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The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity (IYB) to raise awareness on the importance of biodiversity all over the world and its value for life on Earth. Biodiversity is defined as the variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or for the entire planet.

With the slogan “Biodiversity is life. Biodiversity is our future”, the UN wants us to understand that humans are part of nature’s rich diversity and have the power to protect or destroy it, and that biodiversity is essential to sustaining the living networks and systems that provide us all with health, wealth, food, fuel and the vital services our lives depend on.

The failure of the global summit on climate change in Copenhagen to strike a binding deal in curbing greenhouse gas emissions should change the campaign landscape for the 2010 elections, given the fact that the Philippines has been identified as a highly vulnerable country to the effects of climate destabilization such as tropical cyclones and prolonged droughts, resulting to social and ecological devastation and economic loss.

While climate change may sound less interesting compared to regular campaign issues like how corrupt the other candidate is, questions on intellectual or residential qualifications, who has a better infrastructure proposal, and warlordism, among others, it has become a major concern considering that its effects are no longer alien to voters, especially the many who have experienced floods and other natural calamities.

Environmentalist Dr. Kristin Treñas, in a text message the other day, questioned why the recent launching of the Metro Iloilo Airshed Governing Board was preceded by a caravan. “They are contradicting themselves,” part of her text message reads. “Do they really know what they are doing?”

The good pediatrician was right. That caravan was not only unnecessary but it was entirely inappropriate for it only contributed more harmful gases to the atmosphere, rendering as useless the board’s main purpose which is to address climate change. An appropriate activity to launch the project would have been a parade or a bikathon where there would be no emissions.

Climate change has been threatening rice production elsewhere, jeopardizing our food security. The International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) reported that for every one degree Celsius rise in temperature, there is a corresponding 10 percent drop in rice yield. Rice is very vulnerable to extreme weather and climate change results in the higher incidence of flood, drought, and rising temperature, which can later on cause pest infestation. It also affects water availability and soil fertility, which are both essential in rice production.

As the 2010 election approaches, aspirants to various political offices have already started laying down their respective platforms of government as they try to woo voters into backing their candidacies. Some capitalize on good governance catchphrases while others bank on local economic development slogans. There are those who vow to build a city college and there are also those who pledge to provide employment to every city residents. Every program is attractive, every promise is enticing.

Mark Twain once urged everyone to buy land because “they’ve stopped making it.” That may be a good slogan for real estate agents but the law of supply and demand has made land unaffordable to the average citizen. Population is rapidly growing and there is no more land left to accommodate people, most of them poor who wants to live in urban areas in search for better opportunities. This has put immense pressures on urban systems responsible for the environment, health, social services, housing and transportation, among others.

Even before Typhoon Frank devastated Metro Iloilo in June 2008, Guimaras senior planner Evan Anthony Arias, an authority in disaster risk management owing to his experience with the Petron oil spill in 2006, already saw the need to rethink how disasters should be handled in this part of the country, given the fact that Iloilo City and its environs have become too vulnerable to flooding and the onslaught of typhoons.

The statistics are revealing and convincing. From 27 typhoons recorded in the Philippines during the period 2000-2003, the number jumped to 39 from 2004 to 2007, according to Pag-asa. It also says that the total damages brought about by typhoons increased by 415%, from P4 billion in 2003 to P20.6 billion in 2006. Further, Pag-asa also discloses that seven of the 20 deadliest typhoons in the country covering the period 1947-2006 occurred in 1990-2006.

It’s like clockwork. After a region is hit by a disaster, the immediate response is to put it under a state of calamity to allow local governments to tap five percent of their budget for calamity purposes. This has been the practice for a long time. But most often, the calamity fund of local governments is not enough to cover the damage wrought by natural and man-made disasters, and usually, a region experiences not just one but more than two disasters in a year.

Typhoons are here to stay, and they’re getting stronger and stronger as climate change continues to worsen. Rising earth temperature, according to scientists, results to increased evaporation. This then results to an increase in the volume of rainfall. Global warming, reports Greenpeace, “will also induce higher temperature differences between the land and sea surfaces, causing an increased transport of precipitable water to the continents, and an increase of convectional rainfall.”

IN AUGUST 2007, Rep. Raul T. Gonzales Jr. filed House Bill No. 1338 which seeks to create the Iloilo River and Muelle Loney Development Authority. Under the bill, the authory will be tasked, among others, to prepare and design an integrated, complementary and coordinated phase by phase development program of the Iloilo River and it inland harbor at Muelle Loney in order to support existing national development policies. The bill has since been referred to the House Committee on Government Enterprises and Privatization for its consideration and action.

COMPLETED in 2003, the Iloilo River Development Master Plan blueprints the rehabilitation, improvement and sustainability agenda proposed for the Iloilo River by the Iloilo City Government in partnership with the Iloilo Business Club, the Asia Foundation and the United States Assistance for Environmental Programs.

DONE in 2006 by Pamela Gerrez V. Tañeza and Paul Philp of the University of Oklahoma’s School of Geology and Geophysics, this study investigates the occurrence, distribution, concentration and potential sources of polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) at the Iloilo River using geochemical techniques. PAHs are ubiquitous environmental pollutants that have received special attention due to their highly mutagenic and carcinogenic properties.

DONE in 2004 by Herminia Francisco and Jessica Salas, this paper analyzes the presence or absence of elements needed to have an effective system of watershed management in the Maasin Watershed, Iloilo Province. It concluded that: a) both the legal and institutional structures needed to support watershed management effort are in place; b) there is evidence of a strong social capital existing in the upland and lowland communities; c) there is an adequate level of technical capital investment to sustainably manage the watershed; and d) there is sufficient financial resources to undertake various site development initiatives.

THE Iloilo City Government, spearheaded by the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (Cenro) in partnership with the Youth Eco Defenders here, will launch the Operation Bantay Suba starting with a walk for a cause on January 17.

“Bantay Suba aims to encourage Ilonggos to be more concerned and participative about the plight of the Iloilo River ,” said Mayor Jerry Treñas who also chairs the Iloilo River Development Council (IRDC).

Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) regional director Rolando Asis said he has ordered the contractor of the P50 million dredging works on Dungon Creek to stop the clearing operations along the riverbanks of Sitio Sooc, Bolilao, Mandurriao.

Asis’s order was in response to the request of the Department of Environment (DENR) and the Bolilao Empowerment Neighborhood Association (BOENA) on the destruction made by the International Builders Corporation (IBC) on the mangrove strip along the riverbanks.

AROUND 200 drainage pipes are spewing wastes into the Iloilo River, according to a group of lawyers pushing for the enforcement of environmental laws in Iloilo City.

Atty. Norberto Posecion said their recent survey of the Iloilo River showed that more or less 200 pieces of 600-millimeter pipes are jutting out of the river and discharge liquid wastes.

Posecion said their survey covered the areas of Muelle Loney in Iloilo City proper to Carpenters Bridge in Mandurriao-Molo districts.

CLIMATE change and other key issues on biodiversity will take center stage in the upcoming Asean Conference on Biodiversity (ACB 2009) to be hosted by the Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) and the National Parks Board (NParks) of Singapore from October 21 to 23 at the Republic Polytechnic in Singapore.

Dubbed “Biodiversity in Focus: 2010 and Beyond,” ACB 2009 will be held back-to-back with the Asean Ministerial Meeting on the Environment.

LONDON—Scientists, led by a former cochairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), warned that the United Nations negotiations aimed at tackling climate change are based on substantial underestimates of what it will cost to adapt to its impacts.

The real costs of adaptation are likely to be two to three times greater than estimates made by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said Prof. Martin Parry and colleagues in a new report published by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and the Grantham Institute for Climate Change at Imperial College London.

BORACAY ISLAND, Aklan — The occupants and claimants of land on Boracay may have their prized property titled soon after the Department of Environment and Natural Resources on Friday announced the start of a cadastral survey of the island.

In a meeting with business owners and property claimants here Friday night, Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Jose “Lito” Atienza Jr. said the survey, which would identify property lines, would be the basis for the issuance of titles for areas classified as alienable and disposable.

MANILA, Philippines—Environmentalist Jesus Nicanor “Nicky” Perlas III says he remembers the day in mid-2001 when it all started to go downhill for the environment under the Arroyo administration.

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was presiding over a meeting in Malacañang of the Philippine Council for Sustainable Development when she dropped a “bombshell.”

WELLINGTON — Developed countries need to act urgently to help vulnerable Pacific island nations cope with climate change, international aid group Oxfam said Monday.

By the year 2050, about 75 million people could be forced to leave their homes due to climate change in the Asia-Pacific region, the Oxfam report said.

SINGAPORE — China’s insatiable demand for pangolins is threatening the survival of the vital pest eaters in Southeast Asia and governments must do more to protect them, experts and activists warned Tuesday.

“Due to continual demand and the decreasing Chinese wild population, in the past few years pangolin smuggling from Southeast Asia has resulted in great declines in these producing countries’ wild populations,” wildlife trade monitoring group Traffic said in a report.

MANILA, Philippines—The Philippines is hoping the United States would heed calls for significant reductions in carbon emissions when a global conference on climate change takes place in Copenhagen at the end of the year.

Presidential Adviser on Global Warming and Climate Change Heherson Alvarez told Inquirer reporters and editors in a recent dinner that because of the “creeping” effects of climate change, developed countries led by the US, China and India should consider cuts of 30 to 40 percent of their present emission rates by 2018.

THE ILOILO RIVER is located between N 10°41’30” –N10°42’30” Latitude and E 122°32’00” – 122°35’00” Longitude. Iloilo River flows from west to east, with an estimated specific sediment discharge rate of 8.0 cubic meter per year per square kilometer, and a catchment area of 93.1 square kilometer.

THE outbreak of World War II signaled the end of the feverish commercial activity in the Port of Iloilo. Consequently, it also marked the death of Iloilo as the “Queen City of the South”. The Japanese destroyed a sizable portion of the commercial section of the city and a large chunk of the Iloilo harbor. Thus, by the end of the war, Iloilo City was almost reduced to ashes and its pier became a ghost frontier.

IN THE 1920s, based on the 1927 Iloilo Telephone Directory and other printed materials at that time, many commercial establishments at the pier and even on the shorter side streets of the city advertised themselves. In Muelle Loney, the leading firms were the Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas, Lizarraga Hermanos, Koppel Industrial Car & Equipment Co., Pacific Commercial Co., Warner Barnes & Co. Ltd., Smith Bell & Co. Ltd., Sing Joco & Co., and the Visayan General Supply Co. Inc. They were either Spanish, Chinese or European-owned.

WHEN THE Americans took over the governance of the Philippines, the first major improvement done in Iloilo was with the port in the Iloilo River because of its leading importance in Philippine economic activities at that time.

THE OPENING of the Port of Iloilo along Iloilo River in 1855 not only resulted in the expansion of trading activities and increase in population in the town of Iloilo but also led to the development of the sugar industry. The Iloilo River provided for a safe entry point and storage for sugar which were subsequently loaded on ocean-going vessels bound for other countries.

LONG BEFORE the coming fo the Spaniards to the Philippines, Iloilo River was already noted to be a busy artery of commerce to the towns of Molo and Jaro. This will explain why when the colonizers came to Iloilo, they already found a considerable number of Chinese residing in Molo and a thriving settlement in Jaro which, in early times, was known as Salog. The river was also a rich fishing ground for fishermen who had started putting up huts along its banks.

The damage wrought by Typhoon Frank to the Tigum Bridge in Cabatuan showed how enterprising Filipinos, or the Ilonggos in particular, are. Residents in the area developed their own version of a Roll-on, Roll-Off facility to ferry motorcycles across the river. The rate is PhP 20.00 per motorcycle.

HERE are photos of the destruction caused by Typhoon Frank on two bridges in Cabatuan, Iloilo. The Tigum bridge in Barangay Tabucan, Cabatuan is the gateway to this town 21 km west of Iloilo City, while the Imelda Marcos Bridge in Barangay Amerang of the same town serves as its link to Maasin town.

RIVER fishermen call them danlak, Hiligaynon for slimy. I don’t know what they are but they rise from the grounds along the bank of the Iloilo River at the Sooc-Navais area. They appear to be like jellyfish or some sort of oil as they don’t mix with water. I believe they come from waste, having noticed piles of garbage nearby.

PULO actually means island but when we hear the word pulo, what comes to our mind is an islet, or a small island. Unknown to many, considering that it is hidden from the busy parts of the city, there is a pulo at the Iloilo River.

THIS photo of the Iloilo River Wharf, circa 1920-1930, forms part of the Wisconsin Philippine Images Collection of the University of Wisconsin, but the rights to the photo belongs to the US National Archives.

1922 photo showing structures along the Iloilo River Wharf that includes the Iloilo Customs House, warehouses and nipa huts. It also shows sailing ships and three men in a small vessel in the midground.

Satellite image of Iloilo City showing the meandering Iloilo River obtained from GoogleMaps

OLD postcard, circa 1900-1920, showing houses along the Iloilo River

GMA News and Public Affairs produced the first Philippine documentary on climate change titled Signos: Banta ng Nagbabagong Klima. The documentary is narrated by actor Richard Gutierrez who is an active environmentalist and Greenpeace advocate. The documentary premiered on April 20, 2008.

THIS video is based on a classic article by Donella Meadows, and interprets the world
as though it were a village of just one hundred people.

THE board of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) has approved a multi-billion-peso project that will improve water quality at the Pasig River, reduce health risks and enhance ferry transportation operations in the area.

MANILA, Philippines – “Pretty Pasig, pretty river. Wear your best bouquets. Happy morning, dawning, give her all your brightest rays….” goes a rhyme that Dr. Jose Rizal wrote for a play titled “Along the Pasig.”