Something that really struck me while in attendance at the summit, and especially during the afternoon planning session for the water quality sub-focus, was the sheer complexity of the situation in the Marikina Watershed. I have written at length about the Marikina Watershed in previous posts, being that it has been the focus of my work for the last eight months, detailing many of the sociological and environmental issues there. It really started to occur to me during these sessions that Marikina just might be the most socially and environmentally complex watershed of its size (52,000 hectares), in the world! It has taken me months to really wrap my head around this idea, simply because the situation is so utterly complex there. I'm not even trying to pretend that I know the half of the issues in the Marikina Watershed, but I challenge everyone and anyone that reads this blog to show me another watershed in the world of 52,000 hectares or less that hosts such a complex and diverse sociological, economic, or environmental situation. During our afternoon marienda (snack) time over lasagna and iced tea, I said to a Filipino NGO colleague of mine concerning my new revalation, "I think Marikina might be the most socially and environmentally complicated watershed of its size in the world." He simply replied, "In the Philippines, everything is complicated." We then exchanged a high five.
Approximately 160 participants attended the Upper Marikina Watershed Summit on Thursday, May 29, 2014 at the Bureau of Soils and Water Management in Quezon City. |
The most telling line that I give people to sum up the social diversity in the watershed is that the watershed contains both communities of indigenous people living in bamboo huts and a Lamborghini dealership. It contains both an armed communist rebel group and the world's third largest shopping mall (SM Megamall). It contains one of the world's largest, fastest growing, and most densely populated cities, and some of the most endangered old-growth rain forest and wildlife on earth. All of this is going on within 30 kilometers of one another, and it is truly staggering! I can't imagine any other place in the world where this social diversity exists on such a fine geographic scale. You name it! It's happening in the Marikina watershed.
Topics of the Upper Marikina Watershed Summit included biodiversity, climate change, water quality, and solid waste management. |
Ortigas Center, Mandaluyong City. This is the most urbanized portion of the Lower Marikina watershed and home to SM Megamall, the world's third largest shopping mall. |
One of the most glaring ironies of the situation, and something that I spend way too much time thinking about, is that what government and NGOs are really doing in the Upper Marikina watershed is throwing money at the situation. I have repeatedly posted on this blog about most problems and solutions not being a matter of money or poverty, but rather of language and culture. It's easy to see that culture is a product of human evolution; of environment, climate, and geography. Culture is one of the most glaring results of human biodiversity. Language is easily the most important part of human culture, defining what exists and how things function. My argument has been that as long as we try to quantify the resources of the watershed with monetary value, it will be very difficult to recreate an ecologically sustainable situation. We need to consider cultural and ecological resources as priceless and unquantifiable in order to truly understand their importance and irreplacability. Can we really expect indigenous people to be wholeheartedly invested in their own traditional cultural values when they are given monetary incentive to preserve it? Is a monetary system completely incompatible with an indigenous cultural system? Can we expect them to believe outsiders who live their own lives on a monetary, non-subsistence system? What huge questions these are! The biggest question in my mind is...should we be questioning our own monetary cultural/system because of its reliance primarily on unsustainable practices; on taking out loans from our future generations?
Your's truly, signing off. |
The restoration of the link between humans and nature, and for us to be wholly involved and dependent on it in the present is what I believe will be the saving grace for our species if the environmental crisis deepens. If it deepens to the point where we need to drastically alter our societies, perhaps, we need to look back in time for some of the solutions.
Hope all your research and hard work will pay off Larry, best of luck --
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