Starting them young with KNOW and REPORMA

June 5 is World Environment Day!

If we want to continue to protect our people and our planet, we need to start soonest or to continue to nurture a pool of sustainable stewards across location, age, gender, education/economic background, sectors and more.

The younger these stewards are made to know their own world (especially about the benefits each one can reap and harvest from a partnership with our earth/environment) and the sooner, more and all will realize the rewards human stewardship can confer on protected people and planet, the better/faster we can attain /have our more sustainable/ prosperous/ peaceful/protected people and planet for all!

And with no one left behind!

Shall we all start or continue our KNOW -KNowOurOwnWorld- campaign?

Additionally, let all in our community/barangay/school,/churches/offices/businesses and government, let everyone start with change- REPORMA - (Resource, andPovertyResponseMapping/Monitoring).

Let us start KNOW AND REPORMA now, involving us/everyone, wherever we/they are - regardless of age/gender/education/class/ ethnicity/religion/sector!

Have everyone participate in, join KNOW and REPORMA now!

Let us start with knowing/identifying the resources available where we are, where each of us lives so that we can know what are available within/around us that can support daily our/people’s lives, livelihood, basic and other needs!

If you are in a coastal community, what resources are available in your area that can help people survive daily and avoid/alleviate poverty? What types of fish, how much fish are caught/harvested, when (what time of the year), by whom (individual fishers, fishing cooperative, fish business company) and how much of the harvested fish are used for consumption, sold, processed?

Are there other marine resources in your place? Seaweeds/shells, others?

What marine wastes are there in your area – example, fish scales, intestines, unused shells, etc.?

Are there coral reefs, mangroves, other plants/trees in your coastal community?

Starting to identify and document what resources you have in your community can be your initial/valuable inputs for daily life and needs.

Children can be taught by their elder fisherfolks about the different types of fish available, throughout the year, in their own or neighboring areas that can be harvested to meet their daily food needs.

If fishing and harvesting are difficult to do, all in the community can identify why these challenges are present and work out solutions together among themselves or in partnership with local community, academe, private/public sectors.

This resource identification/inventory and mapping is a vital, priority step needed to allow people to survive, live each day where they are with what are available around them.

KNOW and REPORMA should be encouraged and started soon or continued if already conducted in other areas/ecosystems as well, in forest, farming, urban and other communities!

Partners from academe, from other sectors can join the KNOW and REPORMA campaigns in all communities to share what knowledge, other benefits can be derived from the resources identified and inventoried for each ecosystem, for each barangay and how the barangay residents, how each one in the barangay can utilize, help sustain/protect these resources that they need to live and survive daily!

Doing KNOW and REPORMA in forest communities, as another example, can help protect more trees and forests from being lost through the years.

Knowing what, how many trees and their benefits for people, for communities, for the whole planet can encourage and ensure community stewards who will love and protect their resources sustainably, across generations.

Doing regular ID/inventory/mapping/monitoring will also strengthen resource databasing and protection since regular inventory can provide information if resources have increased or decreased and can alert all to continue good practices and discourage/prevent those that deplete or destroy community resources.

Can DEPED, DENR, DSWD, other government/private partners take the lead in mainstreaming KNOW and REPORMA campaign in all communities and ecosystems soonest?