NATURE FOR LIFE

The DENR did a laudable act by encouraging everyone to plant a tree as a new year’s resolution. But it should not end there. Haribon’s experience in forest restoration has given us more than our fair

share of lessons. Because we strictly follow the principles of rainforestation or the use of native trees to restore our forests, we make sure that the seeds and wildings that we germinate and nurture are planted within the immediate vicinity where they were found or sourced.  Thus, the seedlings in our nursery in Lumban, Laguna are only planted within the Rizal and Laguna area.  We make sure that forest-dependent communities benefit from our restoration efforts. In our project sites in Mangatarem, Pangasinan, Gen. Nakar and Real in Quezon and Sablayan, Occidental Mindoro, we work with local peoples organizations (PO) whose members live in forest-edge communities.  They have their individual and communal native tree nurseries and earn from selling these seedlings and planting and maintaining them for at least three years.  

Haribon enters into livelihood conservation agreements with these POs where payment for the latter is only made when the seedlings planted reach a certain height and trunk diameter after a given period of time.  This ensures that the trees survive and have optimum growth.  Likewise, Haribon makes sure that the areas where these seedlings are planted are designated public forests and/or watersheds where cutting of trees is prohibited.  Planting trees is the easy part.  Ensuring that these seedlings grow into mighty trees should also be part of the resolution.

The Asean Center for Biodiversity (ACB) and Birdlife International (Asia) have agreed to form a partnership to strengthen environmental information management capacities of Asean Member States, particularly in the identification and delineation of protected areas by improving the quality of available information. Specific areas of cooperation will be on jointly generating knowledge products, tools and delivering on the necessary skills related to enhancing biodiversity conservation in the Asean region.

Birdlife International is a global partnership of conservation organizations working to conserve the diversity and distribution of wild bird species worldwide as an integral part of nature.  ACB is an international institution that facilitates cooperation and coordination among the 10 Member States of the Asean and with national governments, regional and international organizations on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from such resources in Southeast Asia.

The Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) will encourage the Asean Members States to organize their species-related data in support of science-based decision making, particularly in the identification of protected areas. Such information will be hosted by individual country Clearinghouse Mechanisms (CHMs), as well as the Asean Clearinghouse Mechanism (chm.aseanbiodiversity.org).  It will also enable sharing of biodiversity-related information, specifically point and polygon information on Important Bird Areas (IBAs) from Birdlife International, as well as enable ACB to integrate the information from other sources, and thus, service the PA site selection needs of Asean Member States. The two institutions will cooperate to harmonize the data structures and content between the Asean CHM-BISS and Birdlife International’s Data Zone.

The ACB-Birdlife International partnership was born from a common interest on biodiversity information management and sharing. Birdlife International, through its Global Species Program, collates and analyzes information on all the world’s birds in order to set priorities for action, through species-specific initiatives, safeguarding of sites, and campaigns and policy interventions. Birdlife International undertakes initiatives on protected area and knowledge management through identification of IBAs and endemic bird areas which are vital bases for delineating areas of protection/conservation particularly Key Biodiversity Areas.  ACB compiles available and reliable regional biodiversity information and generates value-added knowledge based products for Asean Member States to use in decision-making, in producing indicators, and developing assessments of the state and outlook of the Asean biodiversity and environment.

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