VERA Files
Our coverage of environment and climate change issues, including “cold” cases of environment disasters. Earth Files is supported by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network, which aims to empower journalists from developing countries to cover the environment more effectively.
Laws need to be properly enforced to protect and preserve Bohol’s marine ecosystems.
Ramon Sta. Ana, 67, could barely talk. Six successive strokes permanently damaged his speech motor, leaving the former barangay captain dependent on interpreters for communication. His sentences are slurred. But whatever voice is left of him, the 67-year-old mangrove caretaker is dedicating it to the protection of the environment.
Time has not erased from the mind of Nick and Doris “Chai” Quieta what happened on November 8, 2013. Nor has it healed the pain and suffering that typhoon Haiyan brought to their families and that of more than 7, 000 others who perished in that tragedy.
Ormoc was once devastated by a powerful typhoon. The painful experience taught the city valuable lessons that can be used in rebuilding communities ravaged by Typhoon Ulysses.
The Manila Bay “white sand” project did not go through an environmental impact assessment, according to an official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources-Environmental and Management Bureau (DENR-EMB).
The possible presence of toxic heavy metals and silica dust in the crushed dolomite rocks dumped at the Manila Baywalk may cause cancer, respiratory and kidney problems and subsequently weaken the immune system, a toxicologist had warned.
The environment department’s project to beautify Manila Bay smacks of insensitivity to the people’s difficulties in coping with the 2019 coronavirus disease (Covid-19) and contradicts President Duterte’s vow to spend public money judiciously, particularly in this time of pandemic.
This is a call to action for each and every one of us to protect wildlife and the environment.
Eating bats, particularly its wings, drive evil spirits away, according to a popular Philippines folklore. Another widely held belief is that pangolin scales ward off witch’s spells, while its meat cures asthma.
It took the much-dreaded Covid-19 to give the environment a break from Man’s abuses.