Making Environmental Issues Personal

When I got involved in UP Open University’s organic agriculture course in 2012, environmental issues became more tangible to me, particularly the impact of agriculture on the environment. From a distant concern beyond my personal space, the environment was personified and given a face that I can relate to and care about. Now I can contribute, influence, and have genuine concern for our environment because organic agriculture made it possible for me to understand where I belong in the context of the natural world. 

As I probed deeper in agriculture, the never-ending issue concerning the reconciliation of economics and the environment was always brought up. Bringing profit-making and environmental care in the same conversation during my masteral studies has always been a challenge ever since I became aware of and involved in matters concerning the environment. Though no one I met at school disagreed with the idea of reconciling the two, the challenge still remained in the execution of the values that we uphold in the real world.

Just last month, I finished reading a book I purchased at Mt. Cloud Bookstore in Baguio entitled, “The State of the Philippine Environment Third Edition 2006” by the IBON Databank and Research Center. At first I hesitated to buy it because it was published ten years ago. But I was also curious if the issues back then are still relevant in 2016. I was right. We still live in the same world and it’s getting worse. It was like reading a depressing novel. So what now?

The Media Shapes Our Values

I observed that the masses and mainstream media view contemporary environmental issues as external concerns that exist apart from our everyday reality or daily routine. What goes on in the natural world is still very disconnected from what we do at school or in the office. In other words, we divide our realities into spheres: the anthroposphere and the ecosphere. There is no merging of these two realities just yet. If there is, it only exists in the psyche of a small number of people. We view as relevant those issues that have direct consequences in our lives, like public safety or job security.

Climate change and loss of biodiversity just seem too daunting of a task for us to get involved in. Sadly, our entire economy and existence depends on the state of our environment and the natural world—a concept that most people, educated people included, find mind-boggling. We consume what is being fed to us. That is why mainstream media has an important role in shaping our values and attitudes toward the environment.  Unless directly affected by environmental tragedies (i.e. mining communities, coastal towns) most of us will maintain the status quo and proceed with daily life with our fingers crossed.

It’s the Government’s Responsibility!

While I don’t have any problems with the development and implementation of government policies on the environment, I have an issue with people depending on policies to aid their positive action. In my experience, I have talked to many people (mostly aspiring farmers) who avoid organic agriculture because of the strict certification requirements. In my opinion, this should not hinder us from practicing what is ecologically sound and just. We can still practice organic agriculture in our backyards and small farms with or without any paperwork. Only those big farms who export their produce should be keen on certification to safeguard the quality of our local products in other countries. Though policies and laws can guide our actions, the lack thereof shouldn’t be an excuse for us to act positively and responsibly.

Developing My Ecological Consciousness

Seeing the conventional farming systems in Benguet and Mt. Province during my time as a farmer support manager for an organic agri-social enterprise that I used to work for, I realized how aggressive the transnational chemical and agri-companies were in making a profit -- stripping entire mountains for monoculture then sprinkling synthetic fertilizer and drenching the slopes with chemical pesticides. I saw one slope in particular where only broccoli was planted (this is prone to erosion and nutrient depletion) The farmers had been aware of the negative consequences in their environment but are unable to break away from their debts from these transnational companies.   

There was a mini-series in the History Channel called, “The Men Who Built America.” It narrated the lives of five of America’s kings of industrialization (Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Morgan, and Ford) and how they changed the country’s landscape in just 30 years. I admired their relentlessness and their drive to make the world a “better place.” They believed in the impossible and operated on the idea of unlimited natural resources. Industrialization, during that period, set the stage for the global culture that we know today. We now feel the destructive effects of this rapid change. In today’s context, with scientific knowledge being inversely proportional to natural resources, I hope that environmental scientists and advocates would have the same relentlessness to change their landscapes for the better. I hope we can match the industrialists’ passion by coming up with innovations that can make our industrial systems more inefficient in terms of source to sink product life cycles to reduce pollution.  

How can I impact the landscape now? This is a question that I ask myself every day. After class, I go to our organic demo farm inside the campus and experiment on permaculture design methods and organic agriculture technologies in our “more-than-we-can-handle” 3000 square meter patch of land.  It is there where I try to do my part in contributing to my community’s food security.

I read in one of our modules in UPOU that small-scale solutions are trendy, but it takes macro-scale policy formation to really impact the environment. This is true, but I still prefer to view environmental issues as personal issues that I can address on a daily basis.