07/08/2006
The Bright Side of the Road
Yesterday was the Ayala Land Recharge day where all the employees allocated their volunteer services to a selection of 5 non-profit organizations. WWF was the environment group. WWF Marketing and Climate Change teams conducted a climate change workshop to over 100 Ayala Land employees.
We at WWF figured, Ayala Land – land development – climate change - critical. The morning was an onslaught of information on climate change, the rise and fall of ancient civilizations and the factors that lead to decline, predominantly environmental damage and climate change. Then we went into 2 hours of what caused global warming, why, who, what was the situation in the Philippines, global and local impacts.
The afternoon was dedicated to a carbon footprinting exercise. As expected, the average Ayala Land employee emitted huge amounts of carbon, way over the average Filipino’s 0.9 tonnes a year. Again as expected, the majority of emissions came from transportation, about 3 times the amount of carbon than other sources such as electricity, waste, etc.
Your average Ayala Land employee pretty much represents your average Metro-Manila employee who commutes an average of 1 hour a day to get to work and another hour to go home. As the largest land developer in the Philippines, and the company that built Makati, obviously there was something terribly twisted in the thinking, or rather, the planning to have engendered a Metro-Manila lifestyle that produced a standard of 2 hours commute a day. But hey, like all good Filipinos, they were simply miming the American development models where owning a car is a given, and we all know what this lifestyle contributes to climate not to mention the blind eye it turns to those who can’t own a car, like maybe 40% of the population.
The last exercise of the day was group case studies of 3 development projects. The groups had to identify how the projects were contributing to dangerous climate change and recommend mitigation and adaptation measures. Obviously the group got it and then maybe they didn’t get it. On the problem of clearing the trees off land as is the practice upon ground breaking, the solution was replanting. This was a retro-fit, after-the-fact solution but no one talked about not cutting them down at all but landscaping development around the existing vegetation. But then the mindset is still, “hey, we control nature and bend it to follow our plan”. There were some surprises, such as leaving more unpaved spaces good for photosynthetic ceiling and of course the obvious ones such as, eco-design for static ventilation and natural light. They were a sharp, young group and we only had 3 hours of brainwash so give it time to sink in, deepen and flourish in innovative ideas. Seeds were planted – maybe we’ll see changing landscapes, less pollution, cleaner lifestyles, maybe hope.
04:45 Posted by sr in Climate Change , Sus Dev , Sustainable Business , Sustainable Consumption | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this | Tags: Ayala Land, climate change
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
06/12/2006
Coal and China
The IHT front page is an article on coal and China that illustrates the predicament the world is in today. China is the center of global climate change discussions. There is no sustainable world without a sustainable China with over a 5th of the world’s population. Energy generation in China has to keep up with the rapid 10% per annum economic growth and right now one of the solutions is to build a new coal plant every 7 to 10 days. To watch China develop today is like seeing the Industrial Revolution that kicked off the northern world economies over 100 years unfold over a span of 10 years, and unfortunately, replaying the same dangerous phases that, on hindsight, destroyed much of the world environment and contributed wholesale to climate change. Today, China burns more coal than the US, Europe and the rest of the world.
04:13 Posted by sr in Climate Change , Community , Sus Dev , Sustainable Business | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: China, India
06/09/2006
The Patterns of Collapse
My current read is ‘Collapse’ by Jared Diamond, a fascinating account of ancient civilizations that failed. Diamond has a 5-point structure on the factors that contributed to the collapse of past civilizations. He examines the Polynesian settlements of Easter Island, Pitcairn, and Henderson, then on to more ancient civilizations like the Anasazi in New Mexico and of course, the Maya. I’m at this point in the book and frankly, who needs fiction...
02:31 Posted by sr in Climate Change , Community , Sus Dev | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Collapse, Jared Diamond, Anasazi, Easter Island
05/22/2006
A New Energy Paradigm
by Lory Tan
I just returned from the second in a series of meetings of WWF’s Energy Task Force. Aside from looking backward at the energy decisions made over the last century, we looked forward 50 years. Many global energy concerns were taken up. Among them, we spoke at length of the characteristics of a new energy paradigm for the planet.
I spoke for the developing world, arguing for the inclusion of approaches that had particular relevance for us.
00:00 Posted by sr in Climate Change , Community , Sus Dev | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Sustainable Development
05/19/2006
A Seat at the Table
The hiatus is over. Sorry about that, but we were extremely busy with workshops on corporate sustainability over the past week. We brought over partners from the UK , Joss Tantram and Jimmy Brannigan of Terra Consult, to train corporations on the CSR shift from philanthropy to core business sustainability.
09:50 Posted by sr in Mining , Sus Dev , Sustainable Business | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Sustainable Development
05/06/2006
Two Worlds One Planet
My post for today is simply to bring attention to two significant additions to the list on the left column. One is a paper on Bretton Woods by my favorite economist, Sixto K. Roxas, which you can download, and the other is a link to a video of my favorite ex-politician, Al Gore and his talk to the Stanford Graduate School students. Taking different approaches, they essentially tell us that we have to start ‘thinking’ about the way we think, calling for nothing less than a shift in worldview. Both are great thinkers, a Filipino from the Southeast and an American from the North. It’s so cool to get a global view from both sides of the equator.
05:20 Posted by sr in Climate Change , Community , Sus Dev , Sustainable Business | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Sustainable Development
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
04/27/2006
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
04/26/2006
Working for the Environment
by Sheree Ann Pagsuyoin
Like many others who take a long first look at the WWF logo, my daughter also asked the same question- Why does the Panda look so sad?
* * *
Doing environmental work is often hard labor and to a point, frustrating. The environment ranks low in the priorities of people. Initiating involvement in preserving the environment is like talking to a wall. Voluntary contributions –either time or financial– are hard to come by. These contributions are perceived as non-return investments, a charitable deed of the Good Samaritan. Many find it difficult to part with hard-earned money that could otherwise be used for purchasing goods for the family.
Conservation projects are even more difficult to manage. While we at WWF can go on reiterating the interrelationship among the environment, health, food, utilities, economics, etc, there is only so much that an ordinary person can internalize - or want to listen to, as is often the case. Pressures to bend rules or go around the law strike us from many different groups with vested interests (see Lory Tan’s related blog on this site).
Rewards come in, though. Where WWF sets foot, community empowerment has brought in undeniably remarkable achievements. Fish catch and biodiversity have significantly improved in many of our project sites (see related links on www.wwf.org.ph ). Local ordinances have been passed and implemented to secure and protect marine biodiversity. Sound capacity building strategy has given the community a sense of ownership of the conservation projects.
But as in the case of stories, happy endings are still endings. WWF exits a project when it deems that everything is already in place; that even without the organization the community it has helped for a long time can still sustain and manage the project.
WWF takes more than just pictures and leaves more than just footprints. We take with us the lessons and sense of fulfillment from the whole experience, and leave behind a community aware of its responsibilities to the environment, and doing something about it. Then we move on to the next project.
* * *
So then, while I was still trying to compose a suitable answer to a 7-year old, she already had a follow-up question – What can make the Panda happy?
Can you guess what I said?
00:53 Posted by sr in Community , Sus Dev | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Ecology & Environment
04/24/2006
Food, Water, Sunlight, and Sex Are Not Enough
by Yeb Sano
Saving the environment may sound like a self-indulgent affair, where one engages in pseudo-philosophical gymnastics and concludes “hey, we only got one planet… we’ve got to take care of it.” Mother Earth would no doubt be flattered. However, such a mindset will most likely raise more questions (and eyebrows) than provide solutions. “Is Mother Earth really as simple as a blue and green blob? Is Mother Earth even a mother? Is it even correct to refer to Mother Earth as one singular being? Is saving the environment as simple as ‘stop this, stop that’. What the hell do I have anything to do with endangered species or with disappearing coral reefs?”
Many years in conservation work has taught us that saving nature is not about saving nature. Yes, it sounds circular but strangely enough, everything is part of a big circle. Maybe that’s what Mother Earth really is – a big circle. And definitely, people are an integral part of the circle. We save nature not for nature, but for the survival and development of the human species. Anyone who believes that we should rid this planet of people so that it can flourish is either thoroughly dimwitted or totally being a bloody hypocrite.
Actually, ridding earth of humans is not at all that hard. We can just go on with our business as usual and not too long we will be extinct. We are actually doing a pretty good job at getting our species gone forever. So how easy is it to make humans extinct? What does the human species need to survive? Sunlight, yes but should go with the correct balance of greenhouse gases. Sex, we’ve had too much. Food, definitely. Freshwater, definitely. The equation is quite straightforward. The truth is, we’re seriously jeopardizing the balance in the equation.
Apparently, decimating the human species is not rocket science. We are doing it when we keep the faucet running while brushing our teeth, when we don’t segregate our trash, every time we forget to turn off the lights or the television, when we buy stuff we don’t really need and a lot of really simple everyday mistakes. More sophisticated groups of people have found more efficient ways to darn our species, but ordinary people are as blameworthy as these multi-million dollar culprits. Pardon the cliché, but “for evil to triumph, it is enough that good people do nothing.”
Today, we face a myriad of environmental issues both domestically and globally. We’ve heard of climate change, global warming, sea level rise, droughts, super typhoons; the “day after tomorrow” doomsday stuff. We’ve also witnessed plummeting fish catch, decreased soil fertility, vanishing forests, scarcity of freshwater. It’s crazy, really.
But the more serious problems are not really those that can be measured by thermometers, data loggers, anemometers, barometers, computers, or through physical or biological studies. The more serious problems are those things that happen between people, within communities of people, and whole societies. Greed, hate, apathy, indifference, more greed, distrust…
So, after all, in order for the human species to survive, food and water are not enough. We need compassion, love, benevolence, fairness, solidarity. To paraphrase Robert Fulghum’s words, ‘all we really need to save the world we learned in kindergarten.’
Let’s leave our children a loving planet.
17:16 Posted by Yeb Sano in Community , Science , Species , Sus Dev , Sustainable Consumption | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Ecology & Environment
04/04/2006
Isn't it Ironic?
by Yeb Sano
Most of us are familiar with Murphy’s Law. Its more popular versions are “anything that can go wrong will go wrong” and “nothing is as easy as it looks”. It goes by many versions but its essence lies in the amusing irony of life. My favorite actually is Murphy’s Law of Photocopying: “The legibility of a copy is inversely proportional to its importance.”
But have you stumbled upon Murphy’s Environment Laws? Actually, Mr. Murphy never had the chance to formulate them explicitly. But he did sum it up in one unequivocal corollary: “Mother nature is a bitch.” (apologies for the language). Quite understandably, Murphy’s Law on the Environment never had to be written because they just happen to abide by his generic edicts that hold so true and are in as constant effect in our everyday struggles in our environmental conservation work. Well, of course all versions of Murphy’s laws are hyperboles so let’s suspend our logic for now and imbibe some pragmatism.
Nothing is as easy as it looks. Back in the eighties and early nineties, many of us thought that turning back the clock on Philippine fisheries and forests would be as easy as finding the funds to make it happen. Many millions of dollars later, we find out that we’re not realizing the kind of progress we envisioned back then.
Everything takes longer than you think. We thought that nations would be able to bring back their carbon emissions below 1990 levels by the year 2012. At the rate things are going, it’s not going to happen. Be very worried, as TIME Magazine says on its recent cover.
Anything that can go wrong will go wrong. In the Philippines, less than 5% of coral reefs in prime condition, 50% of mangroves gone, 90% of fish stocks depleted, over 80% of forests gone.
If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. Corollary: If there is a worse time for something to go wrong, it will happen then. We’ve seen disaster after disaster ravage both rural and urban areas because of flawed development and mismanagement of the environment.
It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. LGUs, POs, and enforcement agencies have worked hard to institutionalize coastal law enforcement in their areas. Alas, illegal fishers just seem to know how to get around the system.
Every solution breeds new problems. There are some places where we thought establishing marine protected areas would be meaningful. But today, we find fishers using destructive and illegal methods giving problems to other localities. Also, tourism MPAs have given rise to increased conflict between communities and the tourism industry and new problems on carrying capacity have emerged.
I guess such is the irony of the realities in saving the environment. After all, the most intelligent species on earth (or are we really?) is the one that intentionally destroys its own home and habitat. I can’t think of any other species that does that. Irony is a fascinating thing. I just realized, you can’t find lapu-lapu fish (grouper) in Lapu-Lapu, Cebu. The Coast Guard has no boat. Protected areas are actually unprotected. Hey, we don’t wanna wait until there are no more turtles in the Turtle Islands.
Maybe there’s some worth in Murphy’s Philosophy: “Smile… tomorrow will be worse.” I hope not.
05:50 Posted by Yeb Sano in Sus Dev | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this | Tags: Ecology & Environment
How the Enlightenment Destroyed the Pateros Balut Industry
One of the reasons behind chronic poverty in this country is the reductionist approach to development which can be traced back to the period in history called the Enlightenment. A study done last year by Dr. Ernesto Gonzales for the Asian Research Center, demonstrates this through integrated socio-economic-ecologic research in Pateros, the municipality that was once the balut capital of Luzon. (Balut is a duck egg delicacy in the Philippines).
04:05 Posted by sr in Sus Dev | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Sustainable Development
03/27/2006
Why Save Our Coral Reefs
by Lory Tan
One square kilometer of healthy coral reefs can produce from 15 to 30 metric tons of fish every year. Experts from the UP Marine Science Institute have estimated, however, that up to 60% of our nations coral reef system are unhealthy, producing barely 5 to 7 metric tons per year. If we were to look at the total national hectarage of coral reefs, and consider the relative health of our reefs, our current annual fish output from coral reefs is less than 400,000 metric tons.
According to the Association of Commercial Fishing Operators, the annual consumption of fish and seafood has already hit close to 1 Million metric tons per year. This means that most of the seafood we consume, now comes mostly from areas outside coral reefs.
01:10 Posted by sr in Marine , Sus Dev | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this | Tags: Ecology & Environment
03/23/2006
PLAYING GOD: Bonsai Giraffes and BT Corn
by Lory Tan
Sometime in the stormy seventies, Ferdinand Marcos agreed to take on a shipment of African animals, purportedly to protect them from getting wiped out in one of Africa’s many civil conflicts. He built an ark on a 3,000 hectare island called Calauit, and shipped in small herds of eland, bushbuck, waterbuck, impala, zebra and giraffe. There were people living on Calauit. No problem, this was martial law. So, he had them moved. There were other endemic wildlife , such as calamian deer, monkeys, monitor lizards, eagles, snakes, wild boar and parrots, that called the island home. No problem, let them live side by side, he decided. At some point, Philippine crocodiles were brought in, as were mouse deer, bearcats and peacock pheasants. This ark became a menagerie. A colourful, rather expensive, zoo at the edge of nowhere, which very few people ever visited.
23:45 Posted by sr in Species , Sus Dev | Permalink | Comments (2) | Email this | Tags: Sustainable Development
Its the Environment, stupid.
Tongue-in-cheek, Lory Tan forwarded an article announcing publication of the report, “World Resoures 2005: The Wealth of the Poor: Managing Ecosystems to Fight Poverty”.
Lory should forward this to the GMA government. Not that I’m calling them stupid, I refrain from that with great difficulty. I’m just quoting Clinton’s sous-entendu to George Bush senior during a pre-electoral debate in which Bush seemed to have missed the point altogether and subsequently lost the election. However, the fact remains that the environment is not a priority for either government.
01:18 Posted by sr in Sus Dev | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this | Tags: Sustainable Development
03/17/2006
By Development, you mean the sustainable kind?
At WWF, our business is ‘development’. The broad meaning of the word is simply making life better for everyone. Then we add the qualifier ‘sustainable’ and things get more complicated because now we have to think future, generations, children, species, ecosystems, planet and all that interdependence.
06:53 Posted by sr in Sus Dev | Permalink | Comments (1) | Email this | Tags: Sustainable Development