The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will conduct a National Forum on Eco-Schools and Eco-Cities on August 31 to September 2, 2016 in Davao City to overcome challenges, and upscale opportunities and replicate good practices among eco-schools and eco-cities.

Around 200 representatives from champion schools in the National Search for Sustainable and Eco-Friendly Schools, environmentally-sustainable cities, non-government organizations and various government agencies in the country are expected to attend the three-day forum.

The three-day forum will include a mix of lectures and technical sessions, through interaction with the participants and workshops. Discussions will revolve around ways to heighten the mentoring by environmentally-sustainable cities in the build-up of more sustainable and eco-friendly schools and how to create an informal network of eco-schools and eco-cities for the continuing sharing and upscaling of good practices.

The forum will be a platform for the discussion of best practices through eco-school programs, and eco-cities initiatives. In addition, it will help clarify the role of the local government units and schools in the creation of an eco-school and an eco-city.

Speakers for the national forum come from the local government, academe, private and international sector such as International Global Environment Strategies, European Union Switch Asia Policy and Thailand’s Department of Environment Quality Promotion.

DENR Assistant Secretary and Chair of the National Inter-Agency Committee on Environmental Education Corazon Davis said the conduct of the national forum will enhance the attainment of the joint goals of the ASEAN Working Group on Environmentally Sustainable Cities and the ASEAN Working Group on Environmental Education, by urging more cities and local government units to have schools with curricula and co-curricular programs on environmental sustainability, and urging the participation of the local government units, in cooperation with the government and private sector, in expanding the participation of schools in the 2017 National Search for Sustainable and Eco-Friendly Schools.

DENR Assistant Secretary for the Environment Juan Miguel Cuna, on the other hand, stressed that for the next six years under the Duterte administration, the DENR is set to institutionalize reforms and environmental governance; empower communities; create a rational minerals management; strengthen biodiversity conservation; strengthen ecological solid waste management and enhance inter-agency collaboration towards clean air, clean water and develop transformative climate change policies.

The forum is organized by the DENR’s Strategic Communication and Initiatives Service, Environmental Management Bureau-Environmental Education and Information Division of the DENR, with DENR-Region X1.###

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Published: 28 August 2016

SURIGAO CITY – Militant groups across the Caraga region have thrown their support behind the efforts of Environment Secretary Gina Lopez and the Duterte administration to rid the country of irresponsible miners.

Around 500 members of the Caraga Watch, a coalition of progressive environmental and workers groups in the industrial and agricultural sectors, staged a rally in front of the regional office of the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (MGB) in this city last Thursday to manifest their support.

The activists said the Duterte government's declared policy for responsible mining has their full backing -- a position welcomed by the MGB, a line bureau of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

"This is the first time in my over 25 years in the service to have witnessed such a display of support from the left-leaning organizations here in Caraga, expressing their optimism in the government’s effort at environmental governance in the mining sector,” said MGB-Region 13 Director Alilo Ensomo Jr.

The rallyists belong to militant groups Nagkahiusang Gamayng Minero (NAGAMI), Anakpawis, Pinagkaisang Samahan ng mga Tsuper at Operator Nationwide (PISTON) and Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas.

Caraga Watch officials held a one-hour dialogue with Ensomo, during which they expressed their appreciation to Lopez for her eagerness to hear the struggles of local and indigenous peoples in Mindanao that were caused by erring mining firms.

In a position paper, Caraga Watch said Lopez’s advocacy bodes well for the region and its people as “dagku ugpaturagas nga pagmina nga nagresulta sa pagkadaut kinaiyahan sa rehiyon” (the time has come to stop indiscriminate mining that results in environmental destruction in the region).

The rallyists also decried the prevailing contractualization in the mining industry in Caraga and called on the DENR leadership to list it as a priority concern in its agenda for the region.

In response, Ensomo said: "While the government is clamping down on contractualization in the country, the DENR commits to put mining contractualization on the spot light of its agenda."

Data from MGB-Region 13 show that Caraga is home to one of the world's largest iron ore deposits, and largest nickel and gold deposits in the country with significant reserves of copper, chromite and coal.

At present, the region remains basically agricultural as mining only accounts for 3 percent of the region's employment.

With over 20 operating large-scale mining companies, Caraga is known as the country’s de facto mining capital. ###

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Published: 28 August 2016

Environment Secretary Gina Lopez is planning to turn the man-made forest area along Central Avenue, a property of the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman, Quezon City, into an "ecological paradise" with the help of stakeholders, including its informal settlers.

Lopez said the 17-hectare UP Arboretum has the potential to become an ecological model for development and its informal settlers can be tapped as partners and benefit directly from livelihood projects.

"I want an ecological paradise here where there is renewable energy, good septage, medicinal plants; where people from all over the country, the world even, can converge. You can make some money, the community makes money. That's the way they get out of poverty," Lopez said during the launch of the nationwide tree-planting project of the Far Eastern University Nicanor Reyes Medical Foundation Beta Sigma Fraternity Alumni Association Inc. (FEU-NRMFBSFAAI) held in the arboretum.

Lopez, an advocate of entrepreneurship, strongly believes that economic development should benefit all the people, especially the underprivileged. She wants a holistic plan where people are part of the development.

For the UP Arboretum, Lopez is looking at agroforestry and the use of environment-friendly technology as business opportunities, particularly those that can be used for production of fertilizers and medicines.

"We include the people and if the people's lives here do not improve, consider the model a failure," Lopez pointed out. "Let them live here and show how people can live in paradise."

Lopez also discussed with UP Vice-Chancellor for Community Affairs Prof. Nestor T. Castro her intention to meet the heads of the UP Colleges of Architecture, Sociology, Psychology, Community Development, Forestry and Medicine to explore how the academe can be part of the plan for the area.

She said the UP Arboretum can also be a learning ground for the community, the students and even the DENR.

Castro, whose office attends to the university's community concerns, welcomed Lopez's move to include the informal settlers in the plan for what has been dubbed as the "only remaining forest in the metropolis."

The tree-planting program targets to transform the arboretums of UP and the La Mesa Dam into world-class botanical gardens in five years. It is the centerpiece of the medium-term carbon-sequestration project for Metro Manila of Beta Sigma Fraternity and the Coalition of Clean Air Advocates of the Philippines (CCAAP).

A medical mission and a feeding program for the residents were also held after the tree planting.

Also present in the event were running priest and environmentalist Fr. Robert Reyes, Dr. Mike Aragon of FEU-NRMFBSFAAI, Project Chair Butch Madarang, CCAAP President Herminio Buerano, Forester Rolly Acosta of DENR NCR, and Barangay UP Campus Chair Isabelita Gravidez. ###

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Published: 26 August 2016

Buoyed by the success of their six-year-old alliance, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has renewed its partnership with two service-oriented organizations for the rehabilitation of the Upper Marikina River Basin Protected Landscape (UMRBPL).

This time, the Rotary Club of Makati-Rockwell (RCMR) and the Career Executive Service Board (CESB) agreed to plant trees on an additional 30 hectares of forestland within the UMRBPL, a major source of water supply for Metro Manila and nearby areas.

The DENR-RCMR-CESB partnership originally covers only seven hectares at Sitio San Ysidro in Barangay San Jose, Antipolo City under the National Greening Program (NGP), the government’s flagship reforestation initiative.

RMCR has been funding the planting and maintenance of some 3,000 tree seedlings planted by its volunteers since last year under its “Preventing Disasters, Providing Livelihood Project,” which received technical support from the DENR’s Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (PENRO) in Rizal.

The planted seedlings cover three of the seven-hectare area, which has an elevation of 350 meters above sea level, following two planting activities held on October 3, 2015 and last July 23, 2016.

Rizal PENRO chief Isidro Mercado said the expansion is expected to raise the benefits the residents of Sitio San Ysidro have been getting from the project, both in terms of economic and environmental opportunities.

According to Mercado, the residents were hired to conduct maintenance and protection activities on the planted areas, including the right to harvest the fruits from the grown trees like guyabano, mabolo, laputi andbunga.

Mercado said the additional 30 hectares cover steep hillsides that have been plagued by severe erosion, affecting the agricultural activities of families trying to establish small, intensive household farm lots in the area.

The head of the Rizal PENRO also endorsed the plan of RMCR to bring the DENR’s partnership with RMCR and CESB to other provinces.

He said former RMCR president Rolando Metin plans to include coastal planting somewhere along the coastal areas of Quezon province and do the planting activity twice instead of once a year.

The tripartite partnership began in 2010 when Metin, a former DENR undersecretary and CESB member, engaged the DENR for a tree-planting activity along the South Luzon Expressway (SLEX).

The SLEX Tree-Planting Project aimed at improving road safety and comfort for motorists by planting and growing trees along the 45-kilometer expressway.

By 2014, the project planted some 18,423 indigenous and ornamental tree seedlings, which included golden showers and fire trees, with a 50 to 70 percent survival rate based on the assessment done by the DENR-Region IVA office in Calamba , Laguna. ### 

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Published: 18 August 2016

Environment Secretary Gina Lopez hopes to put the image of the military and the police on a more positive light with their new role as "protectors of the environment."

Lopez said the country's security forces play a crucial role in the newly created anti-environmental crime task force led by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), which will go after environmental offenders and ensure strict implementation of environmental laws and regulations.

The DENR recently signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with other key government agencies, including the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police, for the creation of the task force called "A-TEAM Kalikasan."

Lopez said their new role in environmental protection will help erase the bad image of soldiers and policemen as bodyguards of influential politicians and businessmen and make them guardians of the nation's wealth and the environment.

"The [military and the police] were being used as bodyguards for big business interests. I want to shift that and work together with them, to work with the farmers, to work with the indigenous people, because my experience with the military has been only very good and we need to shape that," Lopez said.

Lopez said she views the military and the police as partners in development. "I think of we do that and we all work together with the civil society, I don't see why we can't make a difference."

Other parties to the MOA are the Department of National Defense, the Department of the Interior and Local Government, the Department of Transportation, and the Philippine Coast Guard.

The task force aims to respond to the clamor for social justice, especially among the indigenous peoples who complain about land grabbing and the negative impacts of mining and illegal logging to the environment and their livelihoods.

Lopez expressed high optimism and expectation that the task force will succeed in its mission. "I am counting on three things from you -- will, heart and integrity," Lopez told the members of the task force.

"Yes, we will make things happen. In the immediate future we will see a much, much better Philippines because enforcing is really number one and let’s make it good," she added. ###

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Published: 14 August 2016