Monday, June 2, 2014

Promoting an Environmental Agenda


PROMOTING AN ENVIRONMENTAL AGENDA
by Antonio C. Antonio
June 2, 2014

Author’s introductory note:  Sister Maria Vida Cordero has always been the rainbow in my bothersome environmental clouds.  She has never failed to give me safe advices and also provided me with fresh perspectives in environmental advocacy we both are involved in.  My encounters with her are characterized as thought-provoking ones.  In an article I posted on Facebook entitled “Classifying Ecosystem Components” last Wednesday (May 28, 2014), she made this comment: “I am thinking… wild thoughts again!... when we are able to make environment as a political agenda… what if we make also regional ecosystem as political system so that environmental/ecological agenda is promoted and regional ecosystems protected by constituents.” This morning, Sister Maria Vida again made a comment on my post entitled “Tropical Rainforest in the Philippines”: “There is an article in the Philippine Star which says that the Philippines is the 4th Ecological hotspot in the world.  What can we do together?

On the question of promoting constituent-protected regional ecosystems: 

Promoting regional ecosystems has already been done in the Philippines… although smaller in scale.  The Department of Environment and Natural Resources have already implemented the CBFM (Community-Based Forest Management) Program. However, the CBFM is not a perfect program and has flaws.  The problems besetting the CBFM program have also been discussed in detail in the following articles: (a) “Ecosystem and Agroecosystem”, March 3, 2013; (b) “Actors in Upland Governance”, May 7, 2014; (c) “CBFM and Participatory Management”, May 10, 2014”; and, (d) “Prestation and Market Exchange”, May 30, 2014… which have been posted on Facebook wall and in my blogsite: http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/.  These articles and reports not only talk about the seeming dysfunctional structure of the primary “actors” (government, upland communities and private sector) in upland governance.

All, if not most, of public forests are public lands… and, therefore, properties of the State.  This is a peculiarity that cannot be avoided.  As it is, government is always involved as the lead “actor” in upland governance.  Unfortunately, most of the problems in the upland are attributed to government and, oftentimes, are the cause of failure in programmed projects.  But then, nothing could really be done and accomplished without government intervention.  It is not also workable to say the government should get out of the upland scenario and leave the upland dwellers and the private sector to fend for themselves.  As the “actor” who plays the lead role, government should be there in a more committed role.

As I’ve already mentioned, “Academicians could create this awareness in the actors and motivate them to properly set up to the challenges ahead. (Antonio, 2013)” (“Actors in Upland Governance”, May 7, 2014 – http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/)  I still am convinced that the infusion of the academe as another “actor” in upland governance will increase the chances of success in promoting constituent-protected regional ecosystems.

On the question what can we do to taking the Philippines out of the world’s list of ecological hotspots: 

I strongly believe that ordinary citizens (like us) should not be helpless in increasing the level of environmental awareness.  An effective means to do this was mentioned and recommended in the article “The Ripple Principle”, April 22, 2014 (http://antonantonio.blogspot.com./).  Any method of propagating an environmental agenda, however, will have to be sustainable since environmental concerns oftentimes have long gestation periods.  If it is true that the Philippines is No. 4 in the list of the world’s ecological hotspots, it will take so much effort from all of us to delist our country.  We could all start by increasing our knowledge and awareness about the environment.

“By hotspot we mean places which have the highest concentration of biodiversity that is under the greatest human threat.” (Ibanez, Philippine Eagle Foundation, 2014)  The serious biodiversity loss in the Philippines is caused primarily by public policy on land utilization and conversion.  Our loss in forest diversity is due to an ever-expanding need for more agricultural land which have lost so much area from landuse conversion to commercial/industrial and residential purposes.  Even if we are one of the 17 top megadiversity countries, our deforestation rate is also one of the highest.  According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat, the overwhelming direct cause of deforestation is agriculture.  Subsistence farming is responsible for 48% of the deforestation; commercial agriculture is responsible for 32% of deforestation; and logging is responsible for 14% of deforestation and fuelwood removals make up 5% of deforestation.

“It (biodiversity) is generally defined at three levels, namely, generic diversity of the variety of hereditary information in every organism; species diversity which refers to the total number of species or kinds of organisms; and the diversity of ecosystems formed by organism with their environment, or ecosystem diversity.” (Ibanez, 2014)  If the Philippines is to succeed in curbing forest biodiversity loss, the above-mentioned percentages of deforestation will have to be brought down substantially.  In all these efforts, government, again, is the main “actor.”

Just my little thoughts…

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