ASEAN to hold environmental summit in Cebu

In a prelude to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Leaders’ Summit in December, environment ministers of member-countries will meet in Cebu next month to discuss mutual concerns and regional issues on environment conservation.

Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Angelo Reyes said the Environment Summit from Nov. 9 to 11 in Cebu City is critical in view of the forest fire raging in Indonesia, which has resulted in a blanket of haze over Singapore and parts of Indonesia and Malaysia.

"Preparations are now in full swing for the holding of the 10th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on the Environment (AMME)," Reyes said. "Ten ASEAN ministers attending the meeting will also confer with their counterparts from Japan, China and South Korea."

According to Reyes, forest fires cover about a million hectares of forest land in Central Kalimantan on Borneo island.

Reyes said an environmental problem of this magnitude necessitates the drawing up of cooperation measures that will involve ASEAN member-countries.

He said they expect a discussion on the creation of a Ministerial Steering Committee to oversee the implementation of short-term and long-term plans to effectively address the haze problem.

The Ministerial Steering Committee will be composed of ranking officials from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Brunei Darussalam, he added.

Besides the raging forest fires in Kalimantan and Sumatra, Reyes said biodiversity conservation will also be discussed during the AMME.

This discussion takes place after international marine scientists said they regard the Philippines as the "center of marine biodiversity in the world" — not Australia’s Great Barrier Reef — because of the Philippines’ great number of marine life species and its coastal resources.

Scientists have discovered the richness of the Verde Island Passage located between the provinces of Batangas and Mindoro, and declared it as the "center of the center of marine shorefish biodiversity."

These scientists have also repeatedly raised the alarm over the rapid deterioration of the country’s marine resources and have consistently urged the government to implement measures to ensure the protection and conservation of the country’s natural heritage.

According to marine biologist Dr. Kent Carpenter, coordinator of the Global Marine Species Assessment of the World Conservation Union, "a crisis, similar to the Amazon Rainforest, now exists in the Philippines."

Carpenter and Dr. Victor Springer are the authors of "The center of the center of marine shore fish biodiversity: The Philippine Islands," which identifies the country as being home to an "astonishingly high marine life," refuting previous studies indicating that Indonesia holds the highest fish diversity. — Katherine Adraneda