Dysfunctional environmentalism

Written on Saturday, October 4th, 2008 at 11:58 pm | by blackshama

First of all I would want to greet the devout a Happy St Francis Day and the more secular minded a Happy World Animal Day. October 4 is the time when people in the environmental protection and conservation business take stock of their progams.

The blurbs report some encouraging news. The print and web versions of the Philippine Daily Inquirer reports that the population of the critically endangered tamaraw is stable. The only thing wrong with this piece of news is that the tamaraw is not ”a cross between a carabao and a deer” as the report alleges. This sloppy reporting is again a sign that there is something wrong in the way we report news on the environment. Another “peeve” I have is the popular insistence, that there is “ecological balance”. There isn’t. Nature is dynamic.

Also it is very encouraging to learn that Far Eastern University (FEU) supports tamaraw conservation. After all the school has the tamaraw as its mascot. Perhaps Ateneo could follow suit. While there really isn’t any blue eagle,  the closest we have is the White Bellied Sea Eagle, the eagle that most closely resembles the one on the Ateneo gym. UP can also support parrot conservation. The maroon parrot was the university mascot in the 1960s.

However good conservation of iconic animals really is, our environmental movement in the Philippines is at a crossroads. Despite big sums of money spent by our environmentalist groups, the impact of their programmes is at best, mixed.

Of course there have been successful interventions. The work done by Alcala and Russ in the Visayas is worthy of mention. Over the last 30 years,they have demonstrated that marine protected areas do really work.

But what is troubling with our environmental programs stems from the too much legalism and the turfing of environmental groups. The end result is mostly grandiose schemes for environmental management with very little science on it. This is dysfunctional environmentalism.

Scientific research is needed to establish baselines for management. Crucial to this are widespread taxonomic and ecological surveys. Philippine environmental laws make it extremely difficult to do this. While the government has the mandate to do this, it doesn’t have enough people with the skills. Thus the results of resource assessments become dubious.

Also, if immediate enviromental intervention is needed, the same laws that are supposed to protect the environment, prevents immediate environmental intervention.

The turfing of environmental NGOS reflects the turfing seen in the government bureaucracy. While the grandiose schemes look good on paper, very little money is invested on environmental education. If we want our environmentalism to be less dysfunctional, perhaps this is where the conservation really lies. FEU’s president says that with their complementary education programs,people are more aware that they shouldn’t shoot tamaraws.

Thus I would request readers to contribute their thoughts on the subject.

No tags for this post.
Add to del.icio.us | Digg this! | Yahoo MyWeb | Google Bookmark It! | Stumble It!
About The Author: blackshama is an ex-academic OFW, now an academic at home involved in mentoring hardheaded postgraduate students and terrorizing undergrads who think they can have it easy! He blogs at "Blackshama's Blog".

Filed Under Featured, Science & Technology

Related Entries:

Comments

16 Responses to “Dysfunctional environmentalism”

  1. The Jester-in-Exile on October 5th, 2008 2:44 am

    The only thing wrong with this piece of news is that the tamaraw is not ”a cross between a carabao and a deer” as the report alleges. This sloppy reporting is again a sign that there is something wrong in the way we report news on the environment.

    these days, i’ve noticed sloppy reportage is the norm rather than the exception. heh heh

  2. thenashman on October 5th, 2008 3:42 am

    the inquirer has NO science editor???

    all the major papers worth their salt have and NEED one. s

  3. GabbyD on October 5th, 2008 6:23 am

    carabao and a deer? OMG! puwede ba yun? why would anyone cross a carabao and a deer? hahahaha… what would this strange creature look like…. hahaha… this is funny, really…

  4. Dean Jorge Bocobo on October 5th, 2008 9:12 am

    Spot ON, Ben!

    You got me in stitches here with that bit about the tamaraw…I remember tourist traps from a cross country trip I once took across the US (somewhere in Wyoming, I think) where they sold stuffed rabbits with deer antlers very cleverly glued on to produce something like this mythical carabao deer of PDI. Hehe. Maybe they were just being descriptive, but really PDI’s presentation of scientific news and issues is pathetic. Queena Lee Chua is supposed to be a mathematics teacher, but actually I think she is a Creationist…The Prietos are Catolico cerrados you know…

    The environmental movement also shares these Christian Creation Story roots in the rhyme and rhythm of its own narrative: an Eden-like Paradise invaded by the Serpent of modernism that produces a Fall from earthly grace through the sins of pollution and consumerism…followed of course by a path to salvation via the…ta dah, environmental movement.

    It’s not a bad strategy that works well with government bureaucracies since there really is so much that needs to get done. Unless however these environmental efforts are firmly based in scientific principles and methods, experience shows that good intentions in this area can only make things worse, far worse than having done nothing at all.

  5. Blackshama on October 5th, 2008 9:51 am

    Dear all

    Santa would be thrilled with a carabao-deer cross.

  6. Karl Garcia on October 5th, 2008 11:17 am

    I think it is descriptive, a haste description at that. If the writer is in a hurry a midget carabao with v shaped horns would do.But come to think of it;even in jokes ,the usage of cross implies mixed breeding of some sort. So I guess there is no excuse.

    going back to the topic,Will I be off topic if I criticize green peace, like what are staying in coal plants and disrupting its operations do, why don’t they just promote the alternatives like clean coal and proper maintenance of plants.
    In my younger days, I was made to believe that the Bataan Nuclear plant would be devastating to our environment when an earth quake happens, but the worst accidents that can happen in Nuclear plants are leakages and not nuclear explosions.I guess that was the fault of dysfunctional environmentalism.

    I guess the environment is such a big topic,not limited to flora and fauna but even energy of course the most exposed “environmental problem” pollution, after all the environment consists of everything around us.

  7. thenashman on October 5th, 2008 5:06 pm

    “clean coal ” coal has never been clean and will never be.

    nukularr technology has improved in the last three decades…time to revisit it…japan is also in an earthquake zone but has nukular energy…we need better ties to Canada and Kazakhstan (unless we find our own uranium…maybe transubstantiation will help :D )

    and if I may advertise my pet project: Save energy! Dress like we really are in the tropics and turn off the air conditioner. Stop this coat and tie nonsense! we are in the philippines, it’s humid. let’s dress in barong!

  8. karl garcia on October 5th, 2008 8:48 pm

    Ok nash,re: clean coal; no such thing,it’s a myth and an oxymoron.

    But we should at least start spending on the coal plants maintainance.Kundi bulok agad yung mga planta.

    Yeah as per Geoge Bush : Nukelar.
    Nukelar tech should be revsited,time to lure them nuclear physicists back home.
    Kung naubos ,maybe those from pakistan,india or even iran could be more affordable.

    Yah, out with the business suits, and redesign all the windows of the enclosed buildings.
    Let us shift to short sleeve barongs mainit din yung long sleeves. eno ngayon kung mukhang security guard, pag lahat tayo ganun na ang suot di na lang pang security escort ang polo barong.

  9. Blackshama on October 5th, 2008 9:58 pm

    A small carabao with V shaped horns is a pretty accurate description of the tamaraw. But the animal is no carabao. A carabao won’t chase you for a kilometer if its gets pissed. A tamaraw does!

    That’s why we scientists are lobbying for a science journalism subject in journ schools. Journ students learn to cover 1) the courts and the whole legal system, 2) economics, 3) politics but no science.

    But the problem is there is hardly anyone in this country who is qualified to teach it. A scientist like me while knowledgable of the science part of the subject is really unqualified to teach the journ part of it. A true journalist is needed to teach it.

    Science journalism may be taught as a track in BA journ or as a MSc in grad school. BSc grads may take it in grad school.

    In the US,Europe and Australia there are science journ programs. I suggest that DOST should offer scholarships in science journ.

    As for Greenpeace, they should take science journ too. For instance they say that Marilao River in Bulacan is the most polluted in the world but when asked how polluted,they can’t dish out the data.

    Aren’t journalists required to get their facts right before they write a piece?

  10. thenashman on October 6th, 2008 4:46 am

    but blackshama, do you need data to believe that marilao is polluted? :D

    and would it matter if it’s the 2nd, third, 4th most polluted? it still doesnt provide good fish

    (and they did come up with a report, didn’t they measure arsenic and lead levels?)

  11. blackshama on October 6th, 2008 10:05 am

    Nashman

    Of course I need the empirical data. That is how we do science. Or else my belief that the river is polluted is mere intuition. If I rely purely on intuition, this doesn’t make me any different from some Catholics and their arguments that say population and environment aren’t related.

  12. Jeg on October 6th, 2008 12:49 pm

    Scientific research is needed to establish baselines for management. Crucial to this are widespread taxonomic and ecological surveys. Philippine environmental laws make it extremely difficult to do this. While the government has the mandate to do this, it doesn’t have enough people with the skills.

    Survey methodologies are pretty much straightforward and can be learned even by high school students. Training on species identification (crucial for surveys) is also relatively easy, even up to genus level. Let the kids do the data gathering. Get them out of the classrooms. I think these activities are much more fruitful than field trips to Eat Bulaga and Wowowee.

  13. cvj on October 6th, 2008 1:04 pm

    Jeg, i remember the Martial Law era Minister of …(something i forgot) Jolly Benitez suggesting that school kids can forego classroom studies so that they can go out and plant trees instead.

  14. Jeg on October 6th, 2008 1:10 pm

    Doesnt he own Jollibee? :-D

    Classroom studies are overrated. Nothing like environmental studies while actually being in the environment youre studying.

  15. thenashman on October 6th, 2008 2:52 pm

    @blackshama

    .our Denr should have done it themselves, i don’t know why…

    and i live close to a polluted estero, my empirical data is gathered by the receptors on my nose and in my eyes. i don’t need the actual numbers in this case and it’s not intuition. :D

  16. Resty O. on October 7th, 2008 4:56 pm

    Blackshama, while it’s true that nature is dynamic, nature constantly finds its balance.

    And this is addresed to DJB, because I’ve read something he said here that I thought was inaccurate (I think under the UP criticism post): While it’s true that the easiest experiments have already been done, the basic questions are yet to be answered, that’s why there’s the Large Hadron Collider experiment in the first place. The fields of biology and medicine, for example, are riddled with so many questions, such as the etiology of so many diseases and the mechanism of action of so many drugs. Existing conjectures as a result of the ambivalence make medicine an “imperfect science” and frees doctors from expected liability, as when side effects occur in the course of treatment, for example.

Leave a Reply