current environmental issues in the philippines 2021 essay

Addressing the plastic pollution crisis in the Philippines: New momentum

Junu shrestha, agnes balota.

A growing middle class, increased consumer demand and a strong economic boom have spurred the Philippines’ economy in recent decades. This growth, positive in so many ways, has inadvertently fed a plastic pollution crisis.

In response, the government, academia and civil society have confronted the issue head on through studies, consultations, and awareness raising with support from the World Bank. This work has helped to build policies that govern the consumption, recovery and recycling of plastics.

In recent decades, the Philippines has made strides with comprehensive legislation such as the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act of 2000 and the National Plan of Action for the Prevention, Reduction, and Management of Marine Litter. While the Philippines has established these comprehensive laws and action plans to address the issue, more effective implementation and stakeholder involvement are necessary to achieve tangible results.

The Polluter Pays Principle

In 2023, a critical national law has been passed in the Philippines that advances this legal framework to combat plastic pollution much further. Titled the “Extended Producer Responsibility” (EPR) law, the legislation requires mandatory EPR for businesses with assets worth over ₱100 million. The law also encourages smaller businesses to voluntarily participate in the program. “The polluter pays” principle is central to EPR, obligating plastic packaging producers to assume full responsibility for the entire life cycle of their products, including waste management. This means that those who bring plastic packaging into the Philippine market must pay for the cost of waste prevention, clean up, and recovery measures.

Given the volume of plastic imported and manufactured for consumption, the country has not been able to catch up with its needs for reducing, recycling, and reusing (3Rs). Before enactment of the new law, the burden of managing waste was entirely on the shoulders of Local government Units (LGUs), who often lack the capacity to deal with the increasing waste on their own.

Under the new law, businesses can recover their plastic packaging waste and offset their plastic footprint by undertaking recovery schemes, establishing hubs for collection of waste, partnering with LGUs to recover plastic waste and establishing industrial scale recycling centers, among others. This polluter pays principle eases the LGU’s burden.

Reviewing Korea’s Pollution Playbook

The World Bank is supporting early implementation of the law with technical assistance, including the recently published report, “ Combating Plastic Waste Crisis in the Philippines ,” which analyzes Korea’s EPR system and distills lessons learned to inform EPR implementation in the Philippines.  

Recognizing a growing waste management crisis, Korea introduced policies, regulations and enforcement, effectively reducing its plastic waste and increasing recycling over the past 20 years.

Several factors enabled the success of its EPR system for plastic waste, some of which can guide the Philippines. Recommendations include awareness raising, managing waste effectively, proper separation, and putting the burden of cost on plastic producers to finance collection, sorting and recycling. The success of the EPR law and enforcement in the Philippines will depend on increasing the number of waste collection and recycling facilities paid for by the plastic producers.  The enforcement of these fees will finance a new level of waste management infrastructure.

While valuable lessons can be gleaned from Korea, notable differences also exist. There are more than 2,000 inhabited islands in the Philippines, many of which lack infrastructure and services. The well-being and future livelihoods of informal waste collectors remain a crucial gap to be addressed.

Policy makers can achieve meaningful improvements in the waste management system and significantly reduce polluting plastic waste if lessons from successfully operating EPR systems such as Korea’s are taken into consideration, and the waste management gaps in the Philippines effectively addressed.

With a clear governance framework and reliable financial flows, the enterprises that generate plastic packaging are now in the business of responsibly recovering plastic from trash and waterways and placing it into managed waste systems. This law, though years in the making, marks the beginning of aggressive measures to reduce the amount of plastic waste being generated in the Philippines.  The benefits of this law will extend beyond the Philippines, reducing marine plastic waste in shared seas and oceans.

Related works :

• Market Study on Plastics Circularity Opportunities and Barriers ;
• An Assessment of Municipal Solid Waste Plans, Collection,
• Recycling and Disposal of Metro Manila ;
• Reducing Plastic Waste in the Philippines:
• An Assessment of Policies and Regulations to Guide Country Dialogue and Facilitate Action;
• The Role of Extended Producer Responsibility Schemes for Packaging towards Circular Economies in APEC 
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Children in philippines at ‘extremely high risk’ of the impacts of the climate crisis - unicef, for the first time, unicef ranks countries based on children’s exposure and vulnerability to climate and environmental shocks, with filipino children the world’s 31st most vulnerable..

NEW YORK/MANILA , 20 August 2021 – Young people living in the Philippines are among those most at risk of the impacts of climate change, threatening their health, education, and protection, according to a UNICEF report launched today.

‘The Climate Crisis Is a Child Rights Crisis: Introducing the Children’s Climate Risk Index’ is the first comprehensive analysis of climate risk from a child’s perspective. It ranks countries based on children’s exposure to climate and environmental shocks, such as cyclones and heatwaves, as well as their vulnerability to those shocks, based on their access to essential services.

Launched in collaboration with Fridays for Future on the third anniversary of the youth-led global climate strike movement, the report finds approximately 1 billion children – nearly half the world's 2.2 billion children – live in one of the 33 countries classified as “extremely high-risk”. The findings reflect the number of children impacted today; figures likely to get worse as the impacts of climate change accelerate.

The Philippines is among these countries, with a ranking of 31. The report found that Filipino children are highly exposed to coastal floods and tropical cyclones, but also that investments in social services, particularly child health and nutrition can make a significant difference in our ability to safeguard their futures from the impacts of climate change.

“The climate crisis is a child’s rights crisis,” said UNICEF Philippines Representative Oyunsaikhan Dendevnorov. “Filipino children face many dangers within their lifetimes, but if we act now we can prevent it becoming worse. If we invest to make the services they depend upon to survive and thrive– such as water, healthcare and education – resilient it will help to protect their futures from the impacts of a changing climate and degrading environment.”

The Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI) reveals:

• 240 million children are highly exposed to coastal flooding;
• 330 million children are highly exposed to riverine flooding;
• 400 million children are highly exposed to cyclones;
• 600 million children are highly exposed to vector borne diseases;
• 815 million children are highly exposed to lead pollution;
• 820 million children are highly exposed to heatwaves;
• 920 million children are highly exposed to water scarcity;
• 1 billion children are are highly exposed to exceedingly high levels of air pollution [1]

An estimated 850 million children – 1 in 3 worldwide – live in areas where at least four of these climate and environmental shocks overlap. As many as 330 million children – 1 in 7 worldwide – live in areas affected by at least five major shocks.

The report also reveals a disconnect between where greenhouse gas emissions are generated, and where children are enduring the most significant climate-driven impacts. The 33 extremely high-risk countries collectively emit just 9 per cent of global CO2 emissions. Conversely, the 10 highest emitting countries collectively account for nearly 70 per cent of global emissions. Only one of these countries is ranked as ‘extremely high-risk’ in the index.

“The frightening environmental changes we are seeing across the planet are being driven by a few but experienced by many,” Oyunsaikhan adds. “Filipino children know climate change is a threat to their future, and they are calling on the world leaders to act. So far, too little has been done, but we still have time. We must urgently reduce greenhouse gas emissions and work as a global community to build a better world for all children.”

Without the urgent action required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, children will continue to suffer the most. Compared to adults, children require more food and water per unit of their body weight, are less able to survive extreme weather events, and are more susceptible to toxic chemicals, temperature changes and diseases, among other factors.

UNICEF is calling on governments, businesses and relevant actors to:

• Increase investment in climate adaptation and resilience in key services for children. To protect children, communities and the most vulnerable from the worst impacts of the already changing climate, critical services must be adapted, including water, sanitation and hygiene systems, health and education services.
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis, comprehensive and urgent action is required. Countries must cut their emissions by at least 45% (compared to 2010 levels) by 2030 to keep warming to no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius.
• Provide children with climate education and greens skills, critical for their adaptation to and preparation for the effects of climate change. Children and young people will face the full devastating consequences of the climate crisis and water insecurity, yet they are the least responsible. We have a duty to all young people and future generations.
• Include young people in all national, regional and international climate negotiations and decisions, including at COP26. Children and young people must be included in all climate-related decision making. 
• Ensure the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is green, low-carbon and inclusive, so that the capacity of future generations to address and respond to the climate crisis is not compromised.

[1] Annual mean exposure >35µg/m 3

Notes to Editors:

The CCRI was developed in collaboration with several partners including the Data for Children Collaborative.

In order to make the report more accessible to global youth, UNICEF also collaborated with Climate Cardinals, an international youth led non-profit which translates climate change research and information so that they can reach as many young people and leaders as possible.

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UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do. Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere.

For more information about UNICEF and its work for children in the Philippines, visit www.unicef.ph .

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More to explore.

Climate change is altering the mental and physical health of children – UNICEF report

Young people in the Philippines are leading the fight against climate change

UN Committee on the Rights of the Child calls for protecting

In the face of a deepening climate crisis, partners gather in Bangkok to recognize and reaffirm new obligations to protect the lives and futures of children

On the 10th anniversary of Super Typhoon Haiyan/Yolanda, youth call for climate action and disaster resilience ahead of COP28

Philippines Country Climate and Development Report

Download the Philippines Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR)

Background Papers: Climate Change Institutional Analysis | Water | Agriculture | Energy Transition | Transport |  Macroeconomic Modelling  |  Climate Change and Environmental Risks in the Financial and Private Sector  |  The Distributional Impacts of Climate Change Damage, Adaptation and Mitigation Policies  |  Strengthening Adaptive Social Protection  |  Social Impacts of Climate Change in High-Risk Areas  |  Disaster Risk Management

Climate change poses major risks for development in the Philippines. Climate shocks, whether in the form of extreme weather events or slow-onset trends—will hamper economic activities, damage infrastructure, and induce deep social disruptions. Policy inaction would impose substantial economic and human costs, especially on the poor.

The Philippines Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) comprehensively analyzes how climate change will affect the country's ability to meet its development goals and pursue green, resilient, and inclusive development. The CCDR helps identify opportunities for climate action by both the public and private sectors.

The CCDR shows that climate change poses major risks to development in the Philippines but that the country has many options to address them. If nothing is done, climate change will impose substantial economic and human costs, reducing GDP by as much as 13.6 percent of GDP by 2040, with the poorest households most affected. These effects are likely to vary across and within regions. Adapting to the risks of climate change—including extreme events and slow-onset problems—is critical for the Philippines. It cannot wholly eliminate the costs of climate change, but it can greatly reduce them. Many adaptation responses also contribute to mitigation; conversely, many mitigation measures generate local co-benefits, such as reduced air pollution.

Although the Philippines is a relatively low emitter of Greenhouse gases (GHGs), it can contribute to global mitigation efforts through an energy transition, including a transition away from coal. The investment costs of such adaptation measures and energy transition are substantial but not out of reach. A large part of decarbonizing the power system has a relatively low incremental system cost compared with the Government’s current plan, mainly involving further expanding renewables such as solar, whose cost is declining. Moreover, it could lead to lower electricity prices. The energy transition should be complemented with energy efficiency measures—notably in transport and buildings—and by encouraging compact city development to facilitate mass transit. The private sector drives economic growth and is pivotal in adaptation and mitigation. As such, appropriate incentives must be in place.

The CCDR prioritizes the most urgent development challenges likely to be impacted by climate change in the Philippines. Even among these, the analysis is necessarily brief. Background papers prepared for the CCDR consider a much broader range of issues and examine them in more detail than is possible here.

Chapter 2  examines the challenges climate change poses for development in the Philippines. 

Chapter 3  then assesses the country’s NDCs and its existing climate policies. 

Chapter 4  details the sectors and locations most exposed to climate change, examining the likely impacts on economic activities in these sectors and the people who depend on them. The analysis in this chapter relies on a synthesis of prior work complemented, in several instances, on detailed partial-equilibrium modeling prepared specifically for the CCDR. 

Chapter 5  combines these analytical strands and uses Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models to assess the impact of climate shocks and climate policy tradeoffs on growth, inequality, and poverty. 

Chapter 6 summarizes policy recommendations for all key sectors and identifies policy priorities.

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4 Biggest Environmental Issues in the Philippines in 2024

In the run-up to COP28, the urgency intensifies for the world to address the ongoing climate crisis. Although activities in the Global North herald the climate crisis for the most part, some nations in the Global South also contribute to a host of environmental issues like air and plastic pollution. Here are the top 4 environmental issues in the Philippines and the government’s approach to curtailing them. 

1. Air Pollution

Over the course of the year, air pollution has become particularly problematic in the Philippines. Going by World Health Organization’s (WHO) health and environment scorecard , the country records an annual mean of 24 micrograms per cubic metre (µ g/m³) for fine particulate matter, significantly surpassing the recommended maximum level of 5 µ g/m³. For the most part, air pollution in the Philippines stems from the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil. Considering that 53% of the population is without access to clean fuels and technology for cooking, this is bound to further exacerbate air quality in the long run. 

Air pollution in the Philippines is also caused by vehicular emissions, particularly in areas like Metro Manila. In 2022, other recorded surges in air pollution outside Metro Manila include the San Fernando City Station in Pampanga, Antipolo City Station, Biñan City Station, Puerto Princesa City Station, and the Davao City Station. 

According to William Cuñado , Environmental Management Bureau Director at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), lifting Covid-19 restrictions particularly deteriorated air quality in Metro Manila . For the most part, this was due to an acute surge in the number of vehicles on the street, which had fallen to 10% in the country’s National Capital Region during the lockdown period. 

Another factor was the prevalent use of firecrackers during new year celebrations. Given that the particulate matter ( PM 10 ) in firecrackers contains a mixture of carbon, sulfur, and other fine particles that pose a danger to public health, the DENR affirmed its commitment to controlling air pollution spikes of this nature. However, for this approach to be successful, it would require local government units to enforce the available Executive Order 28 on the controlled use of firecrackers. 

On another note, although the government introduced the Clean Air Act of 1999, groups like Greenpeace Philippines and the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) point out its outdated nature in the international community. For this reason, there have been pressing calls for the government to update its standards to meet the reality of air pollution in the country. 

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2. Plastic Pollution

Among the environmental issues in the Philippines is also plastic pollution , a particularly severe problem for the country. Evident by the World Bank’s use of the word ‘staggering’ to describe the situation in the Philippines, an insufficient waste management system, coupled with a high dependence on single-use plastics set the scene for the country’s annual generation of 2.7 million tons of plastic waste.   

Much like any rapidly developing country, the Philippines faces unsustainable plastic consumption due to an inefficient recycling system. Estimates show that the country loses around US$890 million to unrecycled plastic products. However, despite the considerable scale of plastic pollution in the Philippines, residents of the country and some companies have been at the forefront of recycling efforts so far. For instance, companies like Infinity Eight Trading and Marketing Corporation buy plastic waste from scrap dealers, turn them into pellets, and resell them as raw materials to remake food cartons and bottles. 

While critics trace the Philippines’ plastic pollution problem to the poor enforcement of laws, the government, nonetheless, introduced its Extended Producer Responsibility Act   (EPRA) in 2022. With this new law in play, companies are mandated to create EPR programs for plastic waste reduction, recovery, and diversion. Accordingly, by 2028, companies are expected to have achieved an 80% offset or recovery of their plastic product footprint. 

You might also like: 3 Lessons from Waste Management Solutions from Around the World

3. Marine Pollution

As the third-largest contributor to marine plastics, marine pollution accounts for one of the most pressing environmental issues in the Philippines. Considering that the country generates over 2 million tons of plastic waste every year, the World Bank reports that an estimated 20% of this waste ends up in the sea. Depicting the state of marine pollution in the Philippines, Theresa Lazaro, the country’s Foreign Affairs Undersecretary, cited reports that “there would be more plastics than fish by 2050 , while oceans would be overheated and acidified if people fail to act now”. For this reason, marine pollution also endangers biodiversity in the Philippines .

In recent years, the government has initiated various measures to curb marine pollution in the country. One of them is the Philippine Port Authority’s signed agreement with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Philippines to address marine pollution around ports. Through this agreement, the objective is to achieve a 50% reduction in plastic waste leakage in the Port of Cagayan de Oro, the Port of Batangas, and t he Manila North Port. 

Another response to marine pollution in the Philippines is the government’s implementation of a National Plan of Action on Marine Litter . Envisioned to achieve zero waste in Philippine waters by 2040, the plan seeks to set a wide range of policies into motion, ranging from public-private partnerships to an improvement of public awareness about marine pollution. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ( OECD ), the approach’s rationale has to do with a recognition that most of the marine plastics polluting the sea are traceable to land-based sources, such as an improper waste disposal system. For this reason, an integrated effort that also curbs land-based plastic pollution while also educating the public on waste management practices is envisioned to be more effective. 

While the government envisions the aforementioned EPR law as a step in the right direction, there are many other factors that need to be considered. For instance, much like earlier efforts to curb plastic and air pollution in the Philippines, a significant level of commitment will be a crucial determinant of its effectiveness. 

4. Sea Level Rise

Floods have been recurrent in the Philippines in 2022 . On Christmas day alone, erratic rains trigger devastating flooding in Northern Mindanao and the Vasayas region that killed at least 51 people .  

This comes at the back of the country topping this year’s World Risk Index , which assesses sea level rise (a cause of coastal flooding) as one of its indicators. In line with the problem, Earth.Org’s projection shows that residents of the country’s capital city, Manila, will be displaced by 2100 if the current trend continues. At the moment, Manila is already subsiding at 20 millimetres per year , surpassing the mean sea level rise almost tenfold. 

You might also like: Flooding Will Hit Asia the Hardest- Report

So far, mitigation efforts have not been very successful. Nonetheless, in 2022, the DENR announced a plan to install infrastructures like floodgates, pumping stations, box culverts, and additional drainage connection systems. This was in addition to declogging operations carried out across drainage canals in Manila. Accordingly, DENR also plans to particularly focus on the city’s low-lying areas to abate coastal flooding. 

Flood mitigation may be crucial to the Philippines’ strategy on sea level rise, however, there are concerns that the government’s approach fails to consider its long-term threat. For the most part, this is due to solutions such as the decision to wall off the coast only partially. Although the several gaps in the seawall were necessary to provide fishing boats access to the bay, however, Vonne Villanueva, disaster risk reduction and management officer in the City of Navota, said the coastline may have to be closed to truly protect the city from rising sea levels. 

Featured image by Henry Donati/Department for International Development ( Flickr )

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Original research article, understanding local perceptions of the drivers/pressures on the coastal marine environment in palawan, philippines.

• 1 College of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, Western Philippines University, Puerto Princesa, Philippines
• 2 European Centre for Environment and Human Health, University of Exeter Medical School, Truro, United Kingdom
• 3 Cognitive Science HUB, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

The Philippines, as a tropical archipelagic country, is particularly vulnerable to environmental changes affecting coastal and marine settings. However, there are limited studies investigating how these changes are perceived by the local populations who depend directly on the marine environment for their livelihoods, health, and well-being, and who are the most vulnerable to such changes. To explore these issues, we conducted an in-home face-to-face structured survey in 10 coastal communities in Palawan, Philippines ( n = 431). As part of the survey, respondents were asked to comment on how important they believed a list of 22 drivers/pressures (e.g., “land-use change”) were in affecting their local marine environment. Statistical analysis of this list using Exploratory Factor Analysis suggested the 22 drivers/pressures could be categorized into 7 discrete groups (or in statistical terms “factors”) of drivers/pressures (e.g., “urbanization,” “unsustainable fishing practices” etc.). We then used ordinary least squared regression to identify similarities and differences between the perspectives within and across communities, using various socio-demographic variables. Results suggested that among the seven identified factors, four were perceived by the local communities as making the marine environment worse, two were perceived as having no impact, and one was perceived to be making the marine environment better. Perceptions differed by gender, education, ethnicity, and study site. A subsequent survey with 16 local coastal resource management experts, suggested that public perceptions of the most critical drivers/pressures were broadly consistent with those of this expert group. Our findings highlight how aware local coastal communities are of the drivers/pressures underpinning the threats facing their livelihoods, health, and well-being. Ultimately, this information can support and inform decisions for the management of local marine resources.

1 Introduction

The ocean plays a critical role in supporting human well-being; from relatively proximal goods/services such as providing food, livelihoods, and recreational opportunities, to more distal services such as diluting pollution and regulating the global climate ( Halpern et al., 2012 ; Moore et al., 2013 ; Fleming et al., 2014 , 2015 ). The Philippines, as a tropical, archipelagic country, is particularly dependent on the goods and services provided by the marine environment. However, the ocean is increasingly facing cumulative direct and indirect threats that alter marine ecosystems locally and worldwide ( Inniss et al., 2016 ; Lotze et al., 2018 ). The management and governance of coastal marine resources is complex. To ensure the sustainability of the marine environment, conservationists and researchers are increasingly recognizing the importance of the knowledge, involvement, and stewardship of local communities and community-based resource management more broadly ( Castilla, 1999 ; Winther et al., 2020 ).

Originating in the small-scale fisheries sector, community-based resource management has become a key strategy for small-scale fisheries and coastal marine conservation ( Evans et al., 2011 ). In the Philippines, the systematic management of coastal resources began in the mid-1970s using community-based management approaches to address coastal environmental degradation, and the over-exploitation of aquatic resources ( Pomeroy and Carlos, 1997 ; Alcala, 1998 ). This strategy is composed of several essential features, and inherently takes place in a highly complex social-ecological environment influenced by external factors as well as community-specific conditions ( Rivera and Newkirk, 1997 ; Beyerl et al., 2016 ). Stakeholder misunderstandings, lack of participation, non-compliance, or conflict, are frequently encountered problems in this type of management ( Eder, 2005 ; Bloomfield et al., 2012 ; Glaser et al., 2018 ). According to Beyerl et al. (2016) , most of these problems are largely driven by the varying perceptions of environmental changes, coping strategies, and social processes of local communities. Thus, understanding how local communities perceive the marine environment is an essential component of the ecosystem approach, and can be partially attributed to the success or failure of environmental management goals ( Potts et al., 2016 ). The ecosystem approach is a strategy for the integrated management of natural resources that promotes conservation and sustainable use in an equitable way ( CBD, 2021 ). However, empirical evidence in the understanding of the linkages between local communities’ knowledge, perceptions, and collective actions have been limited, but is needed to achieve sustainable marine resource management ( Kitolelei and Sato, 2016 ).

Individual perceptions are the product of a complex interaction between an individual, their material and non-material circumstances, and their surroundings ( Beyerl et al., 2016 ). Understanding public perception is widely recognized as key to the management of the coastal marine environment. However, to date, most of these studies have been focused in high-income continents, e.g., Australia ( Cvitanovic et al., 2014 ; Clarke et al., 2016 ) and Europe ( Gelcich et al., 2014 ; Aretano et al., 2017 ; Tonin and Lucaroni, 2017 ; White et al., 2017 ; Carpenter et al., 2018 ). Although there have been numerous studies on perceptions of the marine environment conducted in the Global South, these were mostly site-specific on a case-by-case basis ( Slater et al., 2013 ; Chaigneau and Daw, 2015 ; Gehrig et al., 2018 ; Glaser et al., 2018 ). Furthermore, differences in perceptions can relate to socio-demographic characteristics ( Wright and Lund, 2003 ; Safford and Hamilton, 2012 ; Cvitanovic et al., 2014 ; Halkos and Matsiori, 2018 ). These socio-demographic variables typically include gender ( Smith et al., 2015 ; Chakraborty et al., 2017 ; Ensor et al., 2018 ), age ( Arcury and Christianson, 1990 ), income ( Van Liere and Dunlap, 1980 ), education ( Sparrevik et al., 2011 ), location (country and village level) ( Chaigneau and Daw, 2015 ; Buckley et al., 2017 ; Carpenter et al., 2018 ; Gehrig et al., 2018 ) and ethnicity ( Jones, 2002 ). Although their findings are variable, some potential trends emerge, suggesting that women, higher educational attainment, younger people, those with a higher income, ethnic minorities, and urban residents show greater environmental concern compared to their counterparts ( Liu and Mu, 2016 ; Ergun and Rivas, 2019 ).

In particular, studies are needed which aim to understand the drivers and pressures of changes to the coastal marine environment, incorporating the views of the local community. Thus, the current study aims to explore these issues in the context of several relatively small coastal communities on the Island of Palawan in the Philippines. To understand local community perceptions of the drivers/pressures affecting their coastal marine environment, we developed the following objectives: To explore coastal communities’ perceptions toward the perceived drivers/pressures facing their marine coastal environment and compare these to those of experts; and to assess the interrelationship between these perceptions with socio-demographic characteristics.

To do this, we used data collected as part of the GCRF (Global Challenges Research Fund) Blue Communities 1 project. The GCRF Blue Communities project aims to investigate the complex impacts of changes in the regulatory backdrop of marine spatial planning for coastal communities located in and around UNESCO Biosphere Reserves and Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) across Southeast Asia. The current work was formed as part of Project 6 of this program, which assessed the well-being benefits and risks of coastal living. For the current study, we used data from a bespoke survey co-created with local stakeholders and administered to three coastal communities (Aborlan, Taytay, and Puerto Princesa) in Palawan, Philippines.

2 Materials and Methods

2.1 study area.

Palawan forms an elongated strip, oriented in a north-southwest direction, between a latitude of 7°C and 11°N and a longitude of 117° and 199°E, with the Sulu Sea bordering the eastern coast and the South China Sea on the western coast ( Figure 1 ; Förderer and Langer, 2019 ). The province has an area of 14,896 km 2 in total, comprising around 1,780 islands ( Itano and Williams, 2009 ). Including its marine area, it occupies almost one-fifth of the country’s territory and has a population of approximately one million people ( PSA, 2016 ). The Presidential Proclamation 2152 of 1981 declared the entire province of Palawan as Mangrove Swamp Forest Reserves and a UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve (MAB) in 1991, in recognition of its rich natural resources and high biodiversity. The key economic sectors and major sources of employment in Palawan are agriculture, fisheries, forestry and tourism ( PCSD, 2015 ).

Figure 1. Map of Palawan showing an inset of the Philippines, with Palawan highlighted with a red box. Aborlan, Puerto Princesa City, and Taytay, the study sites where the coastal communities were located, are highlighted in light and dark gray.

Three coastal areas were selected as study sites (village location): Aborlan, Taytay, and Puerto Princesa ( Figure 1 ). The provincial capital, Puerto Princesa City is located in the central part, Aborlan is a municipality located 69 km south of the capital; and Taytay is located 206 km to the north ( Figure 1 ). All these areas have extensive coastal ecosystems and the local communities are highly dependent on fisheries ( Salao et al., 2013 ; WWF, 2016 ). In the last decade, there has been a substantial increase in the human population and a deterioration of major marine ecosystems across Palawan ( PCSD, 2015 ). A climate change exposure map has been created for the Philippines ( HDN, 2013 ; The Climate Reality Project, 2016 ). This map shows how specific geographical factors contribute to the vulnerability of different zones of the country and identifies specific risks of climate change. Northern Palawan, including the municipality of Taytay, falls under cluster III of the climate change exposure map: vulnerable to extreme heating events, unstable water supply, and sea-level rise. The rest of mainland Palawan, including Aborlan and Puerto Princesa City, fall under Cluster XI (i.e., sea-level rise). This makes Palawan an ideal area to study both community and environmental changes in the coastal marine environment.

2.2 Developing the Survey Instrument

The survey, which was administered to the local communities, was designed using a co-creation process. Focus group discussions and workshops were conducted with local stakeholders in three local government units (LGU) of Aborlan, Taytay, and Puerto Princesa. Each focus group involved 12–15 participants. Participants included representatives from provincial, municipal, and barangay (the latter the smallest government unit in the Philippines, similar to a village) LGUs for the environment, fisheries, health, and legislative offices, as well as non-government organizations (NGOs) and private stakeholders. Representatives from the fishing communities, healthcare workers, environmental officers, and community leaders also participated.

The findings that emerged during the focus group discussions, along with relevant academic and gray literature, suggested an emerging structure of complex causes affecting marine ecosystems, whose effects on health and well-being outcomes would be mediated by the extent to which people were exposed to the affected ecosystems. Following discussion as a team, we recognized that, although unplanned, these issues closely mirrored the structure of an existing framework which linked changes in ecosystems to human health and well-being. The ecosystems-enriched Drivers, Pressures, State, Exposure, Effects, Actions, or “eDPSEEA” model ( Reis et al., 2015 ) builds on earlier frameworks such as DPSIR (Drivers, Pressures, State, Impact, Response) ( Kristensen, 2004 ; Patrício et al., 2016 ), but focuses on ecosystem services in operationalizing “State,” and unpacks “Impact” but separating “Exposure” and “Effects” in line with a public health (rather than just an environmental) focus.

Subsequently, we developed the survey to contain all aspects of the eDPSEEA model, but given the complexity of the data that emerged, the current study focuses primarily on the first two aspects—Drivers and Pressures. For the purpose of the survey and analysis that follows we use the term “drivers/pressures” to describe the environmental issues identified by local stakeholders that have changed or could change the quality of the coastal marine environment. We recognize that in some senses ‘Drivers’ are more distal causes of changes to states (in our case changes in ecosystems and the services they provide) than “Pressures,” which tend to be more proximal. However, in reality, assigning environmental issues to discrete categories is complex ( Oesterwind et al., 2016 ), thus we have chosen the joint term of “drivers/pressures.”

2.3 Overview of the Community Survey

The community survey was structured into six sections (see Supplementary Materials 1 ). Section 1 sought to explore how Palawan has changed over the last 10 years and what the local people think will happen in the next 10 years, using a list of 16 items related to resources, habitats, and water quality. Their perceptions were measured on a seven-point scale with anchor points (1) “much worse” to (7) “much better.”

The key section for the current paper was Section 2 which contained a list of 22 marine-based, land-based and environmental management issues (i.e., our drivers/pressures) and asked participants to evaluate the impact of that activity on the quality of the coastal marine environment using the same seven-point scale.

Section 3 sought to explore the interactions of local people with the coastal marine environment by asking the respondents how often they had engaged in marine activities relating to their livelihoods, day-to-day activities, and environmental management in the last week, using an eight-point scale with anchor points (0) “zero days” to (7) “7 days.” Section 4 focused on individual-level health outcomes with respondents asked if they experienced any of the 15 health outcomes as a result of spending time in/on/around the coastal marine environment using three choices; (1) “no,” (2) “yes, but did not talk to health workers” and (3) “yes and talked to health workers.” Section 5 focused on the importance of health services, infrastructure and facilities, and land/coastal management factors to local people’s health and well-being using a scale from (1) “not important at all” to (7) “very important.” An option of (99) “don’t know/prefer not to answer” was also provided for each of the questions in all of the sections. Finally, Section 6 of the survey was about the socio-demographic data of the respondents, and included age, education, ethnicity, income, location, and gender.

For this study, only the data of Section 2 (drivers/pressures) and 6 (socio-demographics) were used to understand local perceptions of the drivers/pressures on the coastal marine environment (other aspects will be explored in subsequent publications). The community survey was piloted by the research staff from the Western Philippines University and received ethical approval from the National Ethics Committee of the Philippines (2019–002-Creencia-Blue) and the University of Exeter Medical School Research Ethics Committee (May19/B/185).

2.4 Survey Participants

The target population were households within coastal marine areas in our three selected geographic regions; and the respondents were restricted to 18 years old and above. A total of 431 respondents participated (see Table 1 ) from 10 barangays: two barangays in Aborlan, four in Taytay, and four in Puerto Princesa City, with a higher number of females than males [ n = 257/431 (60%)]. The higher percentage of female participants was in part due to the time of day the interviews were conducted (morning and afternoon), as many male household members would have left home for work at sea. For the groupings of income from marine activities, we used the income cluster of the Philippine Institute of Development Studies ( Albert et al., 2018 ; see Table 1 for further description).

Table 1. Socio-demographic profile of adult participants in Palawan, Philippines.

2.5 Procedure

Face-to-face surveys were conducted between June 2019 and July 2019 in the 10 barangays. A Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) program was used to record answers on a tablet device, with a pre-loaded questionnaire available in Filipino and English (see Supplementary Materials 1 ). Interviews were carried out by 10 experienced and trained research staff from Western Philippines University, who were divided into five teams. In a procedure agreed with local Barangay leaders and stakeholders in advance, each team selected a starting point within each barangay and randomly chose a household to be interviewed. Only one member per household was interviewed, with a preference for the head of the family. Where the head of the family was not available, any adult member of the household present during the visit was recruited for the interview. If any of the members in the chosen household did not want to complete the survey or were unavailable, the interviewer would proceed to the next household until the target sample of 40–60 households per barangay was reached. Before starting the face-to-face interviews, the survey participants were provided with information sheets explaining the background of the study, and informed consent was obtained.

2.6 Expert Survey

To collect data on the perceptions of local coastal resource management experts on the “drivers/pressures” that have changed the quality of the coastal marine environment in Palawan, a Delphi technique interview ( Okoli and Pawlowski, 2004 ; James et al., 2009 ) with slight modification was conducted in April 2020. Experts were identified based on their involvement in marine conservation (e.g., working in NGOs, government offices, research, and academic institutions) ( Easman et al., 2018 ). A pre-selected list of experts were contacted personally via email, with a link to the survey which included the seven grouped pressures/drivers, as identified by the participants in the community surveys (grouping methods are outlined in Table 2 ). Experts were asked to rate how the issues have changed the quality of the coastal marine ecosystem. Sixteen local experts in Palawan participated in this survey. Their perceptions were also measured using a 7-point Likert scale, ranging from (1) “made much worse” to (7) “made much better.”

Table 2. Local perceptions from the community survey of the drivers/pressures on the coastal marine environment of Palawan, Philippines.

2.7 Data Analysis

Data were analyzed using SPSS version 25. Values from the community and expert survey were converted from the original one (“much worse”) to seven (“much better”) scale to an easier to interpret bi-polar scale of –3 (“much worse”) to + 3 (“much better”). Descriptive statistical analysis were used to understand the profiles of the respondents in our survey, and the mean and standard deviation was calculated for questions relating to individual perceptions of the drivers and pressures.

An Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) using principal component analysis was used to reduce the 22 potential drivers/pressures to a reduced set of “factors” ( Finch, 2013 ; Chen et al., 2018 ; Goretzko et al., 2019 ) indicative of each participants “mental model” ( Binder and Schöll, 2010 ) of the perceived core underlying drivers/pressures in the coastal marine environment.

To conduct the EFA, the oblique rotation method with direct oblimin rotation ( Jennrich and Sampson, 1966 ) was applied. This rotation method was selected because we assumed that variables are correlated. The number of the retained factors was based on the criterion of the eigenvalue (> 1.0) and examination of the scree plots ( Costello and Osborne, 2005 ); items with factor loading and corrected item-total correlations below 0.3 were considered too small to be of consequence ( De Vellis, 2003 ; Field, 2013 ). The factor loading patterns and meaningful relationships for the grouped items were used to determine the ideal factor structure ( Gabriel et al., 2019 ). Acceptable internal consistency for the items in the respective factors was set at Cronbach’s alpha values > 0.70 ( Field, 2013 ).

The individual perceptions of the drivers/pressures on the marine environment from the community survey demonstrated a good index for factor analysis as indicated by the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkins test measure (0.80) ( Table 2 ). Bartlett’s test of sphericity also showed a significant value for factor analysis to be appropriate with a p -value lower than 0.05 ( p < 0.01). We concluded that the sample available here was suitable for EFA despite not being firmly structured. A total of 22 variables were used for EFA analysis.

The result of the analysis defined six groupings with eigenvalues greater than one. However, on closer inspection the items in one grouping did not make conceptual sense, so we decided to split this into two (i.e., “unsustainable farming practices” and “urbanization”) in order to keep logical internal consistency resulting in seven factors in total ( Table 2 ). Finally, we used ordinary least squared regression (OLS) analyses to measure and predict driver/pressure grouping scores based on socio-demographic variables. The perceptions of drivers/pressures based on EFA groupings served as dependent variables and socio-demographic as independent (predictor) variables (see Table 2 for groupings). A total of three models were created after running the OLS regressions, to fully understand the interrelationships between perceptions and socio-demographic characteristics of the participants. However, due to limited space, only the first model is presented below. The other two models are presented in Supplementary Materials 2 .

3.1 Local Perceptions of the Drivers/Pressures on the Coastal Marine Environment: Results From the Factor Analysis

Seven driver/pressure groupings were identified: unsustainable fishing practices, coastal risks, urbanization, unsustainable farming practices, fisheries livelihoods, fisheries livelihood support, and environmental management ( Table 2 ).

Among the seven identified factors, four were perceived by the local communities as making the marine environment worse, two were perceived as having no impact, and one was perceived to be making the marine environment better ( Table 2 ). The factors identified as having negative impacts on the marine environment, in order from most to least harmful were: unsustainable fishing practices (mean ± SD) (–1.41 ± 1.19), coastal risks (–1.27 ± 1.37), urbanization (–1.05 ± 1.63), and unsustainable farming practices (–0.98 ± 1.29). The participants did not perceive that fisheries livelihoods (0.34 ± 0.97) and fisheries livelihood support (0.72 ± 1.41) had any impact, either positive or negative, on the coastal marine environment of Palawan. Environmental management (1.78 ± 1.22) was the only factor perceived positively by the participants.

With regards to the perception of individual drivers/pressures, destructive fishing practices (–2.08 ± 1.55), illegal fishing (–1.67 ± 1.48) and mangrove harvesting (–1.52 ± 1.53) were the top issues perceived by the local community to have negatively affected the coastal marine environment in Palawan. In contrast, research by non-government organizations (1.78 ± 1.3), enforcement of environmental laws and ordinances (1.82 ± 1.40), and the local communities and stakeholders calling for better protection (1.89 ± 1.36) were perceived as the most positive.

The result of the survey with the coastal management experts generally showed a similar pattern with the perceptions of the local communities on the drivers/pressures in the coastal marine environment ( Figure 2 ). The coastal management experts also demonstrated negative perceptions of the effects of unsustainable fishing practices, coastal risks, urbanization, and unsustainable farming practices on the marine environment. Similarly, fisheries livelihoods and fisheries livelihood support were perceived as having no impact, while environmental management was perceived positively.

Figure 2. Mean scores (± 95% Confidence Intervals) of local people ( n = 431, orange circle) and experts ( n = 16, blue triangle) for the perceived drivers/pressures on the coastal marine environment in Palawan, Philippines.

However, there were differences between the experts and local communities in which drivers/pressures were perceived to be worst for the marine environment. Unsustainable fishing practices were perceived as the worst by local people, whilst urbanization was perceived as the worst by the experts. Despite this difference, their views were most similar for unsustainable farming practices and fisheries livelihoods, with communities perceiving fisheries livelihood support as having a much greater positive impact on the coastal marine environment. Similarly, both groups perceive environmental management as positive but local people perceived it more positively.

3.2 Associations Between the Socio-Demographic Variables and Local Perceptions

Table 3 presents the results of the OLS regression, exploring the relationship between socio-demographic variables and the seven driver/pressure groupings. By and large, we see relatively high consistency and homogeneity in perceptions across the socio-demographic variables for all seven drivers/pressures, which could help in establishing common support for certain policies. Nonetheless, some differences did emerge.

Table 3. Results of ordinary least square regression model predicting perceptions of the drivers/pressures in the coastal marine environment of Palawan, Philippines from key socio-demographic variables (standard errors in parentheses).

Women perceived urbanization as being worse for the marine environment compared to men ( B = –0.53, p < 0.01; Table 3 ). Although not significant, women also had more negative perceptions of the effects of coastal risks, unsustainable farming practices, and fisheries livelihood support compared to men ( Table 3 ).

In terms of education, participants in the coastal communities with a college education had significantly more negative perceptions of unsustainable fishing practices ( B = –0.46, p < 0.05) and unsustainable farming practices ( B = –0.56, p < 0.05) compared to participants with elementary education ( Table 3 ). Although the relationship was not significant, college participants also had more negative perceptions of coastal risks, urbanization, fisheries livelihoods, and fisheries livelihood support compared to participants with elementary education. Similarly, participants with secondary education had negative perceptions of unsustainable fishing practices, coastal risks, unsustainable farming practices, and fisheries livelihood support, although the relationships are not significant.

With regard to the effect of study sites on participants’ perceptions of the drivers/pressures, there were clear similarities in the perceptions between the municipalities of Aborlan and Taytay ( Table 3 ). Coastal risks were generally perceived negatively by locals, but participants in Aborlan ( B = 0.56, p < 0.01) and Taytay ( B = 0.78, p < 0.001) had relatively neutral perceptions, compared to participants from Puerto Princesa City. In addition, although unsustainable fishing practices were generally perceived as the worst driver/pressure affecting the coastal marine environment, participants from the municipality of Taytay had relatively neutral perceptions ( B = 0.39, p < 0.01) compared to participants from Puerto Princesa City ( Table 3 ). Participants from Aborlan perceived unsustainable farming practices and fisheries livelihoods more negatively compared to participants from Puerto Princesa City, although these associations were not significant.

When study sites were excluded from exploratory models, ethnicity was also found to be a significant factor associated with perceptions. Visayan participants perceived unsustainable fishing practices ( B = –0.36, p < 0.01) and coastal risks ( B = –0.28, p < 0.05) more negatively than non-Visayan participants ( Supplementary Materials 2 ). That this only emerged when the location was not included reflects the fact that less Visayan’s lived in Aborlan and Taytay than Puerto Princesa. Although not significant, Visayan participants had more negative perceptions of urbanization, unsustainable farming practices, and fisheries livelihood support. Income and age were not found to be associated with people’s perceptions of various drivers/pressures across all models.

4 Discussion

4.1 drivers/pressures affecting the coastal marine environment in palawan.

In this study, we sought to (a) identify the main drivers/pressures affecting the marine coastal environment as perceived by local communities, (b) assess how these perceptions are affected by communities’ socio-demographic characteristics, and (c) compare these perceptions to those of local experts. Unsustainable fishing practices were perceived as the worst driver/pressure by the local communities ( Figure 2 ). We found that gender, education, and study site were associated with perceptions of specific drivers/pressures in the coastal marine environment ( Table 3 ). Overall, the perceptions of the local communities and local experts were generally similar. We discuss these findings in more detail below, with a focus on how understanding perceptions can help to improve the management of coastal marine environments.

Unsustainable fishing practices (overfishing by the local community, illegal fishers, fishing by commercial large-scale fisheries, and destructive fishing practices) were perceived by the local communities as the driver/pressure that has most negatively impacted the quality of the coastal marine environment in Palawan. These results were consistent with the perceptions of local experts, as well as previous research conducted in the Philippines more generally ( Courtney and White, 2000 ; Eder, 2005 ).

Coastal risks such as storms, floods, coastal erosion, and mangrove harvesting were perceived by local people as the second biggest risk to the coastal marine environment. Developing countries in Asia are one of the most natural-disaster prone regions in the world ( Jha et al., 2018 ), and extreme events like storms and flooding regularly put coastal communities at risk ( Cochrane et al., 2009 ). The Philippines is an archipelagic island state located within the typhoon belt; natural disasters are coupled with other hazards such as landslides, active volcanoes, and earthquakes, making the Philippines one of the most vulnerable countries in the world ( Bollettino et al., 2018 ; UNDRR, 2019 ). The social, economic, and environmental impacts of these disasters are significant, directly affecting the livelihoods of coastal communities like those explored here. Despite these risks, local experts did not perceive coastal risks as one of the biggest threats to the marine environment, having a more neutral perception. This mismatch could be due to local people and experts viewing drivers/pressures on differing scales, with local people experiencing the direct effects of such risks, whereas experts perceive these risks at a wider scale. In the Philippines, fishers are deemed to be amongst the poorest of the poor and are most affected by the coastal risks. In turn, this is likely to undermine poverty reduction in fishing communities ( Jha et al., 2018 ; PSA, 2020 ). Therefore, despite local experts not perceiving this as a key issue, coastal risks must be addressed. Reducing the effects of coastal risks can be achieved through prevention, mitigation, and preparedness measures ( Sperling and Szekely, 2005 ).

Compared to other major marine ecosystems, mangroves have suffered the earliest and greatest degradation in the Philippines because of their relative accessibility and long history of conversion to aquaculture ( Primavera, 2000 ). In our study, mangrove harvesting was perceived as the most negative coastal risk ( Table 2 ). Unsustainable mangrove harvesting in the Philippines has seen mangroves decrease from 500,000 hectares in 1920 ( Brown and Fischer, 1920 ) to just 120,000 hectares in 1994–1995 ( Primavera and Esteban, 2008 ). Thus, mangrove replanting programs became popular, from community initiatives to government-sponsored programs to large-scale international sponsored projects. Despite all these initiatives, the survival rates of mangroves are generally low, which could be attributed to inappropriate species and site selection ( Primavera and Esteban, 2008 ). Laws and regulations governing the conservation of mangrove areas in the Philippines were also created. However, it is difficult or impossible for some coastal communities to comply because many of them are dependent on mangroves for fuel, wood, housing materials, and other uses ( Primavera, 2000 ; Parras, 2001 ; Primavera and Esteban, 2008 ). Thus, the negative perceptions toward mangrove harvesting in our study could reflect that unsustainable mangrove harvesting is still being practiced by the coastal communities. It also shows that communities understand the negative environmental impacts caused by mangrove harvesting, but due to their potential dependence, they are not willing/able to stop even though they know it is bad.

In this study, both fisheries livelihoods (aquaculture, live reef fish trade, gleaning) and fisheries livelihood support (alternative livelihoods, infrastructure development, tourism) were perceived as having no impact on the coastal marine environment. This could be due to lack of public knowledge on these issues because some of these, such as tourism, are not present in our study sites. This finding is further supported by our results that participants with higher levels of education had more negative perceptions of these drivers/pressures.

Previous research on public knowledge concerning ocean conditions revealed that while there is a general realization that the ocean and coastal areas are at risk due to pollution, overfishing, etc., the public have little knowledge about ocean functioning and ecology ( Steel et al., 2005 ). This was supported by Buckley et al. (2017) who found that people felt quite well informed about highly publicized issues such as pollution and overfishing, but are less knowledgeable about more complex issues such as ocean acidification or impacts on wildlife. In the case of mangroves, while it is widely known that their destruction for pond conversion is one of the negative impacts of aquaculture, other potentially more subtle ecological impacts such as eutrophication ( Martinez-Porchas and Martinez-Cordova, 2012 ) are less well known. Therefore, despite our findings showing communities are concerned about the drivers/pressures affecting the marine environment, increasing their knowledge could lead to even greater concern.

Environmental management was the only factor that was perceived positively and included activities such as national political will, environmental laws and policies, community support for protection and management, and further research. These can be viewed within the “social license concept.” Social license is an unwritten social contract that reflects the opinions and expectations of the community toward the impacts and benefits of industry and government practices, including research on the environment (including the ocean) ( Kelly et al., 2018 ). Improving social license among stakeholders could further strengthen the conservation of the coastal marine environment by allowing communities to engage with the issues and voice their opinions and views ( Kelly et al., 2018 ).

As stated above, coastal resource management in the Philippines works as a group of behaviors involving various stakeholders. Our results showed consistencies between the perceptions of experts and local communities for the various coastal drivers/pressures. This suggests good communication between locals and policymakers/experts, and shows that the various government programs which support the management of coastal and marine resources in Palawan are effective at the grassroots level.

However, although they have a similar pattern of perceptions in general, local communities and experts had different perceptions of negative drivers/pressures on the coastal marine environment. Their differences could suggest that these issues are happening at different scales. For example, unsustainable fishing practices are a very local issue, impacting the local people directly, whereas urbanization is a broader issue happening at a higher scale possibly across the whole of Palawan/the Philippines. Therefore, it highlights that these two groups (experts and locals) can sometimes operate at different scales.

Another possible explanation of this gap may be related to the different levels of awareness or sources of information. While experts are more likely to get information from scientific research and data, the public uses fewer and less reliable information sources to gain information about the marine environment ( Potts et al., 2016 ; Lotze et al., 2018 ). Previous studies found a clear gap between public and marine expert perceptions of the top threats to the marine environment ( Potts et al., 2016 ; Lotze et al., 2018 ). Another study found a significant difference in the level of perceived impact of coastal threats between professionals and the public ( Easman et al., 2018 ).

These discrepancies in findings may be due to experts’ perceptions sometimes not aligning with specific local issues ( Deng et al., 2017 ). With regards to management, varying perceptions between experts and local people, as is the case with coastal risks perceptions in our study, could raise concerns regarding the prioritization of action. This highlights the importance of transparent discussions around issues between local people and all concerned stakeholders, ensuring actions are planned collaboratively with a clear and accepted distribution of responsibilities ( Blake, 1999 ; Sparrevik et al., 2011 ; Beyerl et al., 2016 ).

4.2 Role of Socio-Demographic Factors on Perceptions of Pressures/Drivers on Marine Coastal Ecosystems

To better understand the differences and heterogeneity in the perceptions of participants, we assessed the interrelationships between their perceptions and socio-demographic variables. Our results showed that gender (women vs. men), education (secondary and college level vs. elementary level), and study sites (Taytay and Aborlan (more rural areas) vs. Puerto Princesa City) affected the perceptions of local participants.

With regard to gender, this finding is consistent with previous research that showed women reported stronger environmental concern and attitudes compared to men ( Lai and Tao, 2003 ; Gkargkavouzi et al., 2019 ). A comprehensive survey of European citizens in 10 countries showed that men considered themselves to be better informed about most environmental issues, whilst women expressed higher levels of concern across all issues ( Buckley et al., 2017 ). A review of research by Zelezny et al. (2000) found that women tend to report stronger environmental attitudes and behaviors compared to men because they had higher levels of socialization, were more “other-oriented,” and more socially responsible.

In a small-scale coastal community setting in the Philippines, women are the ones who typically attend community meetings, seminars, and training provided by various government and non-government organizations, and were more likely to participate in the current study, while men usually devote time offshore catching fish. Likewise, the participation of women in fisheries in the Philippines is mostly limited to beach seining, net hauling, and marketing of fish catches, suggesting that they have little direct involvement in offshore capture fisheries ( Lim et al., 1995 ; Siason, 2000 ; Muallil et al., 2013 ). Since women generally spend more time in the community than men, they often develop more richly ramified local social networks which may be the reason for their higher perceptions of selected drivers/pressures in the coastal marine environment ( McGoodwin, 2001 ). Nevertheless, as noted earlier, due to women being more available to take part in our interviews, we need to treat these gender results with caution (i.e., it may be that men who were absent fishing actually have more similar attitudes to women than men not engaged in these activities).

On the relationship between education and perceptions, our finding is consistent with previous studies of Cao et al. (2009) and Shen and Saijo (2008) which showed that people with higher educational attainment tend to have more concern for the environment. In several countries, people with more education, in general, are more concerned about the environment ( Arcury and Christianson, 1990 ; Lai and Tao, 2003 ; Bi et al., 2010 ; Sparrevik et al., 2011 ; Gehrig et al., 2018 ; Guzman et al., 2020 ).

Recent studies have supported the idea that perceptions differ based on location, with individuals within the same community tending to have more similar views ( Cao et al., 2009 ; Buckley et al., 2017 ; Carpenter et al., 2018 ). In Zanzibar, the fishing village was found to be associated with fishers’ perceptions of environment and governance compared to any other variable such as occupational group. This suggests that where people live is a strong predictor for the level of differences in attitudes, understanding, and interpretation among fishers ( Gehrig et al., 2018 ).

A previous study in the Philippines showed that differences between villages significantly predicted attitudes toward Marine Protected Areas ( Chaigneau and Daw, 2015 ). In this study, study site was the strongest predictor for perceptions of drivers/pressures in the coastal marine environment. Participants from Aborlan and Taytay, which are more rural compared to Puerto Princesa, perceived unsustainable fishing practices and coastal risks to be less negative compared to their city counterparts. This may be because these drivers/pressures have been improving in recent years potentially because of the effective government support and interventions at the community level ( PCSD, 2015 ), with residents from Aborlan and Taytay seeing these changes on the ground.

5 Strengths and Limitations

Compared to previous studies on environmental perceptions, the current research has the following advantages. First, instead of using existing survey questionnaires and theories, we co-created our survey with stakeholders and local communities, supported by existing literature. This allowed us to explore issues in a more localized context. Second, our survey was framed using a standard conceptual model, the eDPSEEA. This research is also part of a larger cross-country project including coastal communities in Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. As the project progresses this means that cross-country findings from neighboring coastal communities may be used to gain greater insight and learning about the role of the marine environment in creating healthy coastal communities in Southeast Asia. Third, the survey was conducted via face-to-face interviews using a uniquely large sample, maximizing the quality of the data collected. Lastly, although a different survey technique and study design were used for local populations and local experts, the results showed strong consensus on how they perceived drivers/pressures in the coastal marine ecosystem.

However, we also recognize several limitations of our study. First, we felt we could not distinguish between Drivers and Pressures in the current study, despite them being differentiated in the eDPSEEA framework, and indeed other frameworks such as DPSIR. However, we do not see this as a major limitation given that we were primarily interested in lay people’s perceptions toward the marine environment (in relation to experts), and felt that the frameworks distinction was unnecessarily subtle for our purposes. The important point was that in people’s minds, there appeared to be seven key groupings (or statistical factors) of causes driving ecosystem change. Second, we are also aware that we were unable, in a paper of this length, to attempt to piece together all aspects of the survey, since this would have been far too complex for a single paper. Thus, we recognize that several potentially interesting questions remain unanswered as yet, although we intend to address these issues in subsequent papers, such as how perceptions of drivers/pressures are related to perceived States and in turn Effects (depending on the moderating potential of exposures).

Third, we also observed that there was a tendency for participants to select mid-point answers, particularly for critical issues. This could be attributed to recall biases in which the participants cannot remember how they were affected by the issue being asked, or it could be linked to the risk of social desirability bias of face-to-face surveys ( Bollettino et al., 2018 ). This means that participants will answer in a way that makes them feel safe and avoids controversial answers, particularly on sensitive issues. However, the survey instrument was co-created with stakeholders and local communities and was designed to enhance respondents’ cooperation and willingness to answer openly and truthfully.

Lastly, we recognize some gender imbalance in our study. As noted previously, more women participated in the survey compared to men, who had left to work at sea. Thus, we need to treat the gender results with caution.

6 Conclusion and Policy Implications

The current study offers an understanding of how local communities in Palawan, Philippines perceived the drivers/pressures in their coastal marine environment. We found that drivers/pressures affecting coastal marine environments are perceived differently by the local communities. Unsustainable fishing practices, coastal risks, urbanization, and unsustainable farming practices were perceived as having negative impacts on the coastal marine environment. Fisheries livelihoods and fisheries livelihood support were perceived as having no impact, whilst environmental management was perceived positively. The results of the expert survey showed a similar pattern of perceptions to those of the local communities. However, there were differences in how they perceived negative drivers/pressures suggesting that these two groups can sometimes consider things at different scales. Participant’s socio-demographic characteristics such as gender, education, location of study sites, and ethnicity impacted perceptions toward specific drivers/pressures in their coastal marine environment.

To our knowledge, there are no previous studies in the Philippines that used the same methodological approach. However, our results support previous studies ( Combest-Friedman et al., 2012 ; Andrachuk and Armitage, 2015 ; Chen et al., 2018 ; Almahasheer and Duarte, 2020 ) in understanding people’s environmental perceptions. Our results can be useful for policymakers and relevant government offices in designing and implementing strategies for effective management of coastal marine environments in the Philippines, incorporating local people’s perceptions and demographic complexities.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets presented in this article and from the entire survey will be made open access after an embargo period currently under discussion with the international consortium which is collecting similar data in three other countries in South East Asia. Request to access the datasets should be directed to the first author.

Ethics Statement

The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the University of Exeter Medical School Research Ethics Committee (May19/B/185) and Philippines National Ethics Committee (2019-002-Creencia-Blue). The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.

Author Contributions

JM: data collection, development, and design of methodology, formal analysis, writing-original draft, and visualization. LC: data collection, conceptualization, writing-review and editing, and supervision. BR: data visualization and writing, review, and editing. JN: formal analysis, visualization, and writing-review, and editing. MW and KM: conceptualization, development, and design of methodology, formal analysis, writing, review, and editing, and visualization and supervision. LF: conceptualization and writing, review, and editing. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

This work has received funding in part from the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) under grant agreement reference NE/P021107/1 to the Blue Communities Programme.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to various stakeholders and partners involved from the development until the conduct of the survey and all the study participants. Deep gratitude also goes to the Blue Communities Team of the Western Philippines University for participating during data collection.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmars.2021.659699/full#supplementary-material

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Keywords : coastal marine, drivers, pressures, coastal management, fisheries livelihoods, marine environment, public perception

Citation: Madarcos JRV, Creencia LA, Roberts BR, White MP, Nayoan J, Morrissey K and Fleming LE (2021) Understanding Local Perceptions of the Drivers/Pressures on the Coastal Marine Environment in Palawan, Philippines. Front. Mar. Sci. 8:659699. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2021.659699

Received: 28 January 2021; Accepted: 21 July 2021; Published: 14 September 2021.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2021 Madarcos, Creencia, Roberts, White, Nayoan, Morrissey and Fleming. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: John Roderick V. Madarcos, [email protected]

A glimpse at the critical state of the Philippine environment

April 27, 2020

by IBON Foundation

While nations attempt to meet the sustainable development goals envisioning an end to poverty, protection of the planet, and peace and prosperity, neoliberalism has spearheaded the unbridled destruction of the environment. This was discussed by IBON in the webinar-launch of its new book State of the Philippine Environment on the 50 th Earth Day.

Done at the height of the coronavirus lockdown, IBON research head Rosario Guzman discussed sections of the book with the closest relation to the coronavirus pandemic. Studies show that the coronavirus may have been an animal-to-human transmission of a pathogen and that this finds roots in disrupted ecology. Tackled were deforestation and land-use changes, loss of ecological integrity due to ‘dirty industries’, urbanization and poverty, and climate change risks and vulnerabilities.

Crippled by culprits

The discussion in the book has been quite straightforward, Guzman shared. The environment is in a critical state, degraded hugely by destructive and extractive profit-motivated activities of foreign and local corporations, oligarchs, politicians, officials, and certain individuals. Their operations have been ushered by government policies no less, which are neoliberal, pro-foreign, pro-business, anti-environment, and anti-people.

The current context is that of gross income inequality. To illustrate, the country’s top oligarchs who belong to the richest, narrowest section of Philippine society (Sy, Villar, Gokongwei, Razon, and Ayala families, to cite the top 5 in 2020) have accumulated wealth from environmental destruction. Their businesses include environment-encroaching sectors such as real estate, construction, food and drinks, ports development, manufacturing, power, energy, water, oil, telecommunications, mining, and agribusiness. Their dominance in the economy, on the other hand, leave those at the base – families whose monthly incomes fall under the Php21,000 and below bracket – poor and vulnerable to hunger, disasters, and diseases.

Deforestation and land conversion

Human activities disrupting the ecological balance such as clearing of forests and land-use changes may have led to the emergence of pathogens such as the coronavirus. Logging, mining, corporate plantations, and other extractive activities have eaten at the forest cover of the Philippines, which has diminished to just 7 million hectares as of 2015, or just 23.3% of the country’s land area.  According to environment scientists, this is ecologically unhealthy and critical given the country’s geography and terrain, which should sustain a 54% forest cover.

Land degradation due to soil erosion is moderate in 16.6% and severe in 70.5% of the country’s land area. The Philippines was among the first countries to implement the Green Revolution, which promoted the use of inorganic chemicals and input-dependent crop varieties.

Land conversion for corporate agriculture, cash crops, real estate and infrastructure has added to ecological disruption. For instance, the Duterte administration is allocating one million hectares for oil palm plantations, 98% of which are in Mindanao. It is also pushing for its Build, Build, Build infrastructure projects – case in point are the dam projects nationwide, six of which under loans with China, which threaten to destroy farms, forests and water sources, and displace communities and livelihoods.

Loss of ecological integrity

The loss of ecological integrity has also been due to ‘dirty industries’ being promoted by the government, such as large-scale mining that has always been equated with environmental destruction and the preference for dirty fuel such as coal for energy development.

Large-scale mining entails cheap methods that spell deforestation, slope destabilization, soil erosion, water resource gradation, desertification, crop damages, siltation, alteration of terrain and sea bottom topography, increased water turbidity, and air pollution. Guzman noted how large-scale mining violations cut across environmental, human and sovereign rights.

Then there is the heavy reliance on coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel and a major source of air pollution. Eleven of 49 current committed power plant projects are coal-fired, accounting for 78% of combined rated capacity.

Urbanization and poverty

Because of lack of rural development, people flock to the cities looking for livelihood and jobs. Guzman said that urbanization has become associated more with poverty and diseases instead of development. Especially in Metro Manila, millions are rendered vulnerable under the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ). While being one of the most important anti-COVID-19 measures, physical distancing is difficult to practice in the region where 29% of the families are cramped in spaces that allow only four square meters and below per person, which is below World Health Organization (WHO) standard.

One of four residents in Metro Manila is an informal settler, and 51% of informal settlers live in danger areas. Also, the health advice of frequent hand washing and disinfecting of surroundings is a huge challenge where only a little over half of families have water piped into their dwellings and 24% still source water from protected wells.

Meanwhile, air pollution is Metro Manila’s problem. The region is not only the worst traffic on earth as the navigational app Waze once said and the most congested, it is also among the world’s cities with poorest air quality. The Philippines ranks third among countries with the highest incidence of deaths related to outdoor air pollution, 65% of which is due to mobile sources.

Climate change disasters 

The Philippine contribution to the climate crisis is minute if compared to the accountability of transnational corporations of the industrialized countries. Yet, the country’s greenhouse gas emissions have also increased from 2007 to 2017 due to its continued use of oil and increasing reliance on coal.

The injustice still lies in the fact that the Philippines, despite its minor contribution to GHG, is among most vulnerable to climate disasters. The Philippines is the 5 th most affected country by climate disasters from 1998 to 2017, according to the Climate Risk Index 2019.

Anti-environment policy and Philippine vulnerability to climate hazards

The imperiled state of the environment is the direct result of decades of Philippine government legislation that prioritizes foreign investment and trade anchored on environmentally destructive premises. The promotion of real estate development, national land use policy that favors pro-foreign and pro-business infrastructure and agribusiness, and the liberalization and privatization of public utilities and the commons have been the general framework of environmental destruction.

On the other hand, these neoliberal policies have entailed the demolition of slums and the urban poor, bay reclamation and coastal displacement, land and resource grabs, including and the grabbing of ancestral lands of the indigenous people, and displacement of farming communities.

The country has seen private interests taking over Philippine resources, utilizing these for profit-making, and narrowing people’s chances for healthy environment and living.

Ways forward

The Philippine environment is very much devastated, degraded, rendering us helpless and vulnerable to this pandemic. Yet, Guzman said that the Philippines is the center not only of environmental degradation but also of environmental movements, albeit noting that environment defenders in the country are also top harassed, killed, and victimized by human rights violations.

The Philippine environmental movement has contributed much to the discourse of sustainable development. Guzman concluded her discussion by saying, “Perhaps we should put the people’s right to a healthy environment as an overarching principle not just in the Constitution but in all laws. This will always be at odds with neoliberalism, which we can spend a lifetime, even maybe until the next coronavirus, fighting.”

Guzman’s lecture was followed by a panel discussion on water, food and medical waste management in the time of COVID-19. Attended online by over 500 participants from schools, environmental groups and advocates, institutions, academe, journalists, and others nationwide, the webinar-launch was co-organized with the Center for Environmental Concerns (CEC) Philippines , Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment (PNE), and Youth Advocates for Climate Action Philippines (YACAP). It was the last in a three-part series titled “State of the Philippine Environment: Ecological Challenges and Ecological Solutions”, which was also featured in Earth Day Network Philippines and Agroecology X activities.

IBON’s State of the Philippine Environment is a colorfully illustrated reference book with nine chapters.*

* The State of the Philippine Environment’s chapters are: 1 – Forests, 2 – Land, 3 – Marine and Coast Environment, 4 – Freshwater Resources, 5 – Air, 6 – Dirty Industries, 7 – Urbanization, 8 – Climate Change, 9 – Charting Real Solutions. Editors: Sanny Afable and Rosario Guzman. Illustrated by Jennifer Padilla. For copies contact IBON or the IBON Bookshop on Facebook while the lockdown remains in force.

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Why the Time Is Right for Renewable Energy in the Philippines

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Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Philippines’ economy was humming. The country boasted an exemplary 6.4% annual GDP growth rate and was part of an elite list of countries experiencing uninterrupted economic growth for more than two decades .

Things look very different today. Over the last year, the Philippine economy registered its worst growth in 29 years. About 4.2 million Filipinos are unemployed, nearly 8 million took pay cuts and 1.1 million children dropped out of primary and secondary education as classes moved online.

To exacerbate this economic and human catastrophe, the intermittent reliability of fossil fuel plants has led to forced power outages and unplanned maintenance. In the first half of 2021 alone, 17 power-generating companies went offline and breached their plant outage allowances as a result of the so-called manual load dropping to preserve power grid stability. Rolling blackouts, which historically only happen in the hottest months of March and April when hydropower plants underperform due to water supply scarcity, have continued well through July, disrupting school and work for millions. The power supply instability may also be affecting COVID-19 vaccination rates , since vaccines need stable energy to meet temperature-control requirements.

There’s a solution to the Philippines’ economic and energy woes: investing more in renewable energy development. Indeed, the country could finally be at a critical turning point in bringing its outdated energy system into the future.

How Will Renewable Energy Help the Philippines?

The Philippines’ current blackouts, and the associated energy supply and security challenges, have already prompted multi-sectoral, bipartisan calls for action to transform the country’s energy system. The island nation also remains highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. In the last few years, as potential impacts become clearer, climate action has become an important issue for energy supply, energy security, job creation and post-pandemic essentials like cleaner air and a healthy planet.

Investing in renewable energy now should be one of the country’s priorities in order to alleviate several problems it faces. For one, it could provide a much-needed economic boost and quell fears of a U-shaped recovery. According to the World Economic Forum , citing numbers from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), every dollar invested in the clean energy transition provides 3-8 times the return.

Furthermore, the widespread adoption of renewable energy creates employment opportunities up and down the supply chain. The renewable energy sector already employed 11 million people worldwide as of 2018. A May 2020 report by McKinsey showed that government spending on renewables and energy efficiency creates 3 times more jobs than spending on fossil fuels.

Renewable energy also reduces health risks since higher consumption of fossil fuels increases air pollution.

Additionally, renewable energy can provide electricity access for all while reducing electricity costs for consumers. While millions of new consumers gained access to electricity since 2000, some 2 million people in the Philippines are still without it. Decarbonized and decentralized power generation systems that do not require pricey, massive and logistically challenging transmission networks in rugged and remote terrains would further the goal of total electrification. Providing consumer choice for low-cost clean energy sources can also result in savings and better profit margins for businesses, particularly small- and medium-sized businesses, which are more sensitive to changes in their month-to-month operational expenses than larger corporations.

Finally, the low-carbon energy transition will help thwart climate change and reduce the carbon intensity of the Philippines’ power sector, as well as improve its energy system resilience. Since the Philippines is made up of more than 7,000 islands, distributed renewable energy (DRE) systems that are not dependent on the transportation of fuel are well-suited to the country's geographic profile. This reduces the need for extra-long transmission lines that can be exposed to intense storms or other natural disturbances. DREs, especially those backed by batteries, can provide fast backup power during calamities, making the energy system more resilient.

A Tipping Point for Renewable Energy?

While the national government has already taken some steps to transition away from fossil fuels, coal continues to dominate the Philippines’ power supply.

The Green Energy Option Program (GEOP) is a provision of a 2008 national renewable energy law envisioned to transform the energy system by allowing commercial and industrial energy users to opt for 100% renewable energy. If implemented well, the GEOP could usher in a new business-as-usual scenario — one that no longer leans on fossil fuels, but instead makes renewable, green power the default choice because it is the option that makes economic, environmental and practical sense. However, the GEOP has remained unenforced for more than a decade.

But this may be poised to change: On July 29, 2021, a group of leading companies headed by Toyota Motor Philippines released a joint statement of support pushing for a rapid, full implementation of the GEOP. Notably, Toyota Philippines was joined by AC Energy, the energy arm of the country's oldest conglomerate, which last year announced to great fanfare its plans to fully divest from coal by 2030 on the way to becoming Southeast Asia’s largest listed renewable energy developer.

High-level executives of the incumbent Duterte administration — including Department of Finance Assistant Secretary Paolo Alvarez and Department of Energy Undersecretary Felix William Fuentebella — provided reactions of support for a clean energy transition. They were joined by a line-up of leading political candidates expected to figure prominently in the crucial May 2022 elections, the first national election since the COVID-19 pandemic.

This unprecedented, truly bipartisan show of support for the energy transition and for climate action in the Philippines marks a historic turning point — political leaders across party lines have somehow unified toward a common cause.

At the same time, the May 2022 elections will see 4 million first-time Filipino voters, most of whom are increasingly climate-aware youth. This number — about 10% of total votes cast — is significant, meaning climate policy and ambitious renewable energy plans could be decisive in the election’s outcome.

Seizing the Renewable Energy Opportunity in the Philippines

Like many developing countries, especially those in Asia, the Philippines needs to respond and recover fast to the economic impacts and human devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic. Investing in climate-proof, economically smart renewable energy will put the country on the right path. Rather than continuing to rely on unstable, polluting fossil fuels, the Philippines has an opportunity to embrace the support of the private sector and the public, lead among its peers in the region, and chart a bold path toward a renewable energy future.

The question now is: Will its national government seize the opportunity?

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Clean energy can help southeast asia recover after covid-19, after a decade of fossil fuel investing, can china fulfill its promise of a "green" belt and road initiative, renewable energy shouldn’t be blamed for spiking energy prices — it's the solution, indonesia and the philippines take action to accelerate clean energy transition, how you can help.

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04 April 2024 – by Viktor Tachev   Comments (0)

The list of environmental issues in the Philippines is excessively long. Environment and natural resources are at risk. Not only is the country doing not enough to address them, but its fossil fuel obsession has exacerbated the potential impacts. Without sustainable development and immediate action to limit LNG project development in coastal areas, the country is single-handedly risking its climate, heritage, marine biodiversity and community well-being.

Excessive Climate Risk and Environmental Issues Looming over the Philippines

The common denominator between the environmental issues in the Philippines is that they are all human-made.

Plastic Pollution

The country is plagued by plastic pollution driven by multinational companies’ continuous use of single-use plastics . Furthermore, big brands use the territory of the Philippines to dump and burn plastic waste continuously. That increases greenhouse gas emissions.

Deforestation

Logging and deforestation are other environmental challenges that the Philippines has long been dealing with. In fact, it is among the countries that have seen the biggest amount of deforestation in the past 40 years . Sustainable forest management is not a priority.

While plastic waste and deforestation are serious problems, there are signs that they will be addressed soon under the new leadership of the Philippine government.

However, this isn’t the case when it comes to the exponentially growing climate risk facing the country.

According to different studies, the Philippines is bouncing between the first and the fourth position among the most vulnerable countries to climate change. The nation is threatened by various risks , including rising sea levels, more intense tropical cyclones, increased rainfall, droughts, heatwaves and more.

Between 2000 and 2019, the Philippines experienced a total of 317 weather-related events , the highest result globally. Greenpeace notes that what the country is experiencing will only worsen as global temperatures continue to rise.

The Rising Temperatures Threaten the Health, Livelihoods and Quality of Life of Filipinos

The Philippines is at risk of unprecedented compound extreme events. These are situations where multiple disasters of different or similar types coincide or occur one after another, becoming more probable and severe.  

For example, heatwaves during a drought increase the risk of forest fires, agricultural damage and biodiversity losses. Currently, ecosystems on approximately 1 million hectares of grasslands in the Philippines are highly vulnerable to global warming. Farming is also at risk . Studies suggest that the grain yield decreased by at least 10% for each 1°C increase in the dry season’s minimum temperature. For example, the El Nino-associated drought between 2015 and 2016 affected over 413,000 Filipino farmers and even sparked violent protests .

Similar to the heatwaves in other countries , rising temperatures will also impact the working hours and productivity in the Philippines. Besides, such events also risk contributing to a boom in diseases , including dengue, typhoid, malaria and cholera – a situation that the Philippines has experienced in the past.

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In addition, according to a study by the World Resource Institute , the Philippines is likely to experience a high level of water stress by 2040.

The Philippines is the 8 th biggest fishing nation globally, with a yearly haul of USD 2.5 billion. However, according to the IPCC, by 2051-2060, the maximum fish catch in the country will decrease  by as much as 50%  compared to 2001-2010. Due to rising sea surface temperatures, the Philippines is at risk of a 9% decline in its fisheries’ GDP . It will lead to adverse economic consequences.

Sea Level Rise, Damage to Coastal Areas and Marine Life

Sea level rise in the Philippines is higher than anywhere else. Since 1901, the sea level has risen by 60 cm , or over three times the global average of 19 cm. This has put at risk 64 coastal provinces, home to 13.6 million Filipinos.

For example, the sea level in Manila Bay has already increased by 0.80 m from 1947 to 2012 . Without additional climate action, it will rise by an additional 0.50 m by 2050 and 1.33 m by 2100.

The rising sea level can unfold a series of devastating events for the Philippines coastal sector. First, it risks inducing higher storm surges caused by intense typhoons. As the country is an archipelago, coastal communities and their livelihoods are at risk. Furthermore, sea level rise can cause coastal erosion, shoreline retreat, wetland flooding, saltwater intrusion and habitat loss for fish, birds and plants.

In addition, climate change is projected to kill 98% of the coral in Southeast Asia by 2050.

LNG Projects Are Adding Fuel to the Fire

The Philippines faces a growing energy crisis and is looking towards LNG to save the day. The country plans a substantial increase in LNG supply , mainly through imports . By 2040, LNG will account for 40% of the country’s energy mix , up from 22% in 2020 .

Furthermore, the Philippines has the second-largest planned gas expansion in Southeast Asia, with 29.9 GW in development. The country is building a fleet of LNG terminals to accommodate the needs of gas-fired power plants. If plans go forward without hiccups, it will launch its first LNG terminal by the end of 2022.

SMC Global Power Holdings Corp., the power unit of San Miguel Corp, is a major force behind the boom. The company has over 14 GW of gas projects in the pipeline in Batangas, Negros Occidental, Metro Manila, Zamboanga and Leyte.

But, its LNG projects are now facing massive public and civil society opposition. Communities, organisations and environmentalists in Batangas, a hotspot of fossil fuel expansion , conducted a fluvial demonstration in Verde Island Passage. The area provides food to over 2 million people. It is also the centre of global shorefish biodiversity , as it is home to 60% of all known shorefish species . In addition to fuelling the climate crisis, the groups claim that the LNG projects threaten marine life and livelihoods . Scientific studies also back this observation.

Public opposition to new gas projects is also growing in San Carlos and other regions.

Addressing the Environmental Problems in the Philippines as the Number One Priority

Research from the  Harvard Humanitarian Initiative  finds that 60% of Filipinos don’t feel well informed about climate change and environmental protection despite public outrage. Yet, 71% remain concerned it would affect them.

This information blackout allows companies like SMC to push ahead with LNG projects. This takes advantage of the public’s lack of understanding of the associated risks . This goes against the basic principles of climate justice. More disturbingly, the company is framing its efforts as sustainable. Meanwhile, it claims that it aims to benefit the Filipino population and the environment. For example, SMC’s slogan is “ Sustaining the Filipino ”. And the company claims its core value is “malasakit”. This expression is the “unique Filipino value of helping others without being prodded and without expecting anything in return.” The company even claims to be doing better for the environment by “taking direct action to help” the cities, waters and forests in the Philippines.   

But, companies like SMC aren’t the only ones to blame for the LNG obsession. The Philippines’ leadership acknowledges the need for climate justice based on the Paris Agreement. It also estimates that climate change is “eroding hard-earned socio-economic gains”. It even estimates that climate change will cause the country a 6% annual GDP loss by 2100. However, the country has yet to prohibit the use of fossil fuels, with the expansion of the LNG fleet remaining a focal point in its energy plans.

LNG Projects Pose Environmental and Climate Risks

The impact of LNG projects in coastal areas on marine life and the environment is well documented . The Philippines’ leaders and the fossil fuel lobby should look no further than their own backyard to understand the environmental threat. The studies are clear: such projects can further disturb the already dwindling coral cover in the area, affect fishing, increase the temperature of the water, contaminate soil and water with toxic metals and more.

The Philippines’ leadership and the management of companies like SMC should understand that LNG isn’t a bridge but a wrecking ball for the environment, the population and the economy. If the environmental aspects and concerns aren’t enough of a reason to convince the national and corporate leadership to act, then the USD 14 billion in stranded asset risk, the low percentage of viable projects and the fact that the Philippines is already paying some of the highest electricity prices in Southeast Asia should be.

by Viktor Tachev

Viktor has years of experience in financial markets and energy finance, working as a marketing consultant and content creator for leading institutions, NGOs, and tech startups. He is a regular contributor to knowledge hubs and magazines, tackling the latest trends in sustainability and green energy.

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Environment advocates urge mayor to scrap Cebu City waste-to-energy deal

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This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

LANDFILL. Collectors dump garbage at a landfill in Inayawan, Cebu City.

Leodb/Wikimedia Commons

CEBU, Philippines – Environmental advocacy group EcoWaste Coalition urged Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama on Friday, March 11, not to sign a joint venture agreement (JVA) with New Sky Energy Inc. (NSEI) for a waste-to-energy (WTE) facility in Cebu City.

“We urge Mayor [Mike] Rama to reconsider this incinerator proposal. The city should not jump at this quick-fix solution that in the end will be a burden to the city and will threaten the people’s health, welfare, and sources of livelihood,” Lievj Alimangohan of EcoWaste Coalition said in a statement sent to media.

Under the JVA, the city will permit the energy company to construct and operate the WTE facility for 40 years before handing it over to the city government.

The city will also receive a 3% share from gross power sales revenues, and 5% of the revenues from sales of all other by-products.

The resolution to authorize the mayor to sign the JVA was already approved in a council session on Wednesday with nine voting for the project, five voting against it, and two abstentions. The mayor has yet to be signed by the mayor. When asked if Cebu City Mayor Mike Rama would sign the JVA, his spokesperson Karla Henry-Ammann told Rappler that “Mayor Rama trusts the city council has done the proper steps and followed protocol regarding the passing of the JVA.”

Waste-to-energy technologies in PH? ‘Go zero waste instead’

The proposal for the WTE facility was first introduced in September 2019 by Allan Cirsologo, president of New Sky Energy Inc., and has undergone several reviews by the city’s Joint Venture Selection Committee ever since.

So far, there is no specific location for the project.

Cebu City Councilor Joel Garganera, the chairperson on the committee on the environment, pointed out during Wednesday’s council session that the city would not have to provide land for the project.

Instead, the company will be given a year to secure land for the project at no expense to the city.

Councilors in favor of the WTE facility, including Garganera, believe it is one of the possible solutions to the city’s perennial struggle to collect and manage the over 180,000 tons of waste the metropolitan city produces per year. Garganera said that WTE is “the way to go,” adding that developed countries like the Netherlands and Denmark have WTE facilities. The said facility is expected to produce enough energy to power at least 16,000 households.

“It will improve our environmental performance index score. As of now, the Philippines is at 111 when you talk about EPI score,” Garganera said.

Councilors Nestor Archival, Eugenio Gabuya, Jr., and Alvin Dizon, who opposed the project, questioned the JVA for its lack of “clarity” and its environmental consequences.

Under the agreement, city would deliver the 800 tons of garbage to the WTE facility per day and pay the company a tipping fee of P1,000 per ton of waste in the first three years of operation, P1,150 per ton in the fourth to the sixth year, and P1,300 per ton in the seventh to the ninth year.

Dizon told Rappler that “allowing the WTE to operate would only increase the city’s generation of trash and that it would undermine environmentally sound approaches to managing discards while producing highly toxic pollutants that are harmful to public health.”

WTE facilities work by burning trash to produce steam in a boiler that is used to generate electricity.

Dizon also claimed there were studies saying pollution from WTE is more than 20 times the potency of carbon dioxide and is ranked as a dangerous contributor to climate change.

Environmental advocates have been flagging similar proposals for the construction of WTE in other parts of the country for several years. Jorge Agustin O. Emmanuel, a Silliman University expert on managing waste, was quoted in a BusinessWorld report in November 2021 saying WTE was just “incineration in disguise.” “WTE is simply waste incineration in disguise. It burns tons of municipal wastes to generate a small amount of net energy while emitting massive amounts of toxic pollutants and greenhouse gases,” Emmanuel said.

Garganera told Rappler that NSEI’s WTE technology has undergone an environmental technology verification by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. He said the report stated the technology used would reduce garbage volume by up to 91.48% and that it “operates within the standards set by law.” – Rappler.com

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