Nature as classroom in innovative DENR project

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) recently launched a project where nature serves as the classroom to promote environment awareness.

In cooperation with the Divine Word College of Calapan (DWCC), the DENR introduced the “Bangklase: Klase sa Bangka, Ibang Klase” project, a unique nature-based approach to environmental education using as classroom the 8,125-hectare Naujan Lake in Oriental Mindoro province.

Naujan Lake is the country’s fifth largest lake and was designated as a “wetland of international importance” by the Geneva-based Ramsar Convention Bureau in 1999.

DENR Secretary Ramon Paje said Bangklase “breathes new

life to government efforts to inspire deeper and wider interest in Philippine environmentalism.”

“Under this innovative project, students are taught within the context of actual experience, an opportunity missed when taught in a conventional classroom setting,” Paje said.

Bangklase is an educational shipboard project with maximum capacity of 150 persons, aimed at conserving and preserving the Naujan Lake National Park (NLNP) through environmental education, eco-tourism development and public awareness.

“It reconnects people with the communal experience of being awed by Mother Nature, and learning the breathtaking varieties of life in Naujan Lake by heart,” Paje said.

The project could be a first in the country, according to DENR-Region 4B (Mimaropa) technical director for protected areas Gwendolyn Bambalan.

She said the project’s two-pronged strategy addresses the need to promote the conservation of the lake as an alternative mode of learning biodiversity and endorse ecotourism as a revenue and income generating scheme, both for local government units and residents.

Naujan Lake is 14 kilometers long, nestled within the 21,655-hectare NLNP, which was elevated to national park status in 1968 by virtue of Presidential Proclamation No. 335.

NLNP was included as one of the initial components of the National Integrated Protected Areas System pursuant to the NIPAS Act of 1992.

It has been designated a Ramsar Site because of its rich biodiversity and for being an area critical for breeding and migrating waterfowl and shorebirds.