Civil Society reps meet to respond to climate change concerns

ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews/03 October) -- Representatives of civil society here gathered Friday to respond to growing concerns on climate change.

Mark Cervantes, program officer of Disaster Risk Reduction under Ecoweb Inc., said “civil society will be joining the worldwide call to prioritize the enforcement of environmental protection policies.”

Cervantes bared that Global Climate Risk Index ranks the Philippine archipelago as fourth in terms of risk and vulnerability to climate change impacts, thus its essential for us to be part in a global action though we will be drumbeating local movements.”

Cervantes added that 50 of our country’s 80 provinces are predicted by scientists to experience the effect of one-meter sea level rise based on research.

“The Asian Development Bank says that the Philippines, along with Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia will experience a decline in rice productivity by as much as 40 percent to 75 percent by the end of the century, owing to changing climatic patterns in Southeast Asia,” he bared. [More at MindaNews]

Environmentalists criticize gov't neglect to prevent disasters

ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews/1 Oct) -- Environmentalists here expressed alarm over the government’s neglect in putting up measures to prevent disasters, like what happened when Typhoon Ondoy hit Metro Manila.

Mark Cervantes, project officer of Ecoweb Inc., an NGO specializing on disaster risk reduction, said disasters happen because Filipinos love to talk about how to manage it, but “there is a need for all of us to start thinking and responding to natural hazards through mitigation and preventive measures.”

Cervantes said that “addressing vulnerabilities during hazards like increasing survivability and community readiness capacities is a must. Local governments should start coming up with their contingency plans and comprehensive plans on disaster risk reduction.”

He pointed out that disasters are “not natural” and that “people have control.” He said that natural hazards are there, but these will become worse because of human actions, like in the case of climate change that is largely blamed on human activities. [More at MindaNews]

NGO to LGU’s: integrate DRR in development plans

ILIGAN CITY (MindaNews/16 August) -- A non-governmental organization in Lanao del Norte has asked local government units in Lanao and Zamboanga Sur to integrate disaster risk reduction (DRR) in their development plans.
“The erratic changes of our climate which is creating abnormal hydro-meteorological hazards like floods, droughts and typhoons, and in the case of Mindanao it is being aggravated by human induced hazards like armed conflict and other forms of violence. Most often, communities could not cope up when such hazards hits them because there is no systems or mechanisms in place to respond to such hazards. Because of this, communities are vulnerable and would usually be facing imminent disasters,” said Mark Cervantes, project officer of Disaster Risk Reduction of Ecoweb Inc., a non-government office operating in Lanao del Norte provinces, Mismis Oriental and Josefina town of Zamboanga de Sur.

“Risk reduction is the concrete translation of precautionary principle,” Cervantes told 60 local officials in a two-day conference on DRR orientation that ended last August 11 at Ma. Cristina Hotel of Iligan. More at MindaNews