The State of Environment in the Cordillera Administrative Region

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordillera_Central,_Luzon#Environmental_problems

Two major problems threaten the living environment of the people in the Cordillera.

The first problem concerns the dam projects- through these projects many people have to flee their houses and seek refuge in other areas.

The second problem concerns the foreign mining companies- through these projects mineral resources are taken away from the tribal lands and the environment is being destroyed.

In September 2000, the municipal council of Itogon, Benguet withdrew its endorsement of the San Roque Dam project. The project had met a lot of resistance, because of the reported failure of its proponents to update its Environmental Certificate of Compliance (ECC) and to submit a watershed management plan required for a project of that magnitude. The San Roque Dam was to become one of the biggest dams in the world and would threaten the living environment of the Igorots.

In May 2001, President Arroyo declared that the San Roque Dam project would continue anyway because it had already started and therefore was difficult to stop. At the same time she promised to not sacrifice the environment, to resettle the people who will lose their houses, to compensate other people, and to initiate no other large scale irrigation projects in the future.

In December 2000, the Supreme Court of the Philippines dismissed a petition that questioned the constitutional legality of the IPRA. The Indigenous Peoples Rights Act came into existence in 1997 and gave the peoples of the Cordillera decisive influence over the establishment of foreign mining companies.

In this act, ownership over the lands was regarded as communal, rather than individual and thus coincided more with the view on ownership of the Igorot. The IPRA was totally different in tone than the 1995 Mining Code.

Without consulting the Cordillera people, this code gave companies the freedom to devastate tribal lands, allowed 100% foreign ownership, and gave companies the right to displace and resettle people within their concessionary areas.

Learning to love the Environment

The environment is everything that is external to an organism. Anything such as living and non living things that affect the lives of an organism are a part of the environment.

There are two kinds of environment:

1. The biotic environment is composed of all the living things. These are the plants, animals, fungi, bacteria and human.

2. Non living things like sunlight, temperature, natural phenomenon, nutrients and the likes are the abiotic environment.

Four Laws of Ecology

1. Everything is connected to everything else.
-Humans and other species are connected or dependent on a number of other species.

2. Everything must go somewhere.
-No matter what you do and no matter what you use, it has to go somewhere.

3. Nature knows best.
-You cannot go against the will of nature.

4. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
-This law basically means you have to do something in order to get something in return.


Source:
EMILYMORASH07.TRIPOD.COM