2 books on climate change, watershed landscapes out

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna , Philippines -  – A book on climate change and another on watershed landscapes are off the press.

The volumes are “Moving Forward: Southeast Asian Perspectives on Climate Change and Biodiversity” and “Sustainability Science for Watershed Landscapes”.

Both were co-published by the Los Baños-based, government-hosted Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization-Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEAMEO SEARCA) and Singapore-based Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS).

SEARCA is one of the 19 regional “centers of excellence” of SEAMEO, an intergovernment treaty body founded in 1965 to foster cooperation among Southeast Asian nations in the fields of education, science, and culture.

ISEAS, established in 1968, is dedicated to the study of sociopolitical, security, and economic trends and developments in Southeast Asia.

“Moving Forward” was edited by former SEARCA director Dr. Percy Sajise, current director Dr. Gil C. Saguiguit Jr., and Dr. Mariliza Ticsay, also of SEARCA.

Dr. Saguiguit said the 259-page book “discusses the debilitating impacts of climate change on biodiversity, as well as how biodiversity could enhance mitigation and adaptation approaches.”

It is the outcome of an international conference organized in 2008 by SEARCA and cooperating agencies to cap the five-year Biodiversity Research Program (BRP) in Mindanao involving 14 academic and research institutions. The BRP and the conference were funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Development Cooperation.

“Sustainability Science for Watershed Landscapes” was edited by Dr. Arsenio M. Balisacan, University of the Philippines Diliman professor of Economics and immediate past SEARCA director; Dr. James Roumasset and Dr. Kimberly Burnett, both of the University of Hawaii at Manoa (UH) in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The 346-page book was the outcome of a partnership among SEARCA, UH, and East-West Center (EWC) in Hawaii. It brings together the works of 31 scientists, researchers, university faculty, alumni, and students committed to broadening the frontier of sustainability science.

Sustainability science has been described as a field that seeks to “facilitate a transition toward sustainability – that is, improving society’s capacity to use the earth in ways that simultaneously meet the needs of a much larger but stabilizing human population, ... sustain the life support systems of the planet, and substantially reduce hunger and poverty.”