CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY—Around 800 environment experts and advocates attended the three-day third International River Summit to discuss the state of the country’s river systems held in a hotel here.
The summit, which carries the theme “Healthy Watershed, Clean Rivers, Safer Communities,” aims to bring together leaders and stakeholders to share knowledge and best practices to formulate a blueprint of needed actions to address pressing issues affecting river basins and communities.
Archbishop Antonio Ledesma, chairman of the Cagayan de Oro River Basin Management Council, said everybody must work together and engage in the mitigation, adaptation and even anticipation of future calamities.
Ledesma, who heads the archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro, said it is important to learn from past disasters, like what Typhoon “Sendong” brought to this city and Iligan City in 2011.
Mayor Oscar Moreno said “Sendong’s” devastation has made Cagayanons resilient, as he redefined resiliency to mean emerging stronger and building back better.
Raoul Geollegue, former Department of Environment and Natural Resources official and president of the Watershed Management Coalition, said massive reforestation of the Cagayan de Oro river basin located mainly in Bukidnon must be undertaken.
Geollegue said the present state of the CDO river basin has reached a critical level in that another weather disturbance akin to “Sendong” could lead to killer floods that will affect thousands.
The Cagayan de Oro river basin, covering 1,379 square kilometers of forest lands located in the city’s upland, Bukidnon and some parts of Iligan City, is in danger of producing another disaster, as portions of it are already without trees that will hold water that could prevent massive flooding.
The CDO river basin is one of the 18 major river basins in the country, eight of which are found in Mindanao.
The river basins in Mindanao are in: Cagayan de Oro, Tagoloan, Ranao (Agus), Mindanao, Agusan, Tagum-Libuganon, Davao, and Buayan-Malungong.