Ipil-Ipil, the Miracle Tree in the 70s, has not fully recovered.

   Ipil-Ipil, the Miracle Tree in the 70s, 

has not fully recovered 

Former title:  Return of Ipil-Ipil Shows Nature’s Healing Process

Dr Abe V Rotor

Psylla, a minute Homopteran, destroyed ipil-ipil plantations all 

over the country in the seventies.

Ipil-ipil (Leucaena glauca), the miracle tree in the sixties and seventies has provided Filipinos much hope for cheap wood, fuel, paper, board, feeds, compost, and in reclaiming our denuded forests and wastelands.

The Department of Agriculture came up with a “litany” on the miracles about this tree. Ipil-ipil as a new source of dendrothermal power; ipil-pil for high-protein component feed for poultry, piggery and livestock; ipil-ipil as construction material, scaffolding, pole, furniture, toothpick, matchstick – to name a few.

Ipil-ipil can be used in the manufacture of organic fertilizer to reduce our dependence on imported chemical fertilizer. It is also used for rip-rapping, terracing and strip cropping to save our lands from erosion and desertification. It is an excellent source of firewood and charcoal for many homes.

Ipil-Ipil “Gold Rush”

The ipil-ipil fever spread throughout the country that no home lot or farm was virtually without this leguminous tree. Plantations sprouted. As a biologist I know that there are nitrogen-fixing bacteria (Rhizobia) which reside in its roots, adding to the fertility of the soil. With the tree continuously shedding off its leaves, there is free mulch with which to conserve water and control weeds choking the plants intercropped with the tree. Along levees four to six rows of ipil-ipil could effectively serve as windbreak, buffering strong winds and filtering the sand and dust that affect sensitive field and garden crops.

As Forest Wood Substitute

Because the wood is white, soft, and uniform grained, many entrepreneurs tried making toys and decorations such as fans, spin tops, picture frames, knife handles out of it. Since it is easy and fast to grow, it helps in conserving forest trees. This means we can spare harvesting our forests’ reserve. We can keep our narra, almaciga, apitong, and mahogany that are considered rare. Ipil-ipil is also a good substitute of acacia, a favorite of woodcarvers.

Because of its success as a plantation crop in Hawaii and Peru, we did not only import its technology, we introduced its varieties into the country, in favor of our own native variety which is small. In fact one would consider it a mere shrub which happens to be growing in places where no other plants grow, usually on scrubby and inclined slopes, wasteland where only the sturdy talahib and bamboo grow. The early uses for native ipil-ipil are firewood and bean poles.

On closer look the secret of success of the native variety is its tap root system. Few trees can grow on rock with their penetrating deep through cracks in order to reach deep-seated water. In the process, they pry off the rock itself helping in weathering it. And if it is adobe rock, the locked up nutrients are released as soil formation progresses. One drawback of the native variety however, is its high mimosin content.

Mimosin as Pesticide

“Don’t allow the goats to browse too much on ipil-ipil,” my father used to remind me on the farm. I would then secure the rope that restrains the animals feeding in the open. Years later I found out that the warning is based on the fact that mimosin causes poor growth (bansot) and falling of hairs in animals. I believe that early balding is one of the effects of drinking coffee clandestinely mixed with ipil-ipil seeds.

Initial experiments show that mimosin can be made into pesticide against weeds, insects and pathogenic fungi. It has been also observed that it repels insects such as flies and mosquitoes.

Re-vegetation of Corrigidor Island with Ipil-ipil

Our native ipil-ipil is perhaps the first plant used for rehabilitating wastelands in the countryside. Immediately after the war, sacks of native ipil-ipil seeds were air dropped on Corrigidor island at the onset of the rainy season. The project facilitated the re-vegetation of the war-torn island, and prevented it from further destruction, this time from the ravages of erosion.

What Wiped Out Ipil-ipil?

With the introduction of Hawaiian and Peruvian ipil-ipil varieties, the expected performance level in terms of fast growth, adaptation and yield were achieved. This stimulus caused universal acceptance of the new crop, creating a new field in agriculture: dendrothermal (or firewood) farming.

But the boom was short lived. Nobody knew that the foreign varieties also carried with them a deadly pest – the leafhopper of the genus Psylla of the Family Psyllidae, Order Homoptera, the same group of insects that are the scourge of many agricultural crops, such as the   leafhopper, aphids, scale insects and mealybug.

Cause of Widespread Infestation

In biology, natural enemies control a pest. If the enemies are not around, the pest multiplies rapidly. Despite quarantine procedures, the Peruvian and Hawaiian varieties carried the Psylla insect from their port of origin. Unlike in their native countries abroad, this pest while here, lost all natural predators. Thus the insect began to multiply to epidemic proportions. Thousands of trees, and plantations, succumbed to the pest.

This is how the pest attacks. First, it establishes a foothold on the young leaves and shoots, where it builds a colony. Being highly prolific the colony can explode into thousands of insects inside of a few weeks, nurtured in all stages of development by the virtually endless supply of nutrients from the growing tree.

The final blow comes when the insect drains the tree sap dry, stopping the growth of healthy shoots to replace the dying ones. Interestingly the bigger the tree is the more it is prone to attack and eventual starvation.

Homopterans are among the most adaptable of all insects. They are very small, reproduce rapidly and can adopt through seasons through alternate tree hosts. Having studied their unusual reproductive development, I have found that when stressed for food or due to a harsh environment, they can shorten their life cycle to accelerate reproduction. Under extreme conditions they either lay eggs prematurely or directly bear young. Sometimes nymphs can reproduce. Biologists call this phenomenon paedogenesis.

Abandonment of Ipil-ipil Projects

In the late 1970s many farms of ipil-ipil were laid waste by the insect. Owners cut down the trees prematurely. Tree, after tree, was felled not by the ax but by the ravages of the pest. But our own native ipil-ipil stood healthy, a proof of genetic resistance of the indigenous variety.

Abe V. Rotor at 4:35 AM
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1 comment:

viJanuary 25, 2012 at 12:24 AM

Wow such an amazing tree. I missed these trees. When I was a child, I used to see them at the park. It gives a perfect shade while jogging in the morning. A friend told me ipil ipil is one ingredient in Thai cuisine

Lesson on TATAKalikasan, 2nd Session on Kalikasan, Kalusugan, Karunungan ng Kabataan (4K) Happy Children's Month

                             Lesson on TATAKalikasan Ateneo de Manila University

87.9 FM Radyo Katipunan, 11 to 12 a,m, Nov 23 & Nov 30, 2023 Thursday

 Kalikasan, Kalusugan, Karunungan ng Kabataan (4K)

Happy Children's Month

United Nations Celebrates Children's Month, November 2023.

 

In the Philippines, it is a month-long celebration every November of each year. The celebration aims to give Filipino children access to a healthy environment, good education, and healthcare.

Part 1 - Clay and the Child
Part 2 - Discover and Develop Your Multiple Intelligence (8 Realms)
Part 3 - Children and Nature Mural
Part 4 - Ode to the Kite in the Sky
Part 5 - Integrated Art Workshop for Children
Part 6 - 24 Ways of Building a "Children of Nature" Culture

Dr Abe V Rotor

Co-Host with Professor Emoy Rodolfo, AdMU

 

 Future scientists attend a Summer Workshop in Lagro QC

        Part 1 - Clay and the Child

Knead and mold, knead and mold,

     Time may tarry with its demand;

Let not the clay sit still, I am told,

     and wait for the child to be man.

Knead and mould, knead and mould,

     Again and again, and trying still;

Godly and oblate, lovely to behold,

     For Heaven's sake, don't move the keel. ~

  “I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.”  ― Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Part 2 -  Discover and Cultivate Your Multiple Intelligences (The 8 Realms of Intelligence)

Dr Abe V Rotor*

All of us are endowed with a wide range of intelligence which is divided into eight domains. It is not only IQ (intelligence quotient) or EQ(emotional quotient) or any single sweeping test that can determine our God-given faculties. Here in the exercise, we will explore these realms. With a piece of paper score yourselves individually in each of these areas. Use Scale of 1 to 10)

1. Interpersonal (human relations)

Sometimes this is referred to as social intelligence. Leaders, politicians excel in this field. “They exude natural warmth, they wear disarming smile,” to quote an expert on human relations. Name your favorite person. I choose Nelson Mandela, Condoleezza Rice and Henry Kissinger.

2. Intrapersonal (inner vision self-reflection and meditation) Priests, nuns, poets, yogis, St. Francis of Assisi is a genius in this domain. Didn’t Beethoven compose music with his inner ear? Didn’t Helen Keller “see” from an inner vision?

3. Bodily-Kinesthetic (athletics, sports, body language, dance, gymnastics)

Michael Jordan excels in this domain. Now think of your idol in the sports world, or in the art of dance. Lisa Macuja Elizalde is still the country’s top ballet dancer.

4. Verbal-Linguistics

There are people who are regarded walking encyclopedia and dictionary. The gift of tongue in the true sense is in being multilingual like Rizal.

5. Logical-Mathematical

Marxism is based on dialectics which is a tool in studying and learning. Likewise, this realm includes the intelligence of numbers – math, accounting, actuarial science, etc. This is the key to IQ test. Einstein, Newton, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle are my choices.

6. Musical (auditory art)

Mendelssohn, Mozart, Chopin, Abelardo, Cayabyab, Lea Salonga – name your favorite. Beethoven is one of the world’s great composers, yet he cannot dance. I like to listen to Pangkat Kawayan play Philippine music.

7. Visual-Spatial (drawing, and painting, sculpture, architecture, photography)

The great artist, Pablo Picasso, was robbed in his studio. Hog-tied, he carefully studied the robber, the way an artist studies his model. After the incident he sketched the face of the robber and gave it to the police. The police made 100 arrests but never succeeded in pinpointing the culprit. The sculptor Rodin wanted his subject to look as if it is melting. What could be a better expression of poverty for his masterpiece, The Burghers of Calais?

8. Naturalistic (Green Thumb, Relationship with the Natural World)

There are people who are said to have the “green thumb”. Their gardens are beautiful even with little care. There are those who can predict weather, and tell you if the fish bites, or it is a good hunting day. They pick the reddest watermelon, fullest macapuno nuts, just by feel and sound. Good doctors, I suppose have the green thumb too.

What are your top three? Can you see their relationships? Relate them with your strength. On the other hand, in what ways can you improve on the other realms?

Make full use of your strength. And remember there are early and late bloomers. Nothing is too late to be able to improve on one’s deficiencies.

Maybe you lack a good foundation to explore your talents in a certain domain. But why don’t you catch up? Do you recall late bloomers who succeeded in life? As you reflect on your scores I’ll play for you on the violin On Wings of Song by Felix Mendelssohn. Fly, fly high and be happy like the birds. Just don’t be Icarus.

Reflect on the following:

1. Your strength and you weakness

2. Your “idols” and models

3. Resolution and affirmations ~

 Multiple Intelligences of Great Men and Women Who Changed the World

Identify the particular realm of intelligence of each of these great men and women.

1. Dr. Albert Schweitzer, the great English explorer and the first white man to penetrate the heart of Africa and establish the first hospital for the natives there, was very effective in his mission not only because he was a good physician, but he was gifted with other talents. He was a minister, a musician, a naturalist and a philanthropist. Although he was criticized by his detractors for his philosophy on “reverence for life,” his outdated medical practices, and racial attitude, he was admired by mankind, and his legacy of dedication to others endures. The world will always have the memory of a giant who tried in his singular way to love as Jesus loved, oddly but honestly lived his beloved song: The deed is everything; the glory naught.

2. Carl Gustav Jung was a master of the abstruse. His explorations took him through yoga, alchemy, fairy tales, tribal rites of the Pueblo Indians, Hindu mandalas, extrasensory perception, prehistoric cave drawings – and an estimated 100,000 dreams. But when Dr. Jung was accused of having left medicine for mysticism, he replied that psychiatry must reflect all of man’s experiences, from the most intensely practical to the most tenuously mystical. If the details of his work were sometimes foggy, his overall purpose was clear: to help man live at peace with his unconscious. 

3. Mother Teresa required poverty, chastity and obedience but also a fourth vow, service to the “poorest of the poor.” More than 3000 sisters of the missionaries of Charity joined her to pursue the religious path, aided by brothers in a separate men’s order and a host of lay co-workers. Together Sister Teresa and her followers operate a network of some 350 missions, spread across scores of nations, that administer hospices, food centers, clinics, orphanages, leprosaria and refuges for the insane, retarded and aged. What drove Mother Teresa into this deep dedication? She received a “call within a call” – a special vocation in which she felt God directing her to the slums. Such call is reminiscent of the voice that commanded Joan of Arc to lead the French army against the English. She did not live to see the liberation of her native land. 

4. Alexander the Great – His teacher was Aristotle, the greatest scholar, naturalist and philosopher, who said, “It is easier to make war than to make peace,” an advice that guided Alexander as he conquered the whole of Europe, the Persian Empire and Asia, as he tried to unify empires into One World, the idea of “united nations.” 

5. Winston Churchill, one of the greatest statesmen the world has known drew the chart to victory and peace not only with the pen and in the war room, but with paint brush on  canvas. How did he find time and concentration to paint on the bank of Thames when Hitler was pounding London with prototype ballistic missiles? 

6. Amadeus Mozart was compared to anything in Nature that the author Helen Henschel thought of him as beautiful smiling sunny landscape. “There would be gray skies too – and rain, and cloud, and always in the end, a shining rainbow.” The music of Mozart exudes this vivid imagery. 

7. Robert Baden-Powell, the father of scouting is said to have saved his small camp which withstood 217 days against 9000 well-armed Boers – through the art of bluff. There must have been something else beside bluff that made his plans work effectively. 

8. A fine soldier though Alfred the Great was, his heart was elsewhere – in religion and law, education and art and literature. At his court he gathered all the scholars he could persuade to settle with him, while he consulted the elder men who were wise in the law. 

9. Francis of Assisi was also a poet as is proved by his hymn “The Canticle of the Sun”, the song full of the freshness of a re-born life, expressing his love of all creation. 

10. Jean Henri Fabre PHOTO, explorer of the insect World, grew up a happy child in spite of poverty. He paddled and went about exploring, found the stream that fed the pond and made a little water wheel. Throughout his life he was a shy man, ill at ease with adults but happy with children. He wrote in his diary, “There were five or six of us: I was the oldest, their master, but still more their companion and their friend.”

11.The loss of an arm and an eye did not stop his career. When he was ordered to retreat facing apparent naval defeat with the Spanish armada outnumbering his own fleet, Horatius Nelson, put on the telescope on his blind eye and said, “I don’t see the enemy, sir,” and then proceeded to fight and won. Dying on the deck of his fighting ship his last words were: “Thank God, I have done my duty.” 

12. Florence Nightingale the founder of the nursing profession had the love, almost the adoration, of her patients. Her patience, her determination and persistence were tested during the Crimean war. Miss Nightingale and 37 women volunteered to work in the war front’s hospitals. In a few weeks the death rate in these hospitals dropped from approximately 42 percent to 2 percent. Florence Nightingale brought healthcare in the battlefield, bringing reforms in management and technology in military hospitals in Crimea where a war was then raging. She instilled discipline among the wounded and sick soldiers while keeping their spirit high, and brought to the attention of the political leaders and society their plight. She demonstrated how valuable women are in a world dominated by men. The world still loves and remembers her as “The Lady of the Lamp.” 

13. Excerpt from the autobiography of Louis Pasteur PHOTO: “I have not yet dared to treat human beings, but the time is not far off, and I am much inclined to begin by myself – inoculating myself with rabies and then arresting the consequences.” Pasteur had never lacked the courage and had never hesitated to come in contact with the most dangerous of the contagious diseases. But it never became necessary because of the arrival of little Joseph Meister, who was bitten by a mad dog. The test was made on the boy and saved his life.”  

                                        

14.The most exciting stories in science involve the sudden spark when mundane observation meets sudden inspiration. Such is the case of the discovery of penicillin by Alexander Fleming, Galileo watching the swing of a lamp in the Cathedral of Pisa and deduced from it the law of the pendulum, and Sir Isaac Newton watching the fall of a apple and deducing the law of gravity.

It is as humorous as the sudden realization by Archimedes of the law of buoyancy. But stories of this sort are not coincidental or incidental; they are deliberate efforts of testing a theory and looking for evidences and application. Such is the story of Louis Pasteur whose discoveries in microbiology led to a new field of medicine which is immunization, Christian Barnard revolutionizing surgery when he conducted the world’s first heart transplant. Such stories continue to amaze us. The Human Genome Project has opened before us a new horizon in medicine heretofore unknown - gene therapy. 

Cause – The Common Denominator.  The common denominator in the lives of these great men and women is that they cling to a cause. Often, it is a very personal one that this borders on egotism. But the cause for which one lives is not for him - it is for others, others’ welfare. That cause is therefore bigger than oneself. It is for which one can give himself away, unselfishly, convincingly at sacrifice level, often renouncing good life. 

Great men are those whose vision and mission are aimed at entering that great hall of humanism – the regard for love, equality, justice, compassion and faith in fellowmen. We quite often hear that the lives of great men and women are the influences of heredity, training and environment. True. But the great reserve is the eight realms of intelligence. We do not go far to prove this contention for our own national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal lived this model life.~ 

 Part 3 - Children and Nature Mural

Wall Mural by Dr Abe V Rotor (7ft x 90ft) 

"A thing of beauty is a boy forever." AVR  wall mural at author's residence, 

Barangay Greater Lagro, QC 

Three young musketeers are set to conquer the world 

      away from the mall, home and school;

If Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were real and alive today, 

     we wouldn't know who's genius, who's fool.

Who is the primitive, who is the civilized, oh brother!

      when we prefer the city over the quaint village,

car for walking distance, processed over fresh food,

      philosophy over instinctive knowledge.

Everything defined in rich vocabulary, but a rose is a rose

      and nothing else, energy to matter and back, 

universal cycles no genius will ever truly understand,

     Homo sapiens! it is humility we lack.  

Innocence in children, we make up for the falsehood

      of the world of grownups and sages;

Einstein and Darwin never knew the whys of the world,

      children have been asking for ages.

If genius is reborn in the innocence of children, 

      then knowledge into wisdom distilled, 

compensated in old age for the young ones' sake:

     'tis the fate of humanity in Nature sealed. ~      

“When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.” ― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

                            

“and when all the wars are over, a butterfly will still be beautiful.” 

― Ruskin Bond, Scenes from a Writer's Life

 

“Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn't dis what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into the each moment. We don't value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life's bounty is in its flow, later is too late. Where is the song when it's been sung? The dance when it's been danced?" ― Tom Stoppard, The Coast of Utopia

                     Part 4 - Ode to the Kite in the Sky 

Dr Abe V Rotor

Kite Flying on the Lakeshore in acrylic, group project, 

Children's Summer Art Workshop, circa 1995.  

Fly high into the sky, until you see us but minuscule on the ground, 

how insignificant we all are, to the world and to the universe;

Fly with the wind with all your might, that we too, feel we are flying,

save our strength, our will and faith to remain with Mother Earth,

our home, our only planet, our spaceship, the place of our birth.

Fly high with our dreams, our fantasy of conquering space and stars,

how lofty dreams are, how ambitious, how proud we humans are;

Fly away from our hold, be free, drift aimlessly if you call that freedom;

then neither you are a friend, nor we are your master, but a renegade, 

breaking away from the rules and order that humanity has made. ~ 

"Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country." - Anais Nin

Part 5 - Integrated Art Workshop for Children

Conducted by Dr Abe V Rotor 

Living with Nature Center 

Poblacion, San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

First Batch graduates with guest Vice-Mayor Ma Nancy Dy Tabanda (middle row, 4th from right)

Workshop Overview

1. Workshop sessions: every Sunday (3 to 5 pm) from Jan 22 to Mar 5.

2. Participants: schoolchildren, boys and girls, 8 to 13 yrs old, from SVIS, other schools.

3. Graduates: 16 completed 5 sessions (10 hours, including makeup sessions). 

 

4. Other participants: to complete required sessions and output, for second batch.

5. Teaching Method: lecture, hands-on and on-the-spot, Dr Abe V Rotor as instructor.

6. Syllabus: based on Multiple Intelligence (8 realms), Rizal et al, as models.

7. Integrated art: principally drawing and painting, introductory music and literary art.

8. Critiquing: selected works on exhibit, others returned to owners, or on file. 

9. Management: art tools and materials, and snacks provided by organizer for free.

10. Decorum: classroom and laboratory discipline, values oriented.

11. Foundation: back to basic, talent search, skills development, application.

12. Respite or break from boredom, anxiety, cartoons, rock music, TV, computer

      games.   

  

Workshop participants work before a wall mural painted by the author; 

on-the-spot painting session under the trees

 

13. Creativity: based on the saying, “imagination is more important than knowledge.” 

14. Freedom: self expression, self confidence, freedom and independence.

15. Learning alternative, and bridge with school, church, community – and home.                     

You may take pride in having a state-of-the-art smart-phone, but not more than a painting you yourself made. A gadget can’t be part of you, but a piece of art you made – painting, melody, story, verse - is your own. It is part of you. It is a prize you give yourself and no one else can take it away. It is a lifetime achievement; in fact it is your legacy. Kids learn early in life the struggle for excellence, not only in the classroom, social media, or on the street, but in themselves. The greatest struggle is with oneself – it is the biggest triumph, but it can be the biggest failure, too. Yet there is always the opportunity to conquer that opponent. This is the road to excellence. Each day you become a better person, ad infinitum. ~

“Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.” ― Flannery O'Connor, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose

 Part 5 - 24 Ways of Building a "Children of Nature" Culture

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog

 Young biologist studies a specimen. 

 

 Summer  workshops for kids.

 

Tree planting and home gardening 

1. Our children need to know the true meaning of biodiversity. Four attributes - richness in kind, population, interrelationship, dynamic stability (homeostasis)

Biodiversity per se does not guarantee sustainability unless integrated with functioning systems of nature.

2. Our children’s development must be holistic In all four stages: genetic, childhood, lifestyle – and fetal (in the womb). Sing, talk to your baby while in the womb.

3. Our children are at the front line and center of people’s revolution spreading worldwide.

Russian war on Ukraine is accelerating; there is no clear solution seen. Arab Spring is sweeping North Africa and the Middle East, so with the escalating unrest questioning the present world order. All over US the young are angry at economic inequity. Resurgence of instability is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Gaza Strip, Sudan.  The Philippines wakes up to the greatest scandal in government in its history - Pork Barrel (PDAP) and Development Acceleration Program (DAP). 

4. Our children become new heroes – heroes for the environment, martyrs for Mother Earth. Heaven is in a regained Paradise on earth.

The coming of a universal faith, irrespective of denomination. To be saved is not by faith and promise. Heaven starts here on earth.

5. Let’s prepare our children to face the consequences of loss of privacy and secrecy, from personal to institutional transparency.

“You can no longer hide. There is no place you can remain with anonymity.” Wikileak unveiled classified information about the Iraq and Afghanistan war. Bank secrecy laws and safeguards are changing. Citizens have the right to know many hidden financial transactions.

6. Our children’s involvement in social media makes them actors and not mere spectators. They become involved, concerned with issues, local and far reaching.

There is need to strengthen Development Communication (DevComm) over conventional entertainment and reactionary media.

7. Our children will inherit our aging infrastructure. Aging Infrastructure pulls down the economy, increases risk to disaster, creates ghost cities and making life miserable.

A new field of biodiversity has been born in deserted towns, on the 38th Parallel between South and North Korea, in land mines areas, ghost towns, among deserted high rise buildings, in high radiation areas like in Chernobyl (Russia) and Fukushima (Japan).

8. Our children are deprived of natural beauty and bounty with shrinking wildlife, conversion of farms and pastures to settlements, and destruction of ecosystems.

“Canned Nature” (delata) have become pseudo Nature Centers. Gubat sa Siyudad, Fantasyland, Ocean Park, Disneyland

9. Our children, and succeeding generations are becoming more and more vulnerable to various infirmities – genetic, physiological, psychological, pathologic.

Computer Syndrome is now pandemic, and its toll is increasing worldwide. South Korea is the worst hit.

10. Our children’s learning through codification defeats logical thinking and creativity. Thus affect their reasoning power, judgment and decision, originality of thought and ideas.

More and more children are computer-dependent. They find simple equations and definitions difficult without electronic gadget.

11. Our children face the age of singularity whereby human and artificial intelligence are integrated. Robotics robs human of his rights and freedom – new realm of curtailment and suppression. (2045 – The Year Man Becomes Immortal – Time Magazine)

This is falsehood!

12. Our children find a world of archives - memories, reproductions, replicas – of a real world lost before their own time.

We are making fossils, biographies, dirges and laments, as if without sense of guilt.

13. Our children will realize that optimism will remain the mainstay of human evolution, rising above difficulties and trials. Hope is ingrained in the human brain that makes vision rosier than reality.

Anxiety, depression will continue to haunt, in fact accompany progress, but these all the more push optimism up and ahead.

14. Our children are overburdened by education. They need freedom to learn in their own sweet time and enjoy the bliss and adventure of childhood and adolescence.

E-learning is taking over much of the role of schools and universities. Open Universities, Distance Learning will dwarf classroom instruction. Beginning of a new University of Plato’s dream.

15. Our children will witness in their time the beginning of a post-capitalism order, environmental revolution, rise of growth centers and shift in economic dominance and order, more green technologies, and space exploration.

This is Renaissance in the new age.

16. Our children will continue looking for the missing links of science, history, religion, astronomy etc, among them the source of life itself and its link with the physical world.

Linking of disciplines, narrowing down the gaps of specializations, making of a new Man and culture.

17. Our children become more and more transient in domicile where work may require, and for personal reasons, and when given choice and opportunity in a global perspective, intermarriages notwithstanding.

“Citizen of the world” is a person without a specific country. He is therefore, "rootless," so to speak. Humans since creation are rooted politically, culturally – and principally, biologically.

18. Our children will have a family size of ideally 2 or 3 children, enabling them to achieve their goals and dreams in life. They will strengthen the middle class the prime mover of society.

A natural way of family planning and population planning, trend of industrialized countries.

19. Our children will clean the land, water and air we the generation before littered. They will heal the earth we defaced, damage. With generation gap closed, the task will be shared by all.

We must be good housekeepers of Mother Earth now.

20. Our children will be part of devolution of power, decentralization of authority, a new breed of more dedicated leaders.

Children hold the key to change. It’s the Little Prince that changed and saved the pilot in an ill-fated plane crash in Sahara.

21. Our children face acculturation and inter racial marriages. Mélange of races is on the rise – Eurasian, Afro-American, Afro-Asian, etc. – a homogenization process that reduces as a consequence natural gene pool.

Culturally and scientifically, this is dangerous. Homogenization leads to extinction of races and ultimately the species.

22. Our children will live simpler lives, going back to basics, preferring natural over artificial goods and services. In the long run they will be less wasteful than us.

There is always a hidden desire to escape when things get rough. This is instinct for survival either by detour or turning back.

23. Our children face the coming of the Horsemen of Apocalypse – consequence of human folly and frailty (nuclear, pollution, poverty). More than we grownups, they are more resilient to adapt to the test.

History tells us that this is true.

24. Postmodernism may do more harm than good for our children in a runaway technology and culture. They cannot and will not be able to keep with the pace and direction of change.

This is not true. “I am the master of my fate, I’m the captain of my soul.” And this is what we want our children to become – but only when they are CHILDREN OF NATURE. ~

* LESSON on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

 

Bioethics and Environment International Congress on Bioethics*: A Reaction

Bioethics and Environment 

 International Congress on Bioethics*: A Reaction

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog**

  

Macli-ing, a staunch protector of ancestral lands in Kalinga-Apayao; award on river conservation, a tribute. 

It is a special privilege to be a member of the panel of reactors in this international congress on bioethics. I am specially honored to react on the paper presented by a distinguished expert, Dr. Michael (Cheng-tak) Tai, a topic which deals with the greatest revolution that has ever gripped the world - a revolution which has no boundaries – physical, political, religious, cultural and economic – Environmental Revolution.

Environmental revolution has actually started with the age of industrialization, and it will take a very long time and a very complex process to be able to settle it. Environmental revolution does not pit man against nature, as it had been since the dawn of mankind. It is not the conventional revolution of society where man is pitted against man, or nation against nation for political reasons. It is not religious war. It is not a war of ideologies.

For the first time we humans must work together to preserve nature for the very survival of our species, and for the sake of saving Mother Earth, our only home and spaceship which carries all of us in our journey into the perilous unknown universe. It is a war we cannot afford to lose because it also spells the survival of the whole living world.

Let me state the some environmental concerns related to the topic of Dr. Tai’s paper, and relate them with current situations, understanding and outlook.

There are conflicting views of change.

Scientific knowledge and government policies often disagree and run into conflict at each other. Economics and ecology, though they share a common root word and foundation, are strange bedfellows, so to speak.

Yet these entities support common goals geared toward change. Change has to be viewed more than the measures of GNP, ROI, currency exchange rate, balance of trade, and the like, and should not only be confined to Human Development Indices, such as literacy rate, mortality rate and population density.

While these are considered immediate parameters mainly to benefit man and his society, certain questions on sustainability and environmental preservation are left unanswered. How do we ensure future generations. We feel more and more wary about the term progress. We ask ourselves what is “progress without conscience?” And whose development? What is the relationship between progress with posterity?

I remember the late Dr. Dioscorro Umali, national scientist, who addressed the graduating class of UP Diliman in 1992 with this moving statement, “Be the heroes we never were.” The essence of his speech is that the previous - and especially the present generation - have left little for the next generations to inherit. “We have not only abused the bounties of Nature,” he said, “we have destroyed her as well. The hero concept of Dr. Umali revolutionizes traditional and conventional definition of a hero. He is more than a nationalist, an economist, or an ideologist as we know, but a hero for Mother Earth, borrowing the term of Time Magazine.

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Today, rather than defending himself against nature, man realized, he needed to defend nature against himself.

- AV Rotor, Light from the Old Arch

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Who are heroes for Mother Earth?

Environmental movements have roots traced to ancient cultures as can be gleamed from our own centuries old Ifugao Rice Terraces. Throughout history as civilizations grew and spread the environment became a sacrificial lamb. Such euphoric phrases “all roads leading to Rome,” “the beauty that glory that was Greece, the grandeur that was Rome,” “the sun never sets on English soil,” and the eight wonders of the world may reflect man’s ultimate achievements, yet all these were ephemeral in the mist of time in man’s dreams. In the end, it was nature that took them from the hands of man. The loss of natural environments has lead to the decline of civilizations and their subsequent demise.

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Revival of environmental awareness came at the heels of the Renaissance. In the 12th century St. Francis of Assisi brought a new concept of devotion. Brother Sun, Sister Moon, and all the creatures on Earth our friends, laid down the foundation of naturalism in the Christian church reviving much of the Aristotelian naturalism. It is fitting that St. Francis of Assissi is regarded as the father of ecology.
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Time Magazine came up with a list of heroes for Planet Earth, among them are naturalist philosophers or conservationist philosophers are Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Rachel Carson.

• Ralph Waldo Emerson claimed that “behind nature, throughout nature, spirit is present.”



• Henry David Thoreau spoke of the side of “truth in nature and wilderness over the deceits of civilization.”

• Muir believed that “wilderness mirrors divinity, nourishes humanity, and vivifies the spirit.”

• Leopold was behind the development of policies in wilderness and game management.

“Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization.”


• Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, which dramatized the potential dangers of pesticides to food,
wildlife, and humans causing wide spread damage to the ecosystem.

• Chico Mendes was a front liner in environmental conservation. He lost his life defending the concept of “extractive reserves” to conserve the Brazilian Rainforest that provided livelihood of the people against the conversion of the forest into ranches and plantations.

Other heroes of planet Earth cited by Time include
• Barbara Ward, author of Only One Earth which shaped the UN environmental conference.

• Ernest Schumacher who did not believe in endless growth, mega-companies and endless
consumption, author of Small is Beautiful, a best seller since the sixties.

• Jacques-Yves Cousteau, oceanographer who espoused the need to arrest the declining health of the oceans.

In the Philippines, Macli-ing, a staunch protector of ancestral lands in Kalinga-Apayao from the encroachment of the mammoth Upper Chico River dam, was gunned down allegedly to silence him. All aver the world there are the likes of Macli-ing, like Chico Mendes, and Ken Saro-Wiwa, a leader from the Ogoni tribe, and many more who, we may compare to the Unknown Soldier, but this time a soldier in defense of nature.

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We must be prudent in endorsing people for their contributions to the environment until parameters are clearly set, and that we should allow time to make the final judgment. A case in point is DDT, the miracle pesticide against malaria in the forties and fifties. For this the discoverer received the Nobel Award. But in the following years it was discovered that DDT is a poison that persists in the food chain, making it harmful to living organisms and deleterious to human health. AVR
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People have varying opinions when defining Environmental Philosophy.

There are those who believe that nature shall serve humanity. On the other hand there are those who believe that humanity shall serve nature. And there are those who say, it is “something in between”.

Nature, growth, and progress are concepts that we all use, but which we seldom define either in discussion or to ourselves. We speak about environmental ethics, environmental philosophy, eco-philosophy, and so on, but what do we put into these concepts? We seldom make them explicit or draw conclusions from them. “Trying to answer these philosophical questions does not, of course, in itself solve any environmental problems,” say ecologists Enger and Smith, “but on the other hand it is questionable whether we can solve these problems without discussing them on a philosophical level.”

It is then important to view environmental philosophy with ethics and morals. Ethics is a branch of philosophy that seeks to define fundamentally what is right and what is wrong, regardless of cultural differences. Morals differ somewhat from ethics because morals reflects the predominant feelings of a culture about ethical issues.

How do we illustrate this? A student of mine asked me this question, “Is it a sin to cut a tree?” This question touches ethics and morals, above social and economic considerations. It also pertains to legislation, such as whether we should advocate total log ban or selective logging. It even boils down to analyzing a syndrome known as “tragedy of the commons.” Let us analyze it this way.

a. The naturalistic concept that trees are the source of life is losing its essence as communities grow, and as people tend to move and live in urban places. It is a concept that is being taken for granted even as people become learned. Yet since evolutionary time plants have been providing the basic needs of man – food, clothing, shelter, medicine and energy. The harvesting of plants and their products has been part of human sustenance, as such they must be used properly. This ethnic view was also the basis of early agriculture. It is the key to a sustainable relationship between man and nature that lasted for aeons of time.

b. Like Gold Rush, new lands became the target of economic exploitation, as the frontiers were pushed to the limit. New lands were placed under agriculture, which included our own Mindanao. Accessibility to forests and the wildlife became more and more feasible. Original forests were replaced with ranches, and plantations. Economics was the name of the game. In spurred the second green revolution, and agriculture dominated the trade and industry of the world. It eroded the ethnic relationship between man and nature. Beliefs about the tree spirit, forest deities (Maria Makiling), and nature worships have become mere superstitions and legends relegated to books and comics.

c. The final blow followed – industrialization. It is not only food that preoccupied man. Want over need incessantly drives man to convert lands into golf courses, human settlements, industrial sites, and all kinds of infrastructures. Imagine how easy, and how short a time it takes to destroy a whole forest which nature built for hundreds if not thousands of years, with giant machines of today. It is said that by the time we finish reading a paragraph of average length, three hectares of forest shall have been destroyed.

d. Post-modernism – a paradox of living tomorrow as we grope at the forefront of progressive innovation which usually means “violating traditional norms or ideas in all fields if human concern,” quoting Dr. Florentino Hornedo. “The human being who has abandoned his essence, nature and origin has also given up purpose and aim of existence. Life then becomes a “free play” of what forces may come which construct existence. Neither is there personhood or self to be ethically responsible for one’s action.”

I use this statement to raise questions of accountability of our actions, individually or by group. A businessman who is armed with a franchise to cut down a forest is understood to have accepted the attendant responsibility stipulated in the contract, which may include provisions in selective logging and replanting. But these are far from sufficient in providing the vital safety net of protecting the community and the environment.

I go back to the question, “Is it a sin to cut a tree?” This time the concept of the action has far reaching consequences based on the above-mentioned premises. I would return the question with reference to actual incidents.

• Who is responsible for the Ormoc City (Southern Leyte) tragedy caused by mudslide from a logged watershed? In this incident hundreds of residents were killed and millions of pesos were lost.

• The tragedy was repeated ten years after but on a lesser scale. As the perpetrators in the first tragedy have remained scot-free, so with those in the second tragedy.

• Five years have passed since the Real, Quezon, landslide that was similarly caused by massive illegal logging. What actions have government and society done?

• The Marinduque case of poisoning rivers and coastlines with mine tailings, which as a result, continue to destroy the ecosystem and deprive thousands of fisher folks from their livelihood. To date after twenty years the issue remains unsolved.

• Deserts continue to expand as a result of human activities. So with siltation of rivers and lake, shortening their usefulness and life span.

• Our Pantabangan dam, Ambuklao dam, and Binga dam, are heavily silted as a result of cutting down trees on their watershed. It is indeed a waste.

• All over the world we find similar cases: the shrinking of the Aral Sea in Russia, desertification, and marginalization of farmlands.

• The worst result in the endangerment of natural habitats and species, leading to irreversible loss of ecosystems and biodiversity.

All these lead us to re-examine our values. It challenges to look deeper into a paradigm of salvation through the regard we have on our environment.

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There are few frontiers of production left today. We have virtually pushed back the sea and leveled off the mountain. Prime lands have all been taken, swamps have been drained, and even deserts are being reclaimed. But as we continue to explore the marginal edges of these frontiers the more we are confronted with high cost of production that is levied on the consumer, and more importantly, the danger of destroying the fragile environment. AVR
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Ecological Paradigm (Why is Mother Earth complaining?)

The prolificacy of the human species sans war and pestilence, plus growing affluence of our society led to a population explosion which doubled in less than fifty years. We are now over six billion. This paradigm, master and subject have joined hands to exploit the earth’s finite resources. Our best economists may not be good housekeepers of Nature. While the aim is directed at the Good Life, they have unwittingly reduced the very foundation of that good life – the productivity and beauty of Mother Earth.

Ecological paradigm endorses an ecocentric approach where all forms of life and non-life are important to human life. Spirituality points out to a unitive force: the sacredness of everything. God’s divinity flows in everything. There is inte1gration in the universe. And we are part of that integration, exceedingly small as we are, notwithstanding.

Under ecological paradigm of salvation, the man responsible in the destruction of the environment leading to loss of lives and properties should be held accountable for it. Salvation does not come easy in this particular case, because he is not only responsible for the actual loss, but in healing nature back to health, so to speak. He cannot just get away with his ill-gotten wealth, he has to use it – among other resources - to amend his wrong doings.

Business versus Environment.

The environment and the economy need not be viewed as opposites. It is possible to have a healthy environment and a healthy economy at the same time. More and more businesses have begun adopting this concept as a business philosophy. People behind business organizations are becoming more aware of the ethical decisions they face, and their responsibility for their consequences.

A multi-national corporation, responding to the provisions of GRI (Global Reporting Initiative), CERES (Coalition of Environmental Responsible Economies), UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program), came up with the following thrusts:

• Restore and preserve the environment
• Reduce waste and pollution
• Education of the public on environmental conservation
• Work with government for sound and responsible environmental program
• Assess impact of business on the environment and communities.

More and more businesses are looking at this model with favor.
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Industrialization and urbanization are akin to each other. Industrial growth spurred the building of cities all over the world. Today there are as many people living in cities as those living the rural places. A mega-city like Tokyo has a population of 15 million people. We are 10 million in Metro Manila. Cities are fragile environments. Cities are more prone to epidemics such as the bubonic plague that killed one-third of the population of Europe. Now we are confronted with HIV-AID, SARs, meningo cochcimia – and the dreaded Avian flu which hovers as the next human pandemic disease. AVR
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Antarctica, World Park.

One of the few places on earth unexploited by humans is Antarctica. Not now, not until recently. With the Antarctic Treaty of 1991 declares that “Antarctica shall be open to all nations to conduct scientific or other peaceful activities there,” seven countries have already laid overlapping claims on the continent, which comprises one-tenth of the world’s total land area. Thousands of tourists are now visiting Antarctica every year. Scientific research is economically motivated, such as oil exploration, with geopolitical or military objectives in mind. Earlier – in the 1970s New Zealand proposed designating an Antarctica World Park, making it an international wilderness area. On the ecological point of view, Antarctica is fragile with simple and short food chains that support few organisms such as the penguin, whales, shrimp-like krill. Any slight disturbance is likely to upset the delicate balance. We have already caused the growing hole of the ozone layer above Antarctica through unabated release of CFCs , and fossil-fuel combustion worldwide.

Would humanity be better served by developing the natural resources of Antarctica than turning it into a world park and preserve its ecological balance? We also ask the same question to areas similar to Antarctica, such as the pristine wildlife of Canada, Greenland, the Yukon Territories, the unexplored islands of the Pacific, and main Amazon Basin.

Kyoto Protocol on Greenhouse Gases.

On December 10, 1997, 160 nations reached agreement in Kyoto, Japan, to limit emission of CO2 and other gases in order to arrest Greenhouse Effect threatening the whole world. But not all countries, signed the treaty, among them the US and Australia. Actually the Kyoto Protocol is not new. In 1992, some 170 countries ratified a similar treaty reducing emission of gases to the level of 1990 by 2000, but this did not yield the desired result.

Ecology and Stock Exchange.

In 2000, Earth Sanctuaries was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, making it the world’s first conservation company to go public. We know that conservation efforts have been conventionally under foundations and government projects. But this time this intriguing approach to conserving the environment has raised as lot of questions. Does the market place really have a role in habitat preservation? Is this approach really conserving natural ecosystem or just creating large zoos? Would we rather save and give our children good education that helps rescue an endangered animal? Indeed the conflict between maximizing profits and conservation raises ethical issues.

Ecology advertising.

In the supermarket we find tags, organically grown, environment-friendly, eco-safe, environmentally safe, children-safe, ozone-friend, and so on. But are these claims true? Consider the following:

• Look for the three-phase symbol of recycling – three interacting arrows to form a triangle.
• When buying a refrigerator or aircoinditioner get the one that is freon-free, ozone friendly. Be sure the purchase is covered by company guarantee.
• Producers of food claimed to be safe, such as organically grown, must be able to show a reliable track record. It is good to trace the source of food that we eat, from beginning with production to processing, and ultimately to the dining table.
• Even materials claimed to be biodegradable, photo-degradable, and the like, may not be readily converted into safe materials. As a general rule, save money from “over-packaged” commodities, and you save the environment as well. Don’t be misled by package advertising, how attractive it may appear.

*Environmental Ethics: Human Life and the Environment, December 5-7, 2005

**Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

References

Rotor AV (2004) The Living with Nature Handbook, UST 207 pp
Rotor AV (2001) Light from the Old Arch, UST, 215 pp
Enger ED and BF Smith (1992) Environmental Science: A Study on Interrelationship, McGraw NY 486 pp
Scherff JS et al (1991) The Mother Earth Handbook: What you need to know and do – at home, in your community, and through your church – to help heal our planet now, Continuum 320 pp