SEA climate change experts to meet in Bali on Oct 17

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna, Philippines  – About 100 environmental experts from Southeast Asia, including the Philippines, will meet in idyllic Bali, Indonesia on Oct. 17 to discuss current programs on climate change being undertaken in the region.

Hosted by the Indonesian government through its Ministry of National Education, the symposium is billed “State of the Art in Climate Change Adaptation in Southeast Asia: Focus on Indonesia’s Agriculture Sector”.

It is co-organized by the Los Baños-based Philippine government-hosted Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) and the Indonesia-hosted Regional Centre for Tropical Biology (BOPTROP).

SEARCA, headed by Director Gil C. Saguiguit Jr., and BIOTROP are two of the 20 “centers of excellence” of the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO), an intergovernment treaty body founded in 1965 to foster cooperation among Southeast Asian nations in the fields of education, science, and culture.

Participants in the symposium are climate change experts from Southeast Asia are Indonesian policymakers, academics, industry representatives, farmers’ organizations working on climate change, and development organizations.

The forum seeks “to review and synthesize the state of climate change adaptation in the region with the view of helping Indonesia improve its efforts in formulating effective policies and interventions to address the dire effects of climate change on the agriculture sector.”

Specifically, it will identify initial and current responses to the effects of climate change in the agriculture sectors of Southeast Asia and Indonesia; and discuss potential interventions and programs.

The forum will also identify the roles of various sectors in promoting the technical, policy, and institutional support toward an effective climate change risk management program in agriculture. Moreover, it will identify researchable areas and capacity-building activities to improve adaptation to climate change.

The symposium organizers stressed that climate change threatens food production systems and, correspondingly, the livelihoods and food security of billions of people who depend on agriculture all over the world.

“It is already evident in a number of ways: Consistent warming trends and more frequent and intense extreme climate change events have been observed across Asia and other regions in recent decades. Also evident is its impact on marginalized populations, especially in relatively poor countries,” they pointed out.

They concluded: “These factors have led to the overriding problem of maintaining food security.”