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EVENTS

Haribon Forum: “Climate Change and Biodiversity”
Date: June 27, 2008 Friday
Time: 4:00 pm-7:00 pm
Venue: Meralco Mini-Theater, Meralco Compound, Pasig City

As a membership organization, Haribon aims to build a constituency for environmental issues that will call for prioritizing conservation actions on habitats and sites. Prof. Blas Tabaranza, Operations Group Director of Haribon will present the topic.  read more...


Come Celebrate International Biodiversity Week!
The United Nations proclaimed May 22 the International Day for Biological Diversity to increase understanding and awareness of biodiversity issues.
This year’s theme, “Biodiversity and Agriculture,” seeks to highlight the importance of sustainable agriculture not only to preserve biodiversity, but also to ensure that we will be able to feed the world, maintain agricultural livelihoods, and enhance human well being into the 21st century and beyond. read more...

NEWS

A Five Years Wait for a CADT

Atienza bares setting up of ‘green courts’

Farming threatens three important Philippines rivers

S. Cotabato gov’t to ban open-pit mining

Josef of the Jungle

Reviving Lake Lanao

Fishpens Should Go

Peña: Mangroves

FEATURES

"Hunger Pangs"
by Weng Bolinas
Press Statement on International Biodiversity Day From Haribon Foundation Photo by PAWB

As we mark this year's International Biodiversity Day with the theme "Biodiversity and Agriculture", we witness the erosion of the world's biologically diverse genetic resources through biotechnology, natural disasters, land degradation and climate change.

A global effort aimed at conserving important crops from all over the world threatened with extinction is now the focus of United Nations and the Global Crop Diversity Trust with an infusion of US$37.5 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Norway government.read more...


Branches on the Same Tree
by Marifel Moyano
Communication and Information Division, Haribon Foundation

Engaging the public on biodiversity is much easier than done. The challenge that scientists tell us is that we are experiencing an ecological crises due to the rapid loss of species and critical habitats. Granted, for some of us, a refresher on third grade science may be needed to fully understand all the technical terms from the previous sentence, but at the very least, through the unpredictable weather patterns and catastrophes we’ve been experiencing and seen for the past few years globally, all of us must have at one point asked ourselves¬: What the heck is happening?read more...


Cagwait Celebrates Earth Day
by Marifel Moyano and Droi Duenas
Haribon Foundation
Photos by: Coco Kitche and Droi Duenas
From Manila Times, Green Revolution, April 27, 2008

Earth Day is an internationally celebrated yet still a relatively new concept in distant provinces in the Philippines. Cagwait is a province in Surigao del Sur, and to reach it requires a flight to Butuan and a painstaking eight-hour bus ride through unpaved rough roads. However, as I looked out in the distance from the bus’ window, the scenic backdrop of mountains seemingly blanketed with thick forests offered me a sense of serenity. The calmness, however, soon dissipates as soon as I caught sight of passing large logging trucks, filled with timber. It could have come from a production site, or straight from the forests. Regardless, for a tree, that was once alive, it cannot distinguish between an illegal logger’s saw blades from that of a licensed one. For it, life had simply ceased and with its death is the loss of home to all other life forms that depended on it. And of course, inevitably, the loss of each tree in our natural forest is a continuing threat to our survival as human beings.read more...


A Keen Experience in Sta. Marta
by by Florante I. Rebite
Haribon Foundation
From Haring Ibon Issue 33, January-March 2008

When I first arrived in Sitio Sta. Martha in Palauig, Zambales, the Project Manager of the European Commission-funded GOLDEN Forests Project advised me that I just observe the daily routine of its residents, the Aetas. The usual approach of a Community Organizer is to attempt a conversation with everyone in the community whenever the opportunity arises.

However, I did find it a little challenging to integrate with the elders because most of them seldom speak Tagalog like the younger residents. As night time came, I was wondering if my host family shared the same anticipation I felt in regards to having a complete stranger sleep with them. In order for me to get to know my host family better, even if seemingly not the technical or traditional way to gather background information, I asked the father if he would like to have a drink with me. In response, he asked me how many bottles of beer I could drink. As we started, other male Aetas came and joined us. We talked about nearly everything under the sun, and contrary to the perception that Indigenous Peoples (IPs) are conservative, I was shocked to find they were more than open to talk about a various issues including sex! However, I knew that the coming days would allow me to explore much deeper issues about how the indigenous culture has copied with the changing face of the environment.read more...
 
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