Kamayan para sa Kalikasan

February Forum Echoes:

Green Party Groups 

Vow Cooperation

TWO categorical promises were declared by leaders of the major environmental groups now preparing to form political parties: one, that neither one will abandon the continuing dialogue process to thresh out conflicts or hints of conflict that might come about between them; and, two, that neither group will be spreading rumors, or  even  loaded jokes against the other, and they will will  both educate their respective members enough to work for the expansion and greater unity of the Philippine environmental movement.

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Top issues: Sustainable Agriculture, GMOs, Food Trade

Food from Unspoilt Earth

13th Anniversary Forum session focuses on The ‘Gut Issue’

THERE was a time when food availability could be taken for granted, by all who had enough prudent foresight to plant and store. Not anymore! Food production and trade have become a complex system that requires balance between agriculture and industry, between external trade and domestic demand, between life-sustaining technologies, on the one hand, and life-tampering experiments and high-volume production for commerce, on the other. After all the clouds shall have cleared, are we not all going to be left holding an empty food bowl?

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EDITORIAL

BOXED FEATURE:

NEWS REPORT

SPECIAL ITEM:

FOOTER QUOTE:

Environmental Protection Thru Sustainable Agriculture

Ten 'Green Reasons' Against War

Environment foundation launched in Palawan

Special Thanks: Maraming Salamat Po sa Kamayan!

“BT- Corn could increase the risk of stomach and colon cancers… 

and hasten the growth of malignant tumors .” 

               – Dr. Stanley Ewen, Histopathologist in United Kingdom

  EDITORIAL      

  FORUM FOCUS         

Sustainable Agriculture, GMOs, Food Trade are top issues

Food from Unspoilt Earth

13th Anniversary Forum session focuses on The ‘Gut Issue’

THERE was a time when food availability could be taken for granted, by all who had enough prudent foresight to plant and store. Not anymore! Food production and trade have become a complex system that requires balance between agriculture and industry, between external trade and domestic demand, between life-sustaining technologies, on the one hand, and life-tampering experiments and high-volume production for commerce, on the other. After all the clouds shall have cleared, are we not all going to be left holding an empty food bowl?

The worries are real. It has long been an established irony that the tillers of the soil to produce our food are left holding an empty sack as  middlemen  make  a  killing between the low price of palay that they buy from the farmers and the high prices of bigas they sell to rice dealers. Add the more recent modernities like rice varieties being addicted to expensive and soil-destructive chemical inputs, land conversions to residential subdivisions, and, the latest one, practically uncontrolled bio-technological experiments that hold the environ­ment and human health hostage.

These and related topics and sub-topics have been set for discussion on March 21, the 13th anniversary session of Kamayan para sa Kalikasan monthly environmental fo­rum from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Kamayan-EDSA Restaurant in Mandaluyong City. Agriculture Sec. Luisito Lorenzo leads the invited discussants with leaders of various health and environmental groups.

The other speakers include Neth Daño, Executive Director of the Southest Asian Regional Institute for Community Education (SEARICE), and Beau Baconguis, anti-GMO campaigner of Greenpeace-Southest Asia.

The Kamayan para sa Kalikasan forum has been convened on the third Friday monthly since March 1990 by the Communicators’ League for Environmental Action and Restoration or CLEAR, in partnership, since March 2001, with Sanib-Lakas ng Inang Kalikasan (SALIKA) and fully sponsored all these years by Kamayan Restaurant with permanent venue at Kamayan-EDSA in Greenhills, Mandaluyong City. The next forum is on April 25, because the third Friday is Good Friday.

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  FORUM ECHOES           

TWO categorical promises were declared by leaders of the major environmental groups now preparing to form political parties: one, that neither one will abandon the continuing dialogue process to thresh out conflicts or hints of conflict that might come about between them; and, two, that neither group will be spreading rumors, or  even  loaded jokes against the other, and they will will  both educate their respective members enough to work for the expansion and greater unity of the Philippine environmental movement. 

The Kamayan para sa Kalikasan session last February 21 reached a clear consensus that all politically-oriented efforts of the movement will be geared at constituency-building, expecially at the grassroots.

Main speakers at the forum were Roberto Verzola, secretary-general of the Philippine Greens (PG), and Delfin Ganapin who is one of the convenors of the recently-organized Green Party-Pilipinas (GPP).  These groups, which have both taken action toward making the environment an electoral politics issue, agreed to campaign simultaneously for a green vote and for clean elections. They pointed out that winning by employing foul means, like compromising with the “trapos” and environmentally-destructive corporate sponsors, would surely backfire on the Green cause, with the environment ending up as the big loser. The people’s faith is something the movement cannot afford to lose in the effort to gain some government posts. It was also pointed out that pro-environment laws have been en­acted without any environmental political party having won elections.

The two groups differ in their approach and timetable. While PG wants to take time for members-consolidation and constituency-building before setting up a national party, GPP has already started to form its party because it wants to deal immediately as a party with present and future policy-makers. Setting up the party will also help get the work on constituency building pursued in earnest GPP says its work will not only be about “electing green candidates” but also “selecting, that is, assessing elected officials about their position on environmental issues even outside of election periods. PG said it was reserving the prerogative to constructively criticize GPP. Both groups are angling for major party status, not only as party-lists.

Participants raised a number of concerns, mostly about the need for unity. Since having two or more groups would split the green votes, would it not be better if the groups just agreed to have one party? There were fact other groups thinking more about the green vote -- that it is perhaps best that these be allowed to flourish side by side with all contributing to building a unified political mass base for the green movement.

Educating people to vote candidates with clear environmental bias was deemed more important at the initial stage. To prevent the green parties fielding candidates from getting into rivalries over constituency, Kamayan forum moderator Ding Reyes, with concurrence of all participants in the venue, asked the speakers to give a categorical “yes!” to each of the two soli­cited promises. They both did so, to the cheerful applause of all. --TC  

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  BOXED FEATURE          

10 Green Reasons vs. War, Part 1

[Organizations and individuals working for the environment and environmental justice, have watched with increasing concern as the US government moves closer to an all-out attack on Iraq. They then raised a collecive voice in opposition to this war and invite others to join and support peace, via an e-mail signature drive. We received one such letter from <aleonard@mail.essential.org>. We carry this in the “eve of that war”.]

1. An attack on Iraq could kill nearly 500,000 people. Most of the people killed would be innocent civilians.  In November 2002, Medact, the British health professional organization, warned that as many as 260,000 Iraqis could die immediately from a US attack, while another 200,000 deaths would result from famine and disease. The UN fears that an attack would create a flood of 900,000 refugees.

2. War destroys human settlements and native habitats. War destroys wildlife and contaminates the land, air and water. The damage can last for generations.  The United Nations Environmental Pro­gram (UNEP) has documented lasting damage from the 1991 Gulf War. Oil, chemical and radiological pollution still contaminates the region. More than 60 million gallons of crude oil spilled from pipes. Some 1,500 miles of coast were tarnished with oil and cancer-causing chemicals. The de­serts were scarred with 246 "lakes" of congealed oil. More than 700 oil wells burned for nine months, producing toxic clouds that blocked the sun and circled the Earth. In the aftermath of that War, more than a dozen countries filed environmental claims with the UN totaling $48 billion.

3. The US clusterbombs, thermobaric explosions, electromagnetic bursts and weapons made with depleted uranium are indiscriminate weapons of mass destruction.  In the 1991 Gulf War, US forces reportedly fired nearly a million rounds of depleted uranium (DU) bullets and shells, leaving 300 tons of DU scattered across southern Iraq. DU (uranium-238) has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. According to the Army Environmental Policy Institute, ingesting DU "has the potential to gene­rate significant medical con­sequences." The World Health Organization (WHO) warns "children could receive greater exposure to DU when playing in or near DU impact sites. Typical hand-to-mouth activity could lead to high DU ingestion from contaminated soil." In the aftermath of the profound chemical and radiological contamination released during the 1991 war, cancer and leukemia rates in southern Iraq have increased six-fold.

4. Bombs pollute, poisoning the land with unexploded shells and toxic chemicals. Bombs can't locate or destroy hidden chemical or biological weapons (CBW), but they can cause the uncontrolled spread of deadly CBW agents. According to Saudi Foreign Policy Advisor Adel al-Jubeir, the 1991 US attack on Iraq destroyed "not a single chemical or biological weapon."  That may have been fortunate. On March 10, 1991, after the Gulf War had ended, US troops destroyed several weapons bunkers at Khamisiyah in southern Iraq.  Five years later, the Pentagon admitted that the explosion released a cloud of CBW agents, exposing 100,000 US soldiers to mustard gas and sarin nerve gas.

5. Fighting a war for oil is ultimately self-defeating.  Our fossil-fuel-based economy pollutes our air, fouls our lungs and contributes to global climate change. The world needs to burn less oil, not more. Earth's remaining recoverable oil reserves are expected to peak soon and decline well before the end of the century.  Waging wars to control an energy source that is finite will never achieve long-term national security. Oil-based economies must be replaced by technologies powered by clean, sustainable, renewable fuels.  (to be continued)  

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  NEWS  REPORT         

T a g B a l a y’:

Environment foundation launched in Palawan

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY—There is an urgent need to have healthy partnerships between local community stakeholders and local govern­ment units for effective environment conservation and sustained development, according to the local-environment-oriented TagBalay Foundation, launched here just last February 14 by various groups and volunteers led by Mayor Edward S. Hagedorn.

    A brainchild of Hagedorn, for which he had formed a founding board months before the recall election that returned him to City Hall, TagBalay Foundation is envisioned to be a nationwide organization building strong pro-environment partnerships for local governance and community empowerment in a handful of pilot areas  across the country.   Puerto Princesa City was chosen to be the first such pilot area.

Sophia Jumlani, TagBalay executive director, clarified that although the Foundation shares top leadership with the city itself in the person of the multi-awarded environmentalist mayor, “we are a private national organization that is completely independent of the city government in terms of direction-setting and resources generation.” She said the city government’s role is to be a partner of the foundation in attaining initial success in the city, which has been designated by TagBalay as its first work area, adding that another pilot area will be opened soon in one of the major islands of Western Visayas.

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  SPECIAL ITEM           

On the occasion of the 13th anniversary this month

of the Kamayan para sa Kalikasan monthly environment forum, we proudly and thankfully show the powerful commitment that has  made it all possible…    .

Maraming salamat po sa Kamayan!

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All are invited. to the  Kamayan para sa Kalikasan Environmental Forum held regularly since March 1990 on the 3rd Friday every month, 10 am-2pm at the Kamayan Restaurant along-EDSA, Mandaluyong City. It is convened jointly by the Communicators’ League for Environmental Action and Restoration (CLEAR) and Sanib-Lakas ng Inang Kalikasan (SALIKA), fully sponsored by Kamayan.