Environmental awareness pushed

Our environment today suffers from continuing degradation due to natural and man-made pressures, and the poor are most vulnerable to the adverse effects of this degradation.

As all of us rely on the environment not only for our subsistence and livelihood, but also for our very own existence, we all need a healthy ecology as it is crucial to our survival and growth, Antonio M. Claparols, Philippine counselor to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said.

A degraded environment leads to natural disasters, hunger and diseases. It also perpetuates a cycle of poverty, he said, as he urged increased awareness among Filipinos on the current state of the country’s environment.

We must generate action-oriented political support and commitment to enhance enforcement of existing laws with relevance to enviromental protection and conservation, Claparols explained.

We are all stakeholders of the environment, and we must not only discuss problems but we must come up with action agenda that have impacts on degraded resources, he added.

Claparols stressed that we have all the necessary laws, rules and regulations to strenghten environmental protection and conservation, it is only a matter of public awareness and compliance to these laws that are needed.

In this regard, we must protect, conserve, develop, manage and preserve our environment if we intend to make humanity stay on this planet forever, he added.