06/15/2006
Drilling for Oil is Now Profitable
Yesterday the Nido Petroleum company presented to WWF their project to drill for oil in Northwest Palawan, 51 kilometers off the coast of Busuanga. They were in the process of obtaining clearance from the DENR to begin drilling operations and had conducted the necessary consultations with the local government, people’s organizations and needed consultation with an environmental group, WWF, because the project is within the Sulu Suluwesi ecoregion. So they presented their gem of a project, taking pictures of the consultation as proof that it had happened.
10:15 Posted by sr in Biodiversity , Climate Change , Community , Marine , Sulu Sulawesi Ecoregion , Sus Dev , Sustainable Business | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Nido Petroleum, Palawan, oil exploration
04/30/2006
Greek Tragedy and Old Growth Forests
It’s a drama that plays out over and over again, the main characters changing only slightly depending on the situation and the place. Like a Greek tragedy occurring in real life, the tensions are between the laws of man and the laws of the gods, in this case, the laws of nature.
03:25 Posted by sr in Biodiversity , Community , Sus Dev , Watersheds | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this | Tags: Sustainable Development
04/29/2006
Burning Books and Biodiversity
One of the least known aspects of biodiversity is it’s value as a vast, largely untapped genetic library. Equally notorious in history as the killing of millions of Jews by Hitler, or heretics by the Inquisition is the mass burning of books that were deemed heretical in several dark periods of our history. Perhaps the destruction of rainforests and coral reefs are just as devastating, if not more, because we are destroying a huge repository of untapped knowledge and we may never know how much we have lost.
copyright Lory Tan
03:20 Posted by sr in Biodiversity | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Ecology & Environment
04/28/2006
The Ecological Role of Filter Feeders
by Lory Tan
Aside from being marine animals, what do sponges, sea cucumbers, coral, humpback whales, barnacles, krill, oysters and whale sharks have in common? They are all filter feeders.
Filter feeders have been described as various types of ecological biomachines designed to purify water. Yes, they are feeders. But they are also, primarily, filters.
09:20 Posted by sr in Biodiversity , Marine | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Ecology & Environment
04/27/2006
Tubbataha Reefs - The Spirit of Hope
by Lory Tan
In 1978, I was one among a dozen scuba divers on board the outriggered live aboard, Aqua One, that visited Tubbataha Reef on the very first commercial dive tour there. It was nothing short of a submarine Serengeti. Like stepping onto the pages of National Geographic.
Then came the dark years, when Tubbataha went through a series of travails that threatened the survival of this national marine park.
01:17 Posted by sr in Biodiversity , Marine , Sulu Sulawesi Ecoregion , Sus Dev | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Ecology & Environment
04/09/2006
Celebrating Earth Day
My father was a big game hunter before he turned environmentalist. Ironically, it was during the hunting trips that I discovered the natural wealth and diversity of this country.
As children, our summers were spent hunting the big game in the forests of the Sierra Madres, the mountains of Bukidnon, or trolling for swordfish, marlin and tuna in Fortune or Fuga Islands. Our library was studded with deer head, boar head, a marlin and a Tamaraw (wild buffalo) staring at me through glassy eyes. What I feared most was a human skull poised sardonic on one of the shelves, discarded from one of my mother’s archaeological excavations in the Sta. Ana Church.
04:12 Posted by sr in Biodiversity | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Ecology & Environment
04/06/2006
Hope for Sulu Sulawesi
Lest we are tagged as ‘bad news bloggers’, here’s some good news. After 6 years of hard work, the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines have just signed a tripartite agreement to conserve and manage the Sulu Sulawesi Marine Ecoregion (SSME). This milestone agreement over Southeast Asia’s most biologically productive marine environment gives the region hope.
02:27 Posted by sr in Apo Reef , Batangas , Biodiversity , Marine , Sulu Sulawesi Ecoregion , Sustainable Business , Sustainable Consumption | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Ecology & Environment
04/02/2006
A Cause for Blogging for a Cause
Scientists are not known for spontaneity. Getting them to post an article on the blog is almost like asking a fish to jump out of the water. There are a few who can and they’ve posted previously and will continue and slowly, hopefully, the others will warm to it. Two weeks into the blog and we’re still beginners, exploring ways to get people to plug in.
The main objective is to talk about our work and help disseminate knowledge on the environment and sustainable development. Awareness remains extremely low in the Philippines, Manila in particular.
05:57 Posted by sr in Biodiversity | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Ecology & Environment