Typhoon-triggered Flooding Reveals Extent of Natural Degradation
There is a mad rush in the exploitation of the Philippines’ rich natural resources with a seeming wanton disregard for its consequences to the locals or the environment. The effects of this mad frenzy which is no less than a tragedy of the commons exemplified can be gleaned from the latest disaster which has struck the area.
This ongoing free-for-all is especially dangerous when the country trails only the South Pacific island-states of Tonga and Vanuatu in the 2011 World Risk Index, an output of collaboration between Germany, the United Nations University (UNU), and the Institute of Environment and Human Security. The index determines countries’ level of vulnerability to natural disasters like earthquakes, typhoons, and tsunamis.
Tropical storm Washi or Sendong’s furies unleashed flash floods which have killed at least 1,000 persons and affected about 167, 460 residents of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan in Mindanao, the Philippines’ southern part. A total of about 1,300 houses have been wrecked and 3,000 damaged. Furthermore, government officials peg agricultural losses to approximately $184,000.
This natural calamity which hit the largely Catholic country in its most joyous time of the year is being blamed by environmental advocates to deforestation from logging and mining, alongside weak disaster preparation and management.
The disaster-ravaged areas are surrounded by mountains laid bare by logging, mining, and mass production agriculture. Mayor Vicente Emano of Cagayan de Oro, one of the two worst-hit areas, thinks that unchecked illegal logging in neighboring mountains may have played a major factor in the flash floods. In 2009, a study by the University of the Philippines National Institute of Geological Sciences (UP-NIGS) showed that a 2,000 hectare plantation of pineapple producer Del Monte Philippines, Inc. within the Upper Pulangi Watershed threatened downstream areas.
While mining is seen as one of major causes of the flash floods, the Philippine Chamber of Mining Industry was quick to point to small-scale miners and slash-and-burn farming, maintaining that they had no operations within or near the disaster areas.
An alliance of various environmental groups, the Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (PNE) has issued a call to the government for a shift in priorities towards policies that take into consideration the effect of climate to weather phenomena, including adaptation mechanisms which are local-based. It also challenged the state’s Janus-faced approach in dealing with climate change as shown by the continued existence of policies contravening climate adaptation plans like the Mining Act of 1995 and the Forestry Code of 1975 that shield and intensify the practices of logging and mining.