EDITORIAL - Environmental recognition

Here's a piece of good news. The town of San Francisco on Camotes Islands has won a United Nations award for making it big in the campaign to protect the environment.

The 2011 UN Sasakawa Award for Disaster Preparedness recognized San Francisco for its efforts to reduce the risks of disaster. The town's initiatives fall under the 10-point checklist of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).

Part of its environmental campaign is a project that rehabilitates the town's watershed through the planting of two million trees. The town will receive from UN at least $50,000, which will fund the tree planting and other projects that deal with environmental protection.

Many may wonder why a third-class town managed to shine in the campaign to protect the environment. Well, San Francisco is situated in an open sea which makes it more vulnerable to natural calamities.

So a better campaign is to promote measures that sustain and protect the town's marine resources. Through the initiatives of its local officials, the town set up impounding dams, rehabilitated mangrove areas and established marine sanctuaries.

San Francisco is also strongly implementing the law on solid waste management. As one of the country's cleanest municipalities, you can see houses even in its remotest area segregating their waste.

Although it is only a dot in the Philippine map, San Francisco has shown that it won't take a first class-municipality or a highly urbanized metropolis to lead in the crusade to protect the environment. Through the UN award, the town is recognized as a prime mover in the global campaign to preserve marine resources.

Cebuanos should be proud of San Francisco’s achievement. They should be glad that the tiny municipality up north has been recognized by the UN for doing something that stirred environmental awareness.

It is not every day that Cebu, or the Philippines for that matter, is recognized for an achievement that has global impact. We hope that this is not the first recognition for San Francisco as far as preserving Mother Nature is concerned.

Other local government units in Cebu should follow San Francisco. Involving in different environmental advocacies should be every LGU's responsibility towards a more sustainable Earth.