UN allots P45M for Benguet projects

LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – The United Nations–Food and Agriculture Office has earmarked $950,000 or at least P45 million for the pilot testing of climate change vulnerability in Benguet and Ifugao for appropriate adaptation programs and projects to help mitigate negative effects of global warming on the region’s food and productivity of residents.

Benguet and Ifugao were chosen by the FAO to pilot test its climate change adaptation of communities in contiguous ecosystems because of the fragile condition of the ecosystems in said areas.

Because of demand for the implementation of appropriate climate change adaptation measures for food security and productivity, stakeholders signed an agreement with the Department of Agriculture to support the FAO-funded project which is expected to commence in the next few months.

The foreign-funded project aims to improve climate change coping mechanisms in the Cordillera through the pilot testing of various schemes with national up-scaling potential.

After the two-year project, concerned researchers will have developed climate change vulnerability tools and a multi-sectoral adaptation strategy for the different calamity-stricken areas of the region.

The climate change and disaster risk reduction measures are part of the national government’s effort to download the development of vulnerability measures that are applicable to the terrain nationwide.

The Cordillera is one of the areas which is said to be expected to suffer from the serious negative effects of climate change which started to take its wrath in different parts of the world, thus, regional line agencies and local governments are committed to support whatever undertakings to mitigate the effects of global warming, especially in the rural areas.

Earlier, the Regional Development Council in the Cordillera mandated all local government units and concerned regional line agencies to fast-track the formulation of appropriate climate change adaptation and disaster risk management measures for the protection of the lives of the people and their sources of livelihood.

The region’s policy-making body is seriously monitoring the development of the climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction measures in their respective places so that future losses in lives and damage to properties as well as the deprivation of the sources of income of the people could be remedied.

Based on studies conducted by concerned line agencies on the state of the Cordillera which was submitted to the RDC, it was found out that its mountainous terrain which comprise almost 85 percent of the region are vulnerable to soil erosion and landslides because of the rapid denudation of the forests. – Dexter A. See