CONSERVING BIODIVERSITY AMIDST CLIMATE CHANGE

SEN. LOREN LEGARDAUnited Nations Regional Champion for Disaster Risk

Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation

The Philippines has been hailed as the World’s Center

of Marine Biodiversity.

Our country is one of the 18 mega-biodiversity countries

in the world.

Humans have altered ecosystems more rapidly and extensively in the

past 50 years than in any period in

history

For every percentage rise in our economic activity, hectares of wondrous and thriving biodiversity are

extracted from our natural environment.

At a 1.5 to 2.5-degree Celsius rise in temperature in 50-100 years, 30% of species are at

risk of extinction

We need to address a more imminent

issue – that of existing local and

regional non-climate stresses our natural

ecosystems are already facing.

The 2009 Global Assessment Report of

the United Nations found that we are creating trade-offs between ecosystem

services.

We must protect our ecosystems.

Sustainable Forest Management Act

- mandates the development and adoption of a sustainable forest

management strategy

Integrated Coastal Management Act

- seeks to put in place a comprehensive framework

that will promote the sustainable development of the coastal and marine environment and resources

National Land Use Act

- seeks to institutionalize a national land use policy to ensure

a rational, holistic, and just allocation, utilization, management and development of the country's land resources

The Committee on Climate Change is

deliberating amendments to the

Climate Change Act.

A People’s Survival Fund will also be

established.

Let us all work together and forge a network of cooperation to reserve this.

Let us renew our friendship with nature and not wait for the time when its wrath reaches

its peak.

THANK YOU