Fighting against crises: Awards event to pay homage to PH’s environmental advocates

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to seize the world, more health crises may soon arise. The United Nations says we have less than a decade left to avert runaway climate change.

The latest Living Planet Report says two-thirds of the world’s wildlife has declined over the past half-century. The Philippines, meanwhile, continues to accumulate billions of pesos in perennial damages from extreme climate shocks like typhoons and floods.

The best of humanity

These planetary crises converge and bear down on our embattled archipelago, where it is second deadliest in the world to speak truth to power on the environment. This is further exacerbated with the passing of the anti-terrorism law, which critics believe could be used against them due to its vague definition of terrorism.

But it is also in these worst of times that the best of humanity emerge as well. To these champions of the environment, the sixth Gawad Bayani ng Kalikasan (GBK) pays homage. 

The GBK is a biennial awards event honoring Filipino heroes and heroines who have defended the environment and people’s rights. In this sixth iteration, GBK’s finalists, both living exemplars and posthumous legacies, are all torchbearers shining brilliantly against these dark times of dystopia and dictatorship.

Photo courtesy of Efren Ricalde/GBK

The following are the finalists of the sixth Gawad Bayani ng Kalikasan:

Forest guardians

There are the forest guardians like environmental lawyer Robert Chan, known to some as the “Chainsaw Man” for leading an effective campaign of confiscating over a thousand chainsaws from timber poachers in Palawan island’s bastions of biodiversity.

Photo courtesy of Thom Pierce/Guardian/Global Witness/UN Environment

The Bantay Gubat (Forest guardians) of Ipo Watershed likewise face risks of revenge attacks from illegal loggers and developers they encounter in their patrols to monitor, restore, and protect the forests that supply Metro Manila with precious water.

Brandon Lee, an American citizen who became an adopted son of the Cordilleras in standing with its indigenous communities against big hydropower projects, almost died from an assassin’s bullets.

Ocean defenders

There are the ocean protectors like fisherfolk leader Alberto Roldan of Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamalakaya ng Pilipinas (PAMALAKAYA), who have led protests against China’s ocean-grabbing reclamation in West Philippine Sea.

Photo courtesy of NAMATI, GBK

In the same boat with coastal conservation and ecotourism groups Amihan sa Dahican and Nagpakabanang Mananagat sa Tibao (NAMATI), they face adversities that range from lack of recognition and support, to threats and attacks to their lives and livelihood.

Climate protectors

There are climate protectors like Engineer Roberto Verzola, a pioneer in clean and renewable energy to counter the Philippines’ fossil fuel dependence. Cristeta Sison, a woman farmer in Zambales, organized her fellow community members into disaster preparedness committees to take on the worsening “red flood” impacts by large-scale nickel mining in their municipality.

Photo courtesy of Philippine Permaculture Society and GBK

Fighting, not drowning, is the Samahan ng Mangingisda at Mamamayan sa Latian ng Bulacan (SMB), a group of small fisherfolk communities defending their fisheries and mangroves from the threat of displacement and flooding from the Aerotropolis reclamation project of San Miguel Corporation.

Women warriors

And then there is the late Gina Lopez, not a stranger to the world she lovingly nurtured and protected to her last breath.

Lopez left an enduring legacy of closing, suspending, and canceling the agreements of numerous large-scale mining projects across the country for violating various laws and regulations.

Photo courtesy of Kalikasan PNE and GBK

There are many brave women warriors continuing her dream to fly, like indigenous Lumad student and advocate Chricelyn Empong, and Lumad women’s federation Sabokohan, who stand against the wholesale plunder of the unyielding Pantaron mountain range in Mindanao.

On September 28, we invite everyone to witness who will be crowned as the sixth GBK laureates on our first virtual awards ceremony via Facebook Live on the GBK page. Let us learn from their ways, follow their footsteps, and become all of us heroes rising together here on Planet Earth’s eleventh hour. – Rappler.com

Lia Mai Torres is the executive director of the Center for Environmental Concerns – Philippines. Leon Dulce is the national coordinator of the Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment. Their organizations are the lead organizer and a cooperating organization, respectively, of the 6th Gawad Bayani ng Kalikasan.