DENR official: Govt lacks fund for protected areas

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An official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Thursday said that the lack of funding has been hampering the effective management of the country’s protected areas.

Mundita Lim, assistant director of the DENR’s Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau (PAWB), pointed out that her office is having difficulty sourcing out funds, both from the public and the private sector, to be used in conservation programs.

Lim admitted that the national government doesn’t have enough resources to come up and implement programs focused on the country’s protected areas.

“There is a need to devolve this kind of responsibility of seriously taking care of our natural resources. The local government units [LGUs] should play a role for the effective supervision of said resources,” she said in an interview at the opening of the “Southeast Asia Regional Meeting of International Union for Conservation of Nature-World Commission on Protected Areas” at the EDSA Shangri-La Hotel in Mandaluyong City.

Lim added that more can be done by the PAWB if there will be an increase in budget allocated for environmental conservation.

“The national government can’t do it alone. The LGUs can initiate its own protection programs though this doesn’t mean that they are being neglected by the national government. Some form of coordination should also be executed between the concerned parties,” she added.

Of the country’s 30 million hectares of land area and 220 million hectares of archipelagic waters -- home to more than 52,177 species of plants and animals, and more than half of which are found nowhere else in the world only 12.8 percent is “legally protected.”

“The diversity of plants and animals makes life possible on Earth, playing a critical role in food security, poverty alleviation, provision of water and a healthier environment. But sadly, the richest countries in biodiversity are unfortunately among the poorer countries,” Environment Secretary Elisea Gozun said.

The Philippines, ranked eighth in the world in total diversity and seventh in endemism, has joined Group of Like-minded Mega Diverse Countries like Bolivia, Brazil, China, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, South Africa and Venezuela.

PAWB records in 2001 show that there are 244 protected areas under the National Integrated Protected Areas System in the country, covering an estimated total area of 2.5 million hectares. These include national parks, natural parks, marine parks, marine reserves, game refuge and bird sanctuaries, wilderness areas, watershed forest reserves, mangrove swamps, protected landscapes/seascapes, natural monuments/landmarks, resource reserve, wildlife sanctuary and natural biotic areas. R. Villanueva

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