Mindanaotoday.com | DENR-10 calls for local ‘green’ drives
By: Uriel Quilinguing
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – To declare a climate emergency or not is the prerogative of the local governments, an official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-10 said on Wednesday, April 19.
Lawyer Ban Mikhael Pacuribot, DENR-10 legal office chief, said this in a forum at the SM City CDO Uptown mall in Cagayan de Oro, when asked if local governments should place their localities under a state of climate emergency.
“That is their prerogative,” said Pacuribot, but vowed to take the issue of climate emergency declaration in a proper forum.
This, he said, must be based on impact assessments of climate change.
Climate emergency is a situation in which urgent actions are required to reduce or halt climate change and avoid potentially irreversible environmental damage resulting from it.
The environmental lawyer hinted that such initiative must emanate from the City Local Environment and Natural Resources Office as well as from the Committee on Environment in the City Council.
So far, the city governments of Bacolod, Cebu and Makati as well as the municipality of Tolosa, Leyte have declared state of climate emergency in their localities.
Dumaguete City-based Silliman University has also issued the same declaration.
In the same forum, Forester Mercedita Barbarona, DENR-10 senior conservation and development officer, said everybody has been experiencing the extremely hot weather and low water pressure on faucets in recent weeks.
“Everybody wants to stay in airconditioned rooms to avoid dehydration and even heat stroke,” Barbarona said, and that even her ornamental plants at home are wilting even if these are watered in the morning.
She said the national government has invested so much to mitigate the impact of climate change and one of these is the greening program which started 12 years ago, to plant 1.5 million trees in 1.5 million hectares of denuded lands.
Aside from this, DENR-10 has been securing 11 protected areas, consisting of five natural parks, two natural monuments, two protected landscapes and seascapes, a protected landscape, and a watershed forest reserve.
“These are our last cards,” said Barbarona because many lands with forest cover had already been converted to other uses, and that everyone must do his share of reducing the destructive effects of climate crisis.
At this time, she said every household could contribute in environmental protection by proper disposal of garbage which for months posed health hazards and sanitation issues in Cagayan de Oro.
Pacuribot said the campaign for greater consciousness of protecting the planet must be on the young, particularly school children.
They, he said, must already know the proper way of disposing biodegradable and non-biodegradable wastes.
While there has been an ordinance banning the use of specified plastic bags in Cagayan de Oro, but there is none in Misamis Oriental, thus these non-biodegradable and highly-toxic materials find their way into some households in the city, a forum participant observed.
On Saturday, April 22, DENR-10 is spearheading a coastal cleanup – together with other government agencies, civic society groups, and non-governmental organizations – along the coastal areas of Lapasan and Gusa villages in Cagayan de Oro to concretize the region’s Earth Day participation. (MT)
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