

About the Company Company History

1979

1981

1992

1998

2001

2006

2010

2012

Nissin Sugar (Japan) partnered with a Filipino group to form Ten Knots Philippines, Inc (TKPI).

TKPI opened its first resort on Miniloc Island, El Nido under the name “El Nido Resort (ENR)”.

On June 30, Ten Knots Development Corporation (TKDC) was organized by the new joint venture partners to develop and operate resorts while TKPI focused on propertymanagement.

Lagen Island Resort opened on March 15.

Asian Conservation Company (ACC) acquired majority control of TKDC and TKPI.

Asian Conservation Company (ACC) becomes the sole owner of TKDC and TKPI.

ACC partnered with Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) to develop more eco-friendly resorts.Chirica Resorts Coporation (CRC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of TKDC, opened Apulit Island Resort (AIR) in Tay-tay, Palawan. AIR is the former Club Noah Isabelle.

Pangulasian Island Resort (PIR) opened in October 2012.

Ten Knots Development Corporation (TKDC)/El Nido Resorts is a group of eco-resorts located in the El Nido-Taytay municipalities in northern Palawan, Philippines. The resorts offer genuine, local hospitality and unique and enriching experiences amidst the beautiful natural landscape.

TKDC/El Nido Resorts is currently comprised of Miniloc Island Resort, Lagen Island Resort and Pangulasian Island Resort in El Nido, and Apulit Island Resort in Taytay.

The company is committed to providing leisurely, engaging, and educational experiences and services to all our guests in a manner that has the least impact on the environment and promotes respect for El Nido’s local people and culture. We will accomplish this through:

Enjoining our staff and guests to uphold our five Be G.R.E.E.N. tenets

Linking with local communities through employment and purchases

Nurturing a culture of environmental stewardship

Initiating opportunities for guests to experience nature and the local culture

Discovering and molding sustainability champions among the staff

Outdoing ourselves every year by building new sustainability programs on the success of previous ones

2013 Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) acquired 100% of El Nido Resorts

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The Environment TeamMessage from the Director

TKDC/El Nido Resorts is very serious when it comes to preserving El Nido’s natural environ-ment. To ensure that this is done, they have their very own Environment Department which consists of one (1) Environmental Officer (EO) for each resort, an Environmental Enforce-ment Officer (EEO) and an overall support staff.

In 2013, the team consisted of Macy Anonuevo for Miniloc Island Resort (MIR), Jamie Dichaves for Lagen Island (LIR) and Apulit Island Resort (AIR), and Kitsie Torres for Pangula-sian Island Resort (PIR). During the latter part of the year, EO Macy left to finish her Mas-ters Degree in Marine Biology in the University of the Philippines - Diliman. MIR was then entrusted to EO Kitsie.

All of the EOs are graduates of the University of the Philippines, but have different degrees. Macy is a BS Biology graduate and is taking up her MA in Marine Biology. Jamie graduated magna cum laude of BS Psychology, while Kitsie, on the other hand, is a Doctor of Veteri-nary Medicine. The environmental enforcement officer, Rey Reyes, was a Ranger for El Nido’s Protected Area Office. He then joined the company as a Marine Sports Guide, and later became the Guest Activities and Marine Sports Supervisor. Since he has a background in law enforce-ment, he was recruited by the team to help patrol the El Nido-Taytay Managed Resource Protected Area.

The Environment Department literally can’t go anywhere without Mesach Rosete, as he is the master behind the wheel of our yellow boat and blue van. He gets called for different projects such as installation of mooring buoys and sediment traps, surveying different sites and even identifying different species of wildlife.

Though they have different backgrounds and personalities, the team is brought together by their love and appreciation for the environment. Under Mariglo Laririt’s guidance, they brave the beating sun, cross wavy seas, and hike up steep mountains just to find ways of getting everyone involved in their advocacy.

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SUSTAINABILITY IS SUCCESS. This seems to be the message of 2013. Whereas our brains seem to be hard-wired into remembering only the most difficult challenges, such as bracing ourselves for THE storm and picking up the pieces of our collective humanity in its aftermath, taking a long hard look at the year that was tells us that we actually had a good year. All four bottomlines tell us so. We exceeded financial targets, experienced organizational growth, and were rewarded for how we seamlessly tie up environmental and community benefits.

I would very much want to sit down with you over a cup of coffee at Miniloc to tell you all about it, but in the meantime, “leaf” through the pages of our report and celebrate with us.

With my best regards,

Mariglo

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Announced as finalist of Tourism for Tomorrow Awards for Community Benefit.

Nature Interpretation Intensive Training Batches 1 and 2

Nature Interpretation Intensive Training Batches 3 and 4

Nature Interpretation Intensive Training Batch 5

First Municipal-Wide International Coastal Cleanup

Facilitated SOCODA team building

Be GREEN outreach in Barotuan, Bucana and Sibaltan

Coral Reef Monitoring in Taytay Bay: House Reef, East and West Nabat, Noah’s Rock, West Beach, Wreck

TAPP Presentation in Makati

Hosted DOT Regional Directors

Earth Hour

Buoy installation and maintenance

Enchanting El Nido Episode: St. Joseph’s Cave

Earth Day celebrations

Implemented sachet ban at the resorts

Site explorations in Taytay: Mangroves and Caves

Be GREEN outreach in EN Town Tourism Office

6th International Hornbill Conference

Town Party for TFT Win

World Oceans Day 2013

Costas Christ visits El Nido Resorts for site inspection

Implemented logbook system for land guards

Papawikan Cave Exploration

Town tour sites exploration: Bulalacao, Kalipatpat and Nagkalit-kalit Falls

Aberawan Mangrove Tour Improvements

Snake Sightings Protocol Implementation

Slow Life Symposium in Thailand

Christmas and New Year Cocktail Presentations

1st National Conference on Tourism Governance in Manila

Groups: Petrolift, Zobel, Buenaventura, Miranda Families

Global Eco Conference in Queensland

Hosted Christmas and NYE Programs

2013 at a Glance

January

Mangrove Planting at Langayan, Taytay

Responsible Tourism Award for Best Photography

FebruaryM

archA

prilM

ayJune

2013 at a Glance

JulyA

ugustSeptem

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ctoberN

ovember

Decem

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New sightings board for MIR, LIR and PIR

Be GREEN training for Makati staff

Handled Philippine Daily Inquirer Group

Groups: EP Marfori, Asian Traveler, Troian Bellisario and Patrick Adams

New Materials: ENR Eco Checklist, Dive video

Managers’ Sustainability Tour (Batch 1)

Groups: Lifestyle Network’s LISTED, OSI’s Viktor Sebek, Mabuhay Magazine group

Sustainability tour for Travel Agents

Bacuit Bay Survey: Cadlao , Matinloc, Secret Lagoon

Handled tours of T+L’s Peter Lindberg and Nilou Motamed

Site Survey: Dragonhead

New Sea Creatures of Apulit Booklet

Written Protocols: arrival/departure spiels, tour spiels, briefing for new hires, sea turtle nest and hatchling, etc.

Judging for ASEAN Green Hotel Award

Launching of Paberdehan 2013

Groups: UK Tour, CNN ENR Managers’ Sustainability Tour (Batch 2)

Yolanda Relief Ops and Reef Assessments

World Responsible Tourism Day 2013

Celebrating the Environment

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We celebrate four global environmental events each year: Earth Day, World Oceans Day, In-ternational Coastal Cleanup, and World Responsible Tourism Day. During each event, we com-memorate the Earth and its environment by doing coastal and underwater cleanups. We rec-ognize trash as the number one problem plaguing our planet which is why we engage both guests and staff into participating as much as we could.

This year, we challenged the staff’s creativity and held a poster-making contest for Earth Day and a songwriting contest for World Oceans Day. LIR’s Pascual Arriesgado and MIR’s Miniloc Island Band and Babes won the two contests respectively. For World Responsible Tourism Day, we invited Gabriel Flows and Susannah Rickman of Flow Projects to do a workshop on turning trash into art. We used recycled materials from the Ma-terials Recovery facility to make toys which we used for games, as well as instruments which we used for the beach jam.

Hard work never goes unrewarded and so we throw in different activities such as kayak and swimming races, games, and parties complete with food, drinks, and musical performances. Finally, as a token of our gratitude to everyone who joined, we give out souvenirs, which we hope will serve as a reminder of how much fun and rewarding it is to save Mother Earth.

Most number of items found: slippers and plasticsMost disgusting items found: dirty diapers

TRASH COLLECTED353 kg

404.5 kg157 kg

339.02 kg1,253.52kg

VOLUNTEERS131164138112545

EVENTEarth DayWorld Oceans DayInternational Coastal CleanupWorld Responsible Tourism Day TOTAL

How We Did:

Coastal and underwater cleanupsGood foodKayak racesWater polo

Poster-making contest

SouvenirsSongwriting contest

Trash into Art workshop (by Gabriel and Susannah of Flow Projects)

A sense of accomplishment!

Event Highlights:

Earth Hour

Mangrove Planting

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Last September 21, 2013, El Nido held the very first municipal-wide ICC celebrations, where staff from both Ten Knots Philippines Inc. (TKPI) and Ten Knots Development Corporation (TKDC) joined El Nido’s local government in organizing the event. Local dive shops, resorts, restaurants, tour operators, schools and organizations all took part in the event. A total of 2,055 participants attended and hauled a total of 4,594.4 kg of trash from all 18 barangays.

El Nido Resorts’ Miniloc, Lagen, Apulit, and Pangulasian weren’t left behind as they took care of island clean-ups. A total of 138 staff from all four resorts joined in the event and were able to collect 157 kg of trash.

“Malinis na Aplaya, El Nidong Kaaya-aya (Clean beaches, beautiful El Nido)” was our battle cry during this year’s International Coastal Cleanup celebrations. With this, we also promoted how having “healthy seas = healthy you” through the different wellness activities in both town and the resorts such as an adventure race, frisbee tournament, volleyball exhibition game, water polo, and kayak races. The day ended with a night of music, dancing, laughter, games, and prizes for everyone.

Celebrating in the dark. ENR celebrated WWF’s Earth Hour on March 23 by turning off our generators for one hour to raise awareness for energy conservation and climate change. Through the celebrations, we were able to save a total of 158.2 Liters of fuel amounting to Php8,295.

We love mangroves! Three volunteer staff from Apulit Island Resort joined the mangrove reforestation project held in Sitio Langayan, Brgy. Poblacion, Taytay last June 7, 2013. Brgy. Poblacion is home to one of the largest mangrove forests in Taytay but is threatened by overharvesting for firewood, charcoal-mak-ing, and construction materials. The efforts were part of the Coral Triangle Day celebration headed by the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI), Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the local government of Taytay.

Staff Training

All staff members of Miniloc, Lagen, Apulit and Pangulasian Island Resorts are required to undergo the Be GREEN training within six (6) months of hiring. The training covers 4 mod-ules: Ecological Solid Waste Management, Water Conservation, Energy Conservation, Bio-diversity Conservation, and Environmental Legislation. Everyone must obtain a grade of at least 60% in order to pass, and if not, are required to retake the training again. Refresher courses are also offered for those who have already completed the full-course training.

Since Marine Sports Guides are the ones who are most in contact with guests, they have to undergo an intensive Nature Interpretation (NI) training. The training has 13 modules covering different topics about plants, animals, and everything else found in El Nido’s environment. Quizzes and examinations are given after each top-ic and guides are really challenged to memorize and understand scientific names and facts about the different organisms we have here. This is to ensure that they are pre-pared to give out spiels during tours and answer curious questions from guests.

Last year, we started giving compressed versions of the Nature Interpretation for all resort staff since they interact with guests as well. This year, we stepped it up a notch and decided to of-fer the intensive training to other departments who were interested to learn more. This also opened opportunities for them should they decide to cross-train with the GAMS department.

ENR Manager’s Sustainability immersion

In the year 2012, the EOs underwent immersion training in the MRF, farms, and green-house facilities of the resort. This involved a 1-day duty for each of the facilities. We segre-gated the trash, made compost, planted and harvested vegetables, cleaned the pigs, and fed and caught fresh Tilapia. This helped us have a better picture of ENR’s sustainability efforts which paved the way for better communication with guests and stakeholders.

To help with the improvements via resort policies aimed at implementing better practices, we had managers Noel Barrameda (Resorts Manager), Carla Samaniego (Executive Assis-tant to the Resorts Manager), Ayn Catalan (HR Manager for Operations), Arturo Barrera (Cost Controller), Jason Apolonio (LIR Resident Manager) and Emily Mendoza (former AIR Resort Manager) go through the immersion as well. With this, we were able to come up with methods to reduce food waste and further segregation of trash.

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18Modules

126TrainingSessions

4TrainingTypes

788Attendees

Environmental Education for Guests

Green Nights with the EO

Turtle Hatchling Release

Sustainability Tours

Totally awesome, dude! Every time a turtle lays its eggs, we make sure that the area is protected with a cage to prevent predators from getting to it. As a result, we get to proper-ly monitor each release. In 2013, a total of 749 hawksbill sea turtle hatchlings were released from the beaches of Dilumacad and Pangula-sian Island. Guests were invited to witness and even help out. This was followed up by a short discussion about the lives of sea turtles, the threats they face, and what we can do to help preserve their species.

Show and tell. With the combined immersion experiences of the EOs and managers, the team was able to come up with a sustainability tour which was given to key persons in the year 2013 in the likes of ENR’s partner Travel Agents, artists Gabriel and Susannah, and videographers Lex Bonife and Zig Dulay. This sets up the stage for further developpment, refinement of tours and advertising through word-of-mouth.

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Nature Walk

Discovering the Resorts’ wild side! This year, the EOs took 212 guests exploring within the resort grounds. Even kids like Brendan and Hayden enjoyed the Nature Walk because of the animals they saw.

Spreading the GREEN message. A total of 775 guests attended the Green Nights presenta-tion, where the EOs talked about topics such as animals found in El Nido and the resorts’ eco efforts.

Environmental Education for the Local Community

Greening young minds. Last year, the Environmental Officers talked to 240 students from different schools in El Nido Town. This year, they tripled the number and had the Be GREEN outreach with 700 students coming from Sibaltan National High School, Barotuan National High School, and Bucana Na-tional Highschool.

Be GREEN for everyone. On February 2013, Environmental Officers Macy Anonuevo and Kitsie Torres visited El Nido Town’s tourism office to con-duct a special Be GREEN session as requested by El Nido’s Tourism Of-fice. Participants were composed of tourist operators and staff members from the Local Government Unit.

Ten Knots Night 2013

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Trainings and lectures are not the only ways to spread the GREEN message! The Environmental Officers were definitely an integral part of the planning and preparations for Ten Knots Night 2013, since Mother Nature was the star of the show. From program planning, scriptwriting, videography and editing, we made sure everything showcased the beauty of El Nido’s environment. To further our advocacy, we had a special segment wherein we engaged kids to talk about how they would protect mother nature.

Campaigning for Sustainable Tourism

Updating of Environment Website

New Enchanting El Nido Episode

Where to go:Official website:

http://environment.elnidoresorts.comEnchanting El Nido

http://www.youtube.com/elnidoenvironment

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Reaching out online. The Environment Dept. website was officially launched last January 1, 2012. The site contains information on Palawan, Palawan’s wildlife, ENR’s sustainability efforts, and regular updates on what the Environment Dept. is doing. The site also contains learning resources such as the En-chanting El Nido episodes, case studies, recorded presentations of visiting scientists, and activity sheets for kids.

158Countries

61Average Views/day

120Posts

19,896totalviews

En route to YouTube stardom! The Environmental Officers released two new episodes of Enchanting El Nido, their online nature show. The new episode hosted by EO Jamie and AIR Marine Sports Guide Clark Favila takes viewers on an educational trip to Apulit Island’s St. Joseph Cave.

AwardsWinner - WTTC Tourism for Tomorrow

Community Benefit Award

Highly Commended- World Responsible Tourism Awards Photo Contest

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We finally did it! In 2007, Ten Knots was named Finalist in Tourism for Tomorrow’s Invest-ment in People Category for its active promotion of deserving local staff to key management positions. Although we did not win back then, we were still determined to strive for further improvement by coming up with ways of involving the community all the more.

Back then, our local employees comprised 80%. Today, with four resorts, we have increased it by 10%. All our employees receive proper government-mandated benefits and more. We provide continuous training, not just for knowledge and skills in line with their work, but also for environmental protection and conservation as well.

In addition, with the conscious decision of creating more sustainable menus, we saw our uptake of local ingredients increase from 15% when we started measuring over six years ago to close to 58% today. We are now even making a move towards keeping the use of imported goods to a minimum.

However, the most important thing everyone should recognize is that this win is not of and for the company alone. We share the spotlight with the staff, local suppliers, government units, or-ganizations, and the community as a whole. None of this would have been possible without the partnerships we have forged. So to celebrate, the whole community was invited to a town party complete with food, games, music, and dancing.

Last hurrah! Just before taking her leave from the company, EO Macy joined WRTA’s photo contest. The judges could not decide which photo to choose as the best one out of the 215 entries so they gave high commendations to three entries - including hers (photo on right)!

All hands up high as a way to show continuing commitment to responsible tourism!

Social ResponsiblitiesRelief Operations for Typhoon Yolanda Victims

Buoy Maintenance

Showcasing Successful Eco-Tourism

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Rebuilding livelihoods, one step at a time. Ini-tiated by Mariglo Laririt, the resorts immediate-ly pooled their resources and donated goods to neighboring municipalities of Taytay, Coron, Cu-lion and Busuanga. There is still an endless influx of donations, all to help our brothers and sisters in Palawan regain what they have lost.

Keeping the buoys afloat. The Environment Dept. maintained the mooring buoys around Bacuit Bay through periodic scrub-bing of the ropes and float-ers. Some stolen floaters were also replaced. The buoys are essential for pre-venting boats from drop-ping anchors on El Nido’s fragile reefs.

The Environment Dept. interacted with a variety of people over the course of 2013 to highlight El Nido Resorts as a case study for what successful sustainable tourism can be and do for the employees, the local community, and the environment. We became Eco-Hosts of several nota-ble groups and individuals, helped them plan their itineraries and guided the tours ourselves. We made sure that every one of them got the complete El Nido Resorts experience with a more-than-usual emphasis on our sustainable tourism practices. The groups are as follows:

- Philippine Daily Inquirer - DOT Regional Directors - EP Marfori - Asian Traveler - WTTC Director of judges Costas Christ - Hollywood coupleTroian Bellisario and Patrick Adams - Lifestyle Network’s LISTED - Ocean Security Initiative’s Viktor Sebek - ENR Travel Agents - Mabuhay Magazine - Travel + Leisure’s Peter Jon Lindberg and Nilou Motamed - UK Tour Operators - CNN GO BEYOND borders - Petrolift - Zobel family - Buenaventura family - Miranda family

SITE EXPLORATIONS

Gettin’ down and dirty. Every now and then, we don our hiking/scuba/snorkeling gear in search of new sites to be developed and eventually offered to our guests. Some of the sites we surveyed this year include:

-Snorkeling Site for town guests (West PIR) -Pangulasian House Reef - snorkeling with sharks -Pagauanen hiking trail -Cadlao Lagoon -Matinloc (near Korean Beach) -Sibaltan Museum -Deeper chambers of St. Joseph’s Cave in Apulit Island -Tamisan River in Taytay -Bulalacao Falls -Nagkalit-Kalit Falls -Kalipatpat Falls -Papawikan Cave in Lagen Island -Forks of Aberawan River -Danat River -El Nido Town Limestone Cliff Hike

These surveys allow us to identify the different wildlife to be featured, the ideal time to do the activity, and come up with spiels for our guides to share with the guests.

New Protocols

Sachet Ban

Snake Sightings Protocol

There is widespread misinformation about snakes that people tend to react negatively towards them when seen. As such, we do our best to provide education to everyone. To make sure that no snake is harmed in the islands, we have released a protocol detailing how one should react when there has been a sighting. We strictly adhere to the Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act otherwise known as RA 9147.

No cause for panic. Part of our conserva-tion efforts is letting wildlife roam around freely in the islands. We do not cage nor have any intention of cag-ing any animal we see. Even though the islands are big, we still often encounter different animals in the resort such as monitor lizards, squirrels, monkeys, birds, and, the most panic-inducing of them all, snakes.

Eliminating plastic waste, one step at a time. As mentioned earlier, one of the fruits of the immer-sion training was the implementation of policies aimed at instilling good practices. One such policy was the sachet ban, first implemented last April. By June, all the resorts were strictly following the protocol. The ban includes shampoo, bath soap, toothpaste, and conditioner sachets.

Now, the staff have turned to the bigger bottles, which, they have eventually realized, was actually a lot cheaper. Not only did we lessen the amount of trash we dispose of, we’ve also bred smarter consumers! We are looking into banning other plastics in the future.

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EXPANDING HORIZONS

1st National Conference on Tourism Governance

SLOW LIFE Symposium

Global Eco Asia-Pacific Tourism Conference

6th International Hornbill ConferenceLast April, El Nido Resorts was invited to do a presentation in the 6th International Hornbill Conference. Our own endemic

The year 2013 became a good year for the team to expand its horizons. With the recent Tourism for Tomorrow win, we were more than eager to both share our knowledge through our success-es, and to gain a lot more from others so that we can further strengthen our efforts. We not only participated in local events, but also branched out to the international scene. We were also able to form lasting friendships from the experiences.

species, the Palawan Hornbill (Anthracoceros marchei) was the star of the show. It is listed as Vulnerable under the IUCN list due to habitat loss from il-legal logging practices. Howev-er, the species is seen thriving in the islands and so we show-cased the role sustainable tour-ism has in protecting them. We particularly highlighted the importance of having proper

nature interpretation and guest and staff education in con-serving the species.

Upon hearing about the news of the 1st NCTG, EO Jamie immediately signed up for registration. We just could not miss such an event given that it is the first for the country. All the speakers were able to set up the stage for a more massive campaigning for sustainable tourism in the coun-try - from DOT’s push for stricter accreditation measures, down to success stories from Ayala Land Inc. (ALI) and the partnerships of the national and local government units.

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On November 7-10, EO Kitsie attended the exclusive SLOW LIFE symposium at the luxurious Soneva Kiri Resport & Spa in Koh Kood, Thailand. She rubbed shoulders with some of the big names of business, science, and conservation, such as Sonu Shivdasani, Pavan Sukhdev, Jochen Zeitz, Johan Rockström, Laura Turner-Seydel, Peggy Liu, and Lisa Pet-Soedel, to name a few. For four days, the participants discussed global issues on sustainable tourism, marine conserva-tion, water conservation, responsible marketing, and advertising.

There are six mega trends evident in tourism in the Asia Pacific region today, according to the Global Eco Tourism Conference organized by Ecotourism Australia. Our Mariglo Laririt was invited to present El Nido Resorts as a case study of how sustainable practices can equip tropical island resorts to overcome challenges that come as Bolts from the Blue. (http://www.globaleco.com.au/pro gram.php)

Media Exposure Media Exposure

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Environment Department, El Nido ResortsTen Knots Development Corporation

18th floor B.A. Lepanto Bldg8747 Paseo de Roxas, Makati City, Philippines

http://environment.elnidoresorts.com