LEGAZPI CITY—Albay, declared recently by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as a world biosphere reserve, has launched a sustainable ecosystems management program with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources aimed at mitigating the impacts of climate change in the province.
The Albay-DENR partnership agreement signed last week provides for the establishment of the Sustainable Coral Reef Ecosystem Management Program, initially covering three municipalities and one city in the West Coast area in the third district of the province.
Albay Gov. Joey Salceda said SCREMP aims to promote sustainable management of coastal and marine resources, including biodiversity, through habitat protection, conservation and rehabilitation as well as IEC to promote public awareness and social and environmental consciousness on the value of coral reefs, and associated coastal and marine ecosystems on mitigating the impacts of climate change.
SCREMP includes a livelihood component, managed by a legitimate people’s organization, which is seemed critical to sustainability by providing alternative cashflows to slow down, among others, overfishing, said Salceda.
Unesco declared Albay as a world Biosphere Reserve Albay during a recent conference in Lima, Peru. With some 257,000 hectares of diverse terrestrial and marine ecology supported by the local government’s pioneering sustainable development strategy, the province now is a special protected site for learning the management of social and ecological systems.
The Unesco’s declaration puts Albay among its 20 new sites of protected World Network of biospheres under the international coordinating council of its Man and the Biosphere program. Biosphere reserves are places for learning about sustainable development to reconcile the conservation of biodiversity with the sustainable use of natural resources.
Under the Albay-DENR SCREMP partnership, the Albay Provincial Agricultural Services represents the provincial government. The program initially covers the towns of Oas, Libon, Pioduran and Ligao City.
Albay and DENR each donated P100,000 to each of the four LGUs for the livelihood component of the program, to a selected people’s organization. A 30-footer fiber glass boat with 16HP engine and P40,000 worth of gasoline were also donated to each of the four LGUs, for use in surveillance and enforcement. The chosen people’s organizations have identified hog/goat raising, fishing supply, poultry production and hog procurement, among their livelihood ventures.
“We in Albay are deeply committed, nationally and internationally, to climate change mitigation and adaptation. For these reasons, we believe we can contribute greatly to the World Network of Biosphere Reserves and the robust implementation of the recently adopted Lima Declaration and Action Plan,” said Salceda, in his speech during the Unesco convention.
Albay is the third site to be declared by Unesco as a biosphere reserve in the Philippines—the two others are Palawan (1992) and Puerto Galera (2002)—and first so far in Luzon. It joins the world’s 669 biosphere reserves in 120 countries.
The world popular, most perfect cone-shaped Mayon Volcano has tentatively now also been listed as a Unesco World Heritage Site.