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Environmental Rehabilitation Summit Set to Commemorate, Unify Efforts Toward Post-Yolanda Rehabilitation

Posted on November 16, 2015

The Provincial Government of Eastern Samar, in cooperation with the Foundation for the Philippine Environment (FPE), NASSA/Caritas Philippines, and the Philippine Tropical Forest Conservation Foundation (PTFCF) is staging an environmental rehabilitation summit to commemorate the second year of local and national multi-stakeholder cooperation in response to the widespread damage caused by 2013 Super-typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan).

The event entitled, “Convergence Summit on Environmental Rehabilitation and Partnerships-building in Eastern Samar” is scheduled for November 25-26, 2015 in Tacloban City. The summit aims to gather cross-sectoral players and stakeholders in the ongoing post-Yolanda rehabilitation initiatives to identify possible areas for integration and complementation of their efforts.

The aftermath of Yolanda caused a massive outpour of support from both local and international organizations, as well as from private sector players. While earlier phases of Yolanda-related responses and interventions in Eastern Samar were focused on recovering human lives and livelihoods and on provision of basic needs and services, it is also realized that for affected communities of mostly farmers and fisherfolk to fully recover, it is important to rehabilitate damaged natural environmental resources. To allow these damaged natural resources to recover and be able to once again provide the various ecosystems services is to ensure that the survival and long-term livelihood of these dependent local communities.  

To this day, various organizations are rolling out efforts to address both the humanitarian aspect of rehabilitation work, and the environmental rehabilitation aspect. However, there are currently no clear guidelines on how to carry out disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and rehabilitation on environmental damage caused by extreme natural phenomena. Although there are provisions in the Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act or Republic Act 10121 on the environment, it is not clear how these provisions would be operationalized. With the absence of organized clusters and limitations on coordination, there is a high possibility that there are overlaps and/or duplication of efforts between organizations, instead of taking maximized opportunities for building partnerships working toward shared goals. 

To this end, this Convergence Summit has been organized to address the following objectives:

• To gather and document good practices on various initiatives (past and on-going) on environmental rehabilitation in disaster affected areas by other organizations and/or agencies;
• To assess and consolidate lessons learned from these initiatives towards formulation of DRRM protocols for the environment;
• To build partnerships and to establish mechanism for collaboration and complementation of initiatives specifically for environmental rehabilitation of Eastern Samar;
• To present vulnerability assessment tool for various ecosystem i.e., coastal and marine, upland, agroecosystem; and
• To initiate action on mainstreaming environment in the local DRRM Plan.

Speaking as resource persons during the event are Dr. Laura David of UP MSI;  Dr. Jonathan Anticamara of the UP Diliman Institute of Biology; Prof. Margarita T. dela Cruz of GDFI/UP Visayas-Tacloban campus; and Mr. Edgar Peque of Center for Eco-Governance and Climate Change of Eastern Samar State University (ESSU) .

Representatives from the local government units – provincial, municipal and barangay - and civil sector/sectoral representatives of the various demographics across the Eastern Samar are expected to attend and participate in the two-day conference.  International and local partner organizations, including Oxfam, UNDP, Caritas International, and CordAid, among others are also invited to this event.  A total of 80 participants are expected to attend the summit.