Authorities have raised urgency for enacting into law a bill instituting national land use and management, noting development nationwide must be guided and controlled accordingly to help promote Philippine resilience amidst the changing climate.
”We must have a National Land Use Act (NLUA) because climate change is reality and we’re already experiencing its effects,” Climate Change Commission Commissioner Naderev Saño said Wednesday during a briefing on the campaign to enact such bill.
Experts already cited sea level and temperature rise as well as onslaught of weather extremes as climate change’s repercussions on the Philippines.
They noted warming sea temperature contributed to formation of super typhoon “Yolanda” (international name ‘Haiyan’), the deadly howler which rammed Central Philippines on Nov. 8 this year and destroyed nearly everything on its path.
Saño is supporting calls for Malacanang to certify NLUA as urgent so areas can be planned and developed in accordance with this overall guide.
Adherence to NLUA will help address further occurrence of improper land use and land use conversion which are among the factors increasing areas’ vulnerability to natural hazards, including those from climate change.
”Climate change’s repercussions further highlight need for proper planning to bring forth a resilient Philippines,” Saño said.
Resiliency is the ability of a hazard-exposed system, community or society to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover from effects of that hazard in a timely and efficient manner, including through preservation and restoration of its essential basic structures andfunctions, noted UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.
Dinagat Islands Rep. Kaka Bag-ao is the 16th Congress’ principal author of House Bill No. 108 which seeks to establish a national land use and management policy for the country.
She filed the bill earlier, noting “erratic climate change with worsening of disasters, the looming food and water crises, foreign land grabbing and conflicting claims call for strong and immediate proper utilization and management of land resources as the key to national development in the 21st century.”
A land use law will identify areas for protection, production, settlements and infrastructure purposes to bring forth sustainable development, she noted.
”There’s no such guide at present, however,” she said at the briefing.
Legislators already discussed the matter for over two decades but the proposed law remains pending in Congress, Bag-ao noted.
HB 108 delineates protection, production, settlement andinfrastructure land use categories and promotes people’s increased participation in land use planning.
Land use expert Dr. Elmer Mercado believes government must already enact the bill as people’s survival is at stake. [PNA]
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