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RFRI Seminar Series: Green Mondays

Details

Quezon City, Philippines
June 2011-February 2012
ELTI, Rain Forest Restoration Initiative (RFRI), and University of the Philippines-Diliman (UP-D)
Contact:
hazel.consunji@yale.edu

Note: Yale School of the Environment (YSE) was formerly known as the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES). News articles and events posted prior to July 1, 2020, refer to the School's name at that time.

Summary

In an effort to build greater cooperation between RFRI members and highlight the network’s activities, ELTI initiated a seminar series in celebration of the United Nations Forum on Forest’s International Year of Forests. The series was designed to educate the public about forest values from different perspectives and the many facets of forest restoration and management in the Philippines. It was held every first Monday of the month during the remainder of the International Years of Forests at the Institute of Biology, University of the Philippines-Diliman in Quezon City, with live video for wider dissemination.

Content

June 27, 2011. Dr. Paciencia Milan

  • Dr. Milan, one of the authors of the Rainforestation strategy from Visayas State University, gave a brief history of deforestation and reforestation approaches in the Philippines, and how Rainforestation ignited a paradigm shift in forest restoration. She laid down the principles of Rainforestation, the different techniques for specific land use management objectives, and cited case studies with different Rainforestation applications.

July 4, 2011. Mr. Dennis Salvador

  • Mr. Salvador, Director of the Philippine Eagle Foundation, gave a presentation about the organization’s Arakan Forest Corridor Development Program, where they are trying to create biodiversity corridors to connect forest fragments in Mindanao, while addressing upland poverty through sustainable livelihoods using the Rainforestation Farming approach.

August 1, 2011. Atty. Jose Andres Canivel

  • Mr. Canivel, Executive Director of the Philippine Tropical Forest Conservation Foundation, provided a historical account of forest conservation practices in the Philippines, explaining why they did or did not work, what we can learn from them, and how future conservation approaches should be implemented within the legal framework.

September 5, 2011. Dr. Edwino Fernando

  • Dr. Fernando, Professor at the University of the Philippines-Los Banos-College of Forestry & Natural Resources and current RFRI Coordinator, offered an ecological and evolutionary perspective on seedling establishment under natural conditions in tropical rainforests.

October 3, 2011. Ms. Katherine Mana

  • Ms. Mana of the Non-Timber Forest Product Task Force described the knowledge systems and practices of indigenous communities they are working with in managing forest landscapes. She delved into the traditional ways of the AGMIHICU tribe of Bukidnon, particularly focusing on NTFP harvesting, and the internal and external pressures faced by tribe members in keeping these traditional practices sustainable.

November 14, 2011. Ms. Denise Fontanilla

  • Ms. Fontanilla of the Haribon Foundation presented the history of forest policy in the Philippines, relating it to the downhill state of the forests in the country. She also discussed the salient points of the long-debated Forest Resources Bill, previously known as the Sustainable Forest Management Bill, and why such revisions are critical for the protection of our remaining forests.

December 5, 2011. Mr. Patrick Gozon

  • Mr. Gozon, an architect and active member of the Philippine Native Plant Conservation Society Inc., discussed the viability of using 70 different species of native trees and shrubs for landscape architecture.

January 9, 2012. Mr. Cherylon Herzano

  • Mr. Herzano presented the Foundation for the Philippine Environment’s strategy for biodiversity conservation and sustainable development using community-based Rainforestation Farm establishment for all their project sites in the country.

February 13, 2012. For. Metchie Arnaiz

  • Ms. Arnaiz, from the RFRI secretariat gave the last seminar of the series by presenting the National Greening Program, the Philippine government’s program to plant 1.5 billion trees to reforest 1.5 million hectares of degraded land by 2016, and RFRI’s role in pushing for the use of native tree species, as well as greater involvement of communities.