Three Iloilo towns pilot sites for climate change initiatives
Three towns in Iloilo, including Janiuay, Pototan and Dumangas, are among the eight municipalities chosen as pilot sites for developing models of climate change-resilient communities in agricultural and forested areas.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources said the four-pronged $4.97-million project, under the Philippine Climate Change Adaptation Project Phase I (PhilCCAP1), will used updated scientific data on climate risk management.
Environment Secretary Ramon Paje said the project seeks to address vulnerabilities of the agricultural and natural resource sectors to climate change as it recognizes the need to strengthen biodiversity conservation and forest protection efforts to bring down poverty especially in the rural communities.
The project is consistent with the goals of the administration’s priorities on poverty reduction and sustainable development, he added.
The other provinces are in Regions 2 and 13, to include the towns of Penablanca and Tuguegarao City in Cagayan province, and General Luna, Del Carmen and Dapa in Surigao del Norte.
PhilCCAP1 will operate on a platform that will develop and demonstrate climate change adaptation strategies in the agriculture and natural resources management, using five core elements, namely, climate proofing irrigation infrastructure, enhancing delivery and effectiveness of extension services for farm-level climate risk management; pilot-testing the feasibility of weather index-based crop insurance; strengthening climate change resilience through improved management of protected areas; and improving the access, especially in the agriculture and natural resources sectors, to more reliable scientific information that would enable more rapid and accurate decision making for climate risk management.
The grant from the Global Environment Fund of the World Bank will be farmed out to four components to be undertaken by the DENR, Department of Agriculture, and the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services of the Department of Science and Technology.
Component 1, which has a budget of $590,000, will be implemented by the DENR in coordination with the DA, DOST-PAGASA and the Climate Change Commission (CCC) aimed at improving climate change adaptation (CCA) capabilities of government agencies at the forefront of CCA activities in the agricultural and natural resource management on policy formulation and coordination with other agencies on CCA.
Component 2 will be implemented by the DENR and the DA with a $2.94 million budget to implement four key activities that seek to climate-proof infrastructure support to farmers by mainstreaming climate-change compliant engineering designs in irrigation structures and farm-to-market roads; improve delivery and effectiveness of extension services for farm-level climate risk management; pilot-test feasibility of weather index-based crop insurance; and strengthen climate change resiliency thru improved protected area management.
With a $1 million allocation, the DOST-PAGASA will take the lead in Component 3 meant to improve the access to more reliable scientific information needed for a prompt and accurate decision-making, especially of local government units, for climate risk management.
The DENR is also tasked to implement Component 4 which calls for the overall promotion, monitoring, supervision and coordination of PhilCCAP1 with a budget of $410,000.*
