Unity for biodiversity

We’re in the middle of the United Nations (UN)’s Biodiversity Conference of Parties (COP16) being held from Oct. 21 to Nov. 1, 2024 in Cali, Colombia. It’s this year’s most significant international event in the united aim of successfully and sustainably conserving the world’s biodiversity as we know it. It now tackles the big question: how will the world’s nations race to our biodiversity targets by 2030? The biodiversity targets are encapsulated by the catchphrase “30 by 30” (following the historic Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted in COP15 in 2022) – a call to action for all countries to legally protect at least 30 percent of the Earth’s lands and seas by 2030.

Filipinos are one of the leading victims of climate change. The 2024 World Risk Index identified the Philippines as climate change’s most battered victim. Whether we like it or not, we’re at the forefront of climate change. The recent onslaught by Severe Tropical Storm Kristine is a painful reminder of our tenuous position, again most punitive against our nation’s poor, fisherfolk, and farmers. Escalating climate change catastrophes constrain our capability to protect biodiversity and biodiversity degradation exacerbates climate change and its consequences. Without sustained effort and collective action for biodiversity, the cycle is vicious. The fate of biodiversity conservation is tied to the fate of the Filipino people.

Part of the problem is overexploitation, which is completely within human control. Indiscriminate industrial-scale illegal logging is widely attributed as a principal cause for the Philippines’ extreme forest cover reduction, from a historical baseline in the 1900s of 90 percent to the current terrible 20 percent.

On the oceanfront, China’s unlawful conduct in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) includes the irreversible destruction of 2,000 hectares of coral reefs within Philippine territory. Observers globally remark that the environmental and economic damage is innumerable and immeasurable. There’s also China’s industrial-scale overfishing within our maritime jurisdiction to the well-documented detriment of our fisherfolk, flora and fauna. It bears emphasis that all of it remains frustratingly unpunished and Filipino fisherfolk families are left with empty stomachs. 

In the archipelagic Philippines’ complex context, biodiversity, food security and national security are inextricably intertwined. It is inevitable since the Philippines is one of the mega-biodiverse countries in the world. It makes the Philippines a hotspot for biodiversity conservation. Our country is part of the famed “Coral Triangle,” a swathe of Southeast Asia across two oceans and spanning six countries. It’s a big deal since, while the location covers only a little over one percent (1.6 percent) of the world’s oceanic area, it is home to 75 percent of all coral species, 40 percent of the all reef fish and the world’s largest mangrove forest. It makes the Philippines part of the Amazon rainforest of the seas. Ten years ago, the Asian Development Bank estimated that the Coral Triangle generated roughly $1.2 trillion (P70 trillion) annually, providing food for over 120 million people. It is also estimated to generate jobs for more than two million fisherfolk. Moreover, its center of biodiversity is the Verde Island Passage near Mindoro, and one of its two UNESCO World Heritage sites is our very own Tubbataha Reef Natural Park near Palawan. 

A 2021 study on biodiversity in Southeast Asia, for instance, revealed that the protected areas in the Philippines lost three times more forest cover than unprotected areas, concluding that “not only was protection not effective, it in fact accelerated forest loss.” It noted that “protection appears to have the perverse impact of accelerating forest and forest carbon loss; a trend particularly evident on the island of Palawan where protected areas experienced more forest loss than expected.”

Nevertheless, there are reasons for the Philippines to remain a hopeful hotspot for biodiversity. The World Wildlife Fund’s 2024 Living Planet, for example, recognized that the Philippines’ Renewable Energy Act’s “benefit sharing mechanism” (requiring 80 percent of project royalties to be directed toward subsidizing power costs in affected communities) as a viable way to guarantee that benefits and burdens are shared equitably.

Only a Senate bill that I had briefly discussed in May 2024, sponsored by Senator Legarda and co-authored by Senators Estrada, Villanueva, Revilla, Poe, Angara and Tulfo, Senate Bill No. 2450 filed in the 19th Congress as “the Blue Economy Act” is now at the level of bicameral conference committee. Once it becomes law, our regulatory frameworks become better suited to promote sustainable use and development of our marine wealth within our coastal and maritime domains. It would introduce more integrated and novel approaches therefor, such as integrated marine and coastal management, marine spatial planning and blue financing. 

I am hopeful that the Philippines ratifies the UN High Seas Treaty (alternatively called the Global Ocean Treaty, Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction or simply BBNJ) as soon as possible. As the first international agreement specifically engineered for ocean governance frameworks against plastic pollution, overfishing and mining, its ratification complements our Blue Economy Act. It should also protect us from the economic over-exploitation of the Philippines’ exclusive natural resources by China, which is a signatory to the new treaty. Such positive development at the level of international law would reinforce our established legal rights to the WPS, and work in parallel with the slow but steady efforts towards a long overdue code of conduct involving the WPS.

Every Filipino’s efforts towards sustainability counts. Let’s contribute to the goal of “30 by 30” in both our individual efforts and through institutions, whether domestic and international. All of it matters, we can contribute to humanity and live up to our Filipino motto and pledge: maka-Diyos, maka-tao, makakalikasan at makabansa.