America hot on Philippine reefs

America hot on Philippine reefs

In 2003, the world famous and at one time the largest indoor aquarium in the world, the John G. Shedd Aquarium, located in Chicago, Illinois, United States created a permanent exhibit called Wild Reef. This 750-thousand gallon Wild Reef exhibit recreates the Apo Island Marine reserve, located in Negros Oriental, Philippines. The Apo Island Marine Reserve is a model community-based marine conservation and community development program organized by the residents of Apo Island, Silliman University in Dumaguete and other supporters. The Wild Reef permanent exhibit has living coral, numerous species of fish and sharks within a 400,000 gallon (1.5 million liter) shark exhibit with twelve foot (3.6 meter) high curved windows.

See: http://www.sheddaquarium.org/sea/fact_sheets.cfm?id=111

Now, the west coast seeks to create their own coral reef exhibit focusing on the Luzon part of the country. A $400 million Philippine Coral Exhibit is being planned at the California Academy of Sciences. In case, you haven’t heard about it, here is the blurb and podcast from the San Francisco Chronicle Podcast.

There is much potential in transnational environmental activism and collaboration. Fiipinos and American-Filipinos, along with Americans, can accomplish much.

See the SF Chronicle blurb below.

Philippine sea treasures take center stage at new Cal Academy of Sciences

California Academy of Sciences Artist rendition of the new $400 million Philippine Coral Reef exhibit.

The Philippine Coral Reef off the coast of Luzon in the Philippines is considered an underwater sea treasure because of its rich diversity of marine life. Scientists say conservation of the endangered reef has ecological implications throughout the world.

So the California Academy of Sciences is creating a $400 million replica of the reef here in San Francisco.

In this Pinoy Pod podcast, The Chronicle's Michelle Louie reports on how the academy is working with scientists and researchers in the Philippines on the 212,000 gallon replica, scheduled to open in 2008 in the museum's new Golden Gate Park home.

Part 1 of a two-part podcast.

Listen: 9:07 min

(Download Audio 7.70 MB)

To read a recent story by The Chronicle's Carl Hall on the new California Academy of Sciences museum, click HERE

Posted By: Benny Evangelista (Email) | June 19 2007 at 12:01 AM

Philippine Coral Reef a source of life

California Academy of Sciences Diagram of $400 million Philippine Coral Reef project.

The California Academy of Sciences is building a $400 million model of the Philippine Coral Reef in San Francisco.

But on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, the reef -- with its abundance of marine life -- is a priceless source of daily sustenance for residents in coastal towns in the Philippines, says Malou Babilonia, co-founder of the environmental activist group Pusod.

Pusod, a Berkeley environmental education and conservation group with offices in the Philippines, is working with the California Academy on the reef replica.

California Academy of Sciences Artist rendition of new exhibit

In the second of a two-part podcast, Babilonia talks about what the reef means for residents on the coast of Batangas province, about the need to help save the reef from man-made ecological problems and how the San Francisco project will help.

She talks with The Chronicle's Michelle Louie from the Philippines about the group's weekly newspaper Balikas that covers - despite death threats -- laws and other local efforts to protect the reef.

Listen: 22:40 min

(Download Audio 13.65 MB)

For Part One, click HERE

To read a recent story by The Chronicle's Carl Hall on the new California Academy of Sciences museum, click HERE

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Posted By: Benny Evangelista (Email) | June 26 2007 at 12:01 AM

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Anthropology of Relevance

Anthropology of Relevance

Recently in an egroup that I am part of that discusses environment, culture, and geopolitical issues, there was a spirited exchange on the relevance of anthropology and anthropologists in these exciting times. Wading through the verbal firestorm, I found many insights, which will help me in my current dissertation work. I would like to explore other aspects though of the ongoing conversation.

The first is that I seem to notice a collective angst on what anthropology’s status and role are at present. What is it’s contribution to the GES (global environmental sustainability) and gepolitical debates in the macro sense? Specifically, are anthropologists being read, listened to, and recognized especially by decision makers? Does their work have impact in the local and in the global settings? Should anthropologists even care if their work has impact? The angst is there because of global warming and the continuing Iraq debacle, among others. Anthropologists long knew what was wrong and what should be done, but why were our voices not heard? Our advice not heeded? The prophet was not recognized in his hometown, so what now?

Might the issue have to do with scale? The GES and Iraq occupation have global consequences but anthropologist’s work is generally site specific. Our findings and insights may improve our understanding of human culture, but what next? Who will bridge the gap of theory to practice for the WORLD to use? Do we let others do it or do we, ourselves, complete the “supply chain”? A few others cited many anthropologists doing terrific, groundbreaking work theoretically and in the applied setting. Shouldn’t the challenge then be scaling up and replication if these works posit best practices the world can benefit from?

My research focuses on a faith-based movement in the Philippines known as Gawad Kalinga meaning “to give care”. It aims to build 700,000 homes, in 7,000 communities, in 7 years or the GK777 movement. In Gawad Kalinga, the thesis is that poverty is behavioral not economic. Poverty results from a breakdown of relationships among family members, between neighbors, between social classes, and within society. Thus, the rich need to become better stewards of their resources, talents, and time. The poor need to regain their dignity, hope, and dreams, and to build capacities. Both can do so by helping each other, working together, and building partnerships.

Slum home in Taguig, Metro Manila, Philippines

Gawad Kalinga housing
Taguig, Metro Manila, Philippines

In practical terms poverty (and the resulting environmental crisis) can be addressed through sharing of time and resources, MASSIVE mobilization of partners and "padugo"- "bleeding for the cause" and modeling "patriotism in action". Since then, it has built over 20,000 homes in 1,420 communities for the poor and initiated activities in three other countries, with intentions of going global. GK claims their "transformed" communities are peace and faith zones, environmentally healthy, empowered, and productive through initiatives on shelter, youth development, health, food, livelihood, and values formation. GK claims their sites are “non-sectarian, multi-sectoral, non-partisan and non-discriminatory”. Each volunteer is a hero (bayani) to one another, which leads to community-wide assistance (bayanihan). Replicated over time sand space, bayanihan then stimulates nation (bayan) building. GK’s success resulted in the GK Executive Director/Founder and the organization winning the 2006 Ramon Magsaysay (Asian Nobel prize) awards for individual and organizational community leadership and other similar awards. They have gotten so much support from the private and public sectors that other cause oriented groups and aid agencies have been put on notice: deliver or lose support.

By the way, they are also currently recruiting another one million volunteers worldwide and establishing volunteer research institutes in any university willing to partner up with them. They are becoming viral.

The movement is anchored on faith, culture work, and partnerships. Importantly, it is massive in scale (geographically) and is transformative in intention.What can be more cultural (for research and applied work) than social engineering initiatives such as this?

The implication for anthropologists today is that social movements like Gawad Kalinga or MoveOn, social networking initiatives such as MySpace and FaceBook, faith-based movements or even the Christian Right is that their outlook is global. Their actions are cheekily in the pursuit of some form of “global domination”. Globalization is not only about commerce, but fundamentally cultural. The GES, geopolitics, and poverty are both local and global.

How do anthropology and anthropologists adapt to a shrinking and globalizing world vis-à-vis our research and our work?

To me it isn’t relevance per se. All work is relevant if you find inspiration in it. But if we want others to consider us relevant, then we have to look at reality.

And the reality is: events of concern to anthropologists are global in dimension. Our work and research must then have scientific rigor, practical application, and global insight.

P.S.

I interviewed a British-Nigerian Catholic priest working in the Manila slums. One of his favorite sayings in approximate words is:

“I like the way I am doing things better than the way you aren’t doing anything at all”

Environmental compensation or opportunity cost payment

The Environmental News Service and Mother Jones' blogger April Rabkin report that Ecuador is seeking a compensation of US$350 million a year NOT to develop a major oilfield in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

I've heard of this argument from the developing world as far back as 10 years ago. I think it's a provacative proposal and is a subliminal indictment of the developed world's appetite for cheap oil and the transfer of the conservation burden to the developing world.

It's about opportunity cost and the trend of some in using neoliberalism in turning, as they say, the tortilla over. In this case, using capitalism against the capitalist...Intriguing..