Floods, vanishing springs! AN URGENT CALL TO SAVE THE WORLD’S MOUNTAINS

Almost 20 years ago, when United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan declared 2002 as the UN International Year of the Mountain, I joined a group organized by the late John Ryan Largo of the Human Development International which scaled Mt. Apo and made an appeal on live broadcast to Save the Mountains of the World.

I was on my second term as Governor of North Cotabato when I made the climb which I believe was the 5th of my total 15 climbs of the country’s highest mountain.

This call, including a dire warning, was repeated when I was Secretary of Agriculture because I knew the implications of denuded and ravaged mountains to agriculture and food security.

Sadly, the call has remained unheeded until today, not even with the droughts and the floods which had destroyed properties and claimed lives of people.

The need to Save the Mountains from where the water which nourishes life flows from has become more urgent today.

As Chairman of the Mindanao Development Authority, I will repeat the call I made on Feb. 25, 2002.

“A call for universal concern

“Fellow citizens of the world, we are now on critical times as a result of man’s irresponsible and uncaring actions against the earth’s natural processes and its ecosystems.

“Today, we are living witnesses of beaten-up mountain ranges denuded with trees, fouled with destructive wastes, exploited and vandalized.

“Around the world, there is rapid depletion of the mountains’ life-giving resources due to perverse economic incentives and political motives, inappropriate technology and land tenurial insecurity, greed and indifference. Indicators of global ecological problems are unfolding before us in catastrophic dimension.

“In 1997 fires destroyed at least 5 million hectares of forest and other land around the world.

“On the same year, annual forest fires in the Amazon increased by nearly 30%. About a third of the earth’s original forests have disappeared and about two-thirds of what is left has been fundamentally changed.

“Each year almost 15 million acres of drylands are added to the 3.2 billion acres that have already been moderately or severely desertified affecting gravely the lives of about 200 million people.

“Every year some 20 million hectares of tropical forests are grossly degraded or completely cleared and each year damage to forest in the Philippines was lost to commercial logging where few hundred families shared the $42 billion in revenues leaving 18 million forest dwellers impoverished.

“From 1986 to 1990 in South-east Asia and the Pacific more than 3 billion hectares of tropical forest were lost. The bio-diversity of our mountains is now dangerously threatened towards extinction.

“This senseless onslaught to the very delicate functioning of the mountain system of the world seriously endangers the provisions of energy, air, water and nutrients which are vital lifelines of all living creatures.

“A call for unity of intentions and vision

“Let us not be exploiters and destroyers of nature’s treasures. Let us be noble masters and guardians of these living mountains. Within us lies the unique capacity and ability to protect, preserve and enhance the quality and conditions of these precious natural legacy.

“We must forge a united vision for the sustainability of all mountains because they are the fountainheads of our existence.

“Let us adhere fervently to the knowledge that cooperation, interdependence and harmony are the binding forces of nature.

“We must expand our expression of justice, compassion and harmony to the natural realm of mother earth for just like human beings, mountains too are pained by countless neglect and abuse.

“Above all, before its too late, let us awaken the human heart with its healing and transforming power and reestablish a productive and sustaining relationship between the legitimate demands of civilization and uncompromising reverence to the fragile resources of nature.

“A call for shared responsibility and global interaction

“The unbreakable interdependence of nature’s ecosystem and the all-encompassing repercussions of the increasing devastation of our mountains demands a resolute and coordinative interventions from all nations, government agencies, private institutions and organizations, local and international bodies and every citizens of the world.

“A shattered component of this delicate chain of nature’s bio- processes can adversely affect the eco-system and the world’s environment and destroy our very existence regardless of race, creed, nationality or territory.

“We are calling upon all those who have the power, the opportunity and the dedication to initiate, support and maintain local, national and global interaction where resources, expertise, lessons and experiences are collectively pooled, institutionally arranged and effectively utilized for a common direction – to save the mountains of the world!

“Let us be faithful to the privilege of our responsibility because we only have one world, one earth, one planet.”

(The 2002 Mt. Apo Climb to make the Call to Save the Mountains of the World involved the Office of the President for Mindanao, Human Development International, Mount Apo Foundation, Inc., Philippine National Volunteers Service Coordinating Agency, United Nations Development Program-United Nations Volunteers, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, DENR- Protected Area Management Board of Mt. Apo, Office of the Mayor-Davao City, Office of the Governor-Cotabato Province, PNOC-Energy Development Corporation and the National Youth Commission with the following Cooperating Institutions/Agencies: Office of the Regional Director & Protected Areas Wildlife Bureau-DENR Region XI * Congressional Office, District II, Cotabato Province * Office of the Governor-Davao del Sur Province * Office of the Mayor-Kidapawan City * Office of the Mayor-Digos City * Office of the Mayor-Municipality of Magpet * Office of the Mayor-Municipality of Makilala * Office of the Mayor- Municipality of Bansalan * Office of the Mayor- Municipality of Sta. Cruz * Office of the Regional Director-Department of Tourism, Region XI * Community Environment & National Resources Office-XII-4B-Kidapawan City * Cotabato Tribal Consultative Council * Id Posakaddai No Linobaran Ni Apo, Inc. * Mt. Apo 10 Km Radius Dwellers Federation, Inc * Philippine Coast Guard Auxiliary * Davao City National High School * Rizal Memorial Colleges * Central Mindanao Colleges * School For Life (Montessori), Inc * Notre Dame of Kidapawan College * Save Davao Gulf Foundation, Inc * ABS-CBN Davao * DXND Radio Station * Philippine Information Agency, Region XI * Radyo ng Bayan * Order of the Trefoil, Inc * Native Barangay Association of Mt. Apo Sandawa * Davao Gulf Management Council * Midtown Printing Co.,Inc * Skycable)