RESPONDING to the call of the times when our environment is now at risk, the provincial board has elevated the committee on environment as a major committee as the 7th Sangguniang Panlalawigan opened its regular sessions. In an interview with Ilocos Norte Vice Governor and SP presiding officer Windell D. Chua, he said the environment has now become a major concern not only in the province or in the country, but in the whole world as the effects of global warming threaten us all. According to Chua, there have been a lot of issues and problems confronting the environment and as the national government is poised to rise up to the challenge of combating global warming, the vice governor said it is also about time for the people of Ilocos Norte, through their local officials, to do something in healing and preserving our environment, One way of doing this, he said, is to upgrade the SP’s environment committee to strengthen policy measures to prevent further degradation of the environment. “As I visited the different towns of Ilocos Norte and I attended the launching of jathropa plantation in Davila, Pasuquin [Ilocos Norte], which is an alternative for clean fuel so that the earth’s atmosphere will be protected [from further carbon emissions], the environment is already the thrust of our national agencies, hence we need to adopt,” Chua said. The June 26 launching of the 19-hectare jathropa plantation is one way of expressing our support towards environment protection, Chua said as he also acknowledged that the global issue on climate change would inevitably become the problem of future generations. In a separate interview, SP ex-officio member Pedro Rex Aguinaldo, who chairs the newly upgraded environment committee, said being the new committee chairman is quite a tough job since the environment entails a lot of major concerns. Aguinaldo is hopeful that he would be able to fill in the shoes of former environment committee chair SP member Mariano V. Marcos II, who was the main proponent of the environment code of the province that would pave the way for the rehabilitation and protection of natural resources in the province. Local environmentalists are focused on different environment problems in the province, which include open dumpsites, mining, quarrying, pollution and environment sanitation as major issues in the local community, to which they are appealing to local officials and other concerned authorities to institutionalize measures and guidelines towards the resolution of these problems. Leilanie G. Adriano
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