Ravanera : WHO Will the Trees and Birds Vote For?

Commentary

WHO Will the Trees and Birds Vote For?

The forests, rivers, agricultural lands, bays and all those that form the ecosystems will all outlast us for we are just transient occupants of Gaia, our mother earth. Each passing generation has the absolute responsibility therefore to nurture and enrich these life-support systems which are only ours to protect for those who will come after us. It behooves upon all of us to use these God-given resources in such a manner as not to jeopardize the ability of the coming generations to provide for their own needs.

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I am afraid that we have miserably failed in standing up to that responsibility as God’s stewards of His creation. Worse, we have violated the 8th Commandment, “Thou shalt not steal,” as we have robbed the future of their inheritance. Indeed as the ancient saying goes, “We did not inherit the earth from our parents but we owe these to our children, but at the rate that we have exploited our resources, we have robbed the future of their inheritance.”

Not only are we guilty of massive stealing from the future generations but also of widespread massacre. The Philippines has housed tremendous biological wealth, very rich in flora and fauna which are endemic in a tropical country like ours. Mr. Larry Heaney an environmentalist from California who explored Mt. Kitanglad for three months two decades ago was amazed to find in that forest eco-system alone a number of flora and fauna greater in number compared to those found in the whole continent of North America.

It is indeed amazing that we have in our country more than 5,000 species of flowering plants while the United States can only boost of not more than five hundred. In fact, until now we are still discovering varieties of orchids and species of birds. Our biological wealth does not end at the shorelines. Our waters surrounding the Archipelago constitute the center of the center of marine life on earth, based on the findings of the UN FAO study of Drs. Kent Carpenter and Victor Springer. Just lately, a new kind of sea shell was recently discovered in our waters which have been found out to be a cure against cancer.

Indeed, the Philippines was once an Eden. Unlike Adam and Eve who were thrown out from paradise, we have lost Eden on our own doing. From 17 million hectares of dipterocarp forest a century ago, we barely have half a million now. All of our biodiversity which has evolved for millions of years is almost gone – we have massacred them in just a “wink of an eye” this century. By denuding our forest, we have killed our rivers as some 40 major rivers in the country are now biologically dead. We have also silted our bays as billions and billions tons of top soil are carried by the rivers to the sea which in turn are seriously destroying the mangroves and coral reefs which are the habitats of marine life.

So, where have all our forest gone? Gone to loggers everyone… From 1971 to 1988, the loggers have harvested 3.88-million hectares of virgin forests. In the period 1988-1994 alone, the forestry sector lost a total of P104 billion worth of old and secondary growth forest, according to Philippine Assets Account.

The logging industry despite amassing forty-eight billion dollars (Asian Development Bank Report) from 1970-1988, in the same period, it had only contributed from 0.5%-1.3% to the total Government Revenue.

Today, the fury of nature is upon us. We must now take heed of that ecological warning: heal the blighted land back to life or perish!

As we are now in the frenzied pace of choosing those who will rule us, I am just wondering that if the eco-systems, which have also the right to life, were given the right of suffrage, who will they elect? No one!

Who among the crop of candidates have passionately fight for mother earth? Who among them have dared to stand to stop logging? To stop hydraulic and unsustainable mining operations? To stop illegal fishing? To stop industries, which have treated the bays as their waste pits? To stop the use of toxic chemicals in farming which have polluted our watersheds and harmed the health of the consumers? Their respective track records can clearly speak for themselves.

It is quite a pity that many have just equated environmentalism to planting trees while allowing the massive pillage of our ecosystems. Worse, knowing that massive illegal logging has formed a cabal of vested interest, there may be those who have received funds from those who have raked so much by sacrificing nature to the altar of greed and profit.

I am challenging our politicians to take the initiatives to make accountable those who have wantonly exploited our non-renewable resources with utter disregard to ecological integrity and the future of the coming generations. To start, they can refer to Ms. Marites Vitug’s book, “Power from the Forests,” which contains the names of those responsible in the massive plunder of the forest ecosystem, some in fact are still in Congress. (cda_cdo@yahoo.com.ph)