We do not need to be a scientist like Dr. Laura
David and a local political leader like Cong. Josephine Ramirez-Sato to realize
that Occidental Mindoro and the rest of the Philippine provinces are now facing
the very dangers of Climate Change. The effects of climate change specifically
in the marine life of Sablayan can be watched in this video documentation posted
by Reev Robledo last March 3, 2010 for the World Wide Fund for Nature or WWF.
I was personally invited by Board Member Roderick
Q. Agas to attend a Climate Change Forum held in San Jose last Saturday, April
2, 2016. Agas, currently leading the vice mayoralty race in said municipality,
a personal friend an erstwhile co-worker at the Social Services Commission of
the Apostolic Vicariate of San Jose, personally invited me to be one of the
attendees to the meeting. So, I did attend in my own personal capacity as a pro-environment
advocate.
Held at Sikatuna Beach Hotel, it was conducted just
20 days away from the celebration of World Earth Day on April 22. The event was
initiated by Dr. Corazon Claudio of the Management Association of the
Philippines (MAP) and Agas himself as chair of the environment and tourism committee
in the provincial legislative board. Among the invited guest speakers are Dr.
Helena T. Yap, PhD of the University of the Philippines (UP) Marine Science
Institute; Dr. Maricor Soriano of UP Institute of Physics; and the one I have
mentioned a while ago, Dr. Laura David, PhD, physical oceanographer. All the
ladies are recipients of the prestigious The Outstanding Women in Nation’s Service (TOWNS), all members of the elite group of awardees called TOWNS
Federation. Majority of the participants are seaweeds planters and fisher folks
from the islands of Iling and Ambulong and some employees of Office of the
Municipal Agriculturist (OMA) from Magsaysay and the host municipality. Dr. Claudio
is TOWNS Awardee for Science and Technology in 1989.
What strikes me most is the topic “Climate Change: Implications for a Tropic
Archipelagic Country” rendered by Dr. David (TOWNS Awardee for
Oceanography, 2010). She said that over the years, Philippines continue to
experience increase in ocean temperature and acidification, a disturbance on
what she calls as “water budgets”, rise of sea level and the increasing
strengths of storm events which are associated with storm surges. She
emphasized that the LGUs need to revisit their development plans anchored on the
mitigations of these inescapable dangers posed by global warming. Dr. Soriano (TOWNS
Awardee for Physics, 2010) discussed the importance of Automated Rapid Reef
Appraisal or ARRAS where she introduced the so-called Teardrop Hull which she
and her team have invented. The Teardrop Hull is an instrument that could accurately
record the underwater resources of a certain area at the speed of 33 kilometers
per day. On her part, Dr. Yap (TOWNS awardee for Science, 1998) emphasized the
need of climate change resilience through livelihood switching. Ecotourism
programs managed by the communities themselves, according to her, could also be
tried.
Earlier in the day, in her opening remarks, Cong.
Sato stressed that to mitigate climate change, our actions need to be
comprehensive hence not only to rely on economic side but the ecological side
as well. Indeed, all economic activity must respect the environment to a
superior amount, reconciling the needs of economic development with those of
environmental care. Addressing the seaweed farmers of San Jose and Magsaysay,
the Occidental Mindoro representative to Congress said that the event is the “most anticipated shot in the arm for the
seaweed industry in the province.” Further, Sato likewise informed the
participants that she already authored the Expanded NIPAS Law known as House
Bill 06328. Gov. Mario Gene J. Mendiola and Vice Gov. Peter J. Alfaro along with Mayor Muloy M. Festin also came to grace the occasion.
The lady experts are in unison in saying that our
fragile island ecosystems should be restored and mining will put us even more
in a vulnerable situation facing the changing climate that we are experiencing
today. With the massive forest denudation and consequent desertification of our
forests and siltation of our bodies of water due to large-scale mining
explorations and actual operations, it would toast us even more in this
ecological oven and frozen us cold in this ecological freezer.
Thus, one of the concrete ways of mitigating and
adapting climate change is our firm, sustained and active opposition to mining,
to all the 92 applications (so far) for the whole Mindoro Island…
---------
(Photo: WWF)
No comments:
Post a Comment