THOSE impatient with the educational system’s responses to social realities quote this adage: to educate, take the school out of the child.
Others may add: to teach better, take the child out of the school.
Making learning practical and relevant is crucial because of the threats posed to the world’s resources. The most menacing of these encroachments is indifference bred by ignorance.
To be true centers of learning, schools should lead in disseminating a “new economic thinking.”
During the 8th University of the Philippines in the Visayas Cebu College (UPVCC) Centennial Lecture held last June 26, 2008, lawyer Antonio Oposa Jr. saw the academe as pivotal in training youths on “environmental care, protection and restoration (CPR).”
Green governance
The UP Centennial Awardee for Environmental and Sustainable Development, Oposa initiated the practice of environmental law in the country. He is cited in the United Nations Environmental Program Global 500 Roll of Honor for his green advocacies, which include his pro bono work with farmers and fishermen’s groups, and the School of the SEAs (Sea and Air Advocates) in Bantayan Island that trained youths, civil society, media and other groups in the enforcement of marine and bird sanctuaries.
Ecological CPR is carried out through education on and enforcement of the laws upholding land, air and water; in other words: CPR = EE LAW, Oposa told the Centennial Lecture audience composed of students and faculty from different colleges, professionals and civil society volunteers.
Since green governance can only be sustained through “intergenerational responsibility,” schools are crucial for promoting a lifestyle that not only rejects mindless extraction and wasteful consumption but also promotes awareness and appreciation of nature as part of universal heritage and identity.
In Cebu, for instance, St. Theresa’s College (STC) is one of the first advocates of permaculture. Initiated in Australia during the 1970s, permaculture fuses the principles of permanent agriculture and permanent culture, which revolve around the belief that, “The only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children.”
Located at the center of Cebu, the STC campus is also a green hub, with indigenous perennials and plants displaying markers that present scientific and local names, promoting the belief that to name something is to own and be responsible for it.
The STC Folklife Museum Complex displays landscaping started by Joel Lee of the Cebu Permaculture Initiatives, as well as the “Simple Joys” artworks created by multi-media artist and permaculture advocate, Paulina Constancia. Curator Tonette Pañares said that the school’s long-term Garden of Eden project will include meditation gardens, indigenous craftwork, and aquaculture to introduce students to growing and cooking tilapia.
Sanctuary
Sustainability lies at the heart of sustaining the community’s commitment to ecology. This is the challenge taken up by the Ayala Heights Nature Park Foundation Inc.
Fusing corporate social responsibility and non-government green governance, the partners—Ayala Land Inc., Cebu Holdings Inc., Cebu Uniting for Sustainable Water, Soil and Water Conservation Foundation and the University of San Carlos Water Resource Center Foundation—manage the Kan-irag Nature Park.
The 71-hectare park is part of the Central Cebu Protected Landscape, situated at the headwater of the Kotkot River watershed.
By recently opening the park to the public, particularly public and private schools, the foundation aims to show a “natural science laboratory” that is gradually replanting indigenous trees and plants assessed to be the least depleting and the most appropriate to the local ecosystem.
But the Kan-irag Nature Park is also a study in blending ecology and livelihood for a sustainable form of ecotourism. Working with five upland barangays and training residents to be park rangers, tour guides, food handlers and skilled maintenance crew, the foundation hopes to develop communal ownership and responsibility for protecting flora and fauna.
Conceding that this will not be an overnight task, Kan-irag Nature Park consultant Gil “Jun G” Madroñero noted that local residents no longer enter the park to shoot birds or let their livestock graze. He knows that the shooting of birds is unabated beyond the perimeters, driving local birds to seek sanctuary in the park.
In time, with continuing education and the seamless blending of environment and livelihood in eco governance, Madroñero hopes the divide separating “protected” areas from the rest of the community will cease. As Oposa expounded in his new economic thinking, “ecological security is the highest form of national security.”
