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In the history of mankind, never has there
been such severe stress on the world’s ecosystems, threatening the
survival of the planet Earth itself. It is now generally recognized
that the world’s present development path is not sustainable (Kates et
al. 2000). The reality is that much of the world’s environment is
already in a very bad state and the situation is getting worse (Rambo
1997).
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment
(MA) was launched by United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Kofi Annan
in June 2001. Its main goal is to provide the decision-makers and the
public with scientific information on the possible consequences of
ecosystems change upon the welfare and well-being of man and other
organisms and options for responding to those changes. It is primarily
supportive of the needs of the parties to the Convention of Biological
Diversity, Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, and the Convention to Combat
Desertification. Ultimately, it hopes to be able to contribute to the
attainment of the UN Millennium Development Goals and the Plan of
Implementation of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development.
A key component of the MA process is
the sub-global assessments (SGA) in various regions of the world, one
of which is Southeast Asia. The Philippines represents the
archipelagic character of the region with more than 7,000 islands.
Thus, a unique feature of this study is the focus on basins in an
archipelagic island context
The pilot assessment of the
Philippine MA Sub-Global Assessment focuses on the Laguna Lake Basin.
The Basin is one of the most important and dynamic land and water
formations in the Philippines. This water body encompasses the whole
of Laguna and Rizal provinces including parts of Metro Manila,
Batangas, Cavite, and Quezon which are among the fastest growing
economic zones in the country. As such, the basin represents a wide
array of ecosystems undergoing rapid transitions due to a multitude of
factors: economic activities, population increase, industrialization,
urbanization and various economic policies and community dynamic,
among others. In 2000, its population was about 6.6 million people or
9 percent of the total population of the country.
The main objectives of the
Philippines sub-global assessment are (a) to assess the Laguna Lake
Basin’s ecosystems and their services using the MA framework and (b)
to contribute to global MA process. Three scales and four ecosystem
services are included in the assessment of the Laguna Lake Basin. At
the farm or village level, the ecosystem service in focus was the
provision of food: fish and rice; at the basin level, the overall
fishery production and provision of water supply including
biodiversity; and at the global scale, an exploration of its influence
on climate change. The assessment report is organized in terms of
presenting the conditions and trends in each ecosystem service/scale
and institutional and policy responses to these changes.
The assessment process follows the
approach of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and
relied on several data sources which included published scientific
literature preferably on peer-reviewed journals, master plans and
sectoral plans for the watershed, project and consultant’s reports,
and government agency reports. |
