Deforestation is top concern in environmental R&D

Experts identified 15 proposed Philippine environmental research and development (R&D) priorities with deforestation as the first.

The other 14 environmental R&D priorities, which were accordingly ranked, are solid waste management, watershed protection, water pollution, erosion and land degradation, air pollution, toxic and hazardous wastes, biodiversity loss, global warming, governance of environment and natural resource, landscape change, natural risk control, impact on indigenous people, workplace risk, and impact on women.

The Philippine Council for Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resources Research and Development (PCARRD) and the School of Environmental Science and Management of the University of the Philippines Los Baños conducted a validation study of the environmental R&D priorities in the Philippines.

Different environmental concerns were assessed using the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development framework for evaluating the impact of trade and development on the environment. These concerns include the scale of national efforts to protect the environment, extent to which local industries are internalizing the production and consumption externalities of their products, degree to which the production and processing methods pose threats and risks to the environment, appropriateness of the national standards to control undesired environmental events, and effectiveness of national regulations on the environment.

Representatives from government organizations, state colleges and universities and private schools, non-government and people’s organizations, private environmental consulting groups, private companies, media, religious groups, and local government units all over the country were all surveyed in the study. The results will serve as a guiding framework in prioritizing environmental R&D concerns in the country. — Vella A. Atienza, S&T Media Service