Reduce
Foulshot
It was tagged as national coordinating council of old as its task was primarily to do coordination among and between disaster councils at all levels, from the barangay, municipality, city, province and region. The label was changed recently as one for disaster risk reduction, impliedly to employ strategies to reduce the risk of disasters. Such entity is given the powers and logistics to be prepared at all times to administer interventions that would, above all else, reduce risk upon persons and properties in times of calamities and disasters. It presumably does functions it used to, chiefly, coordination with its counterparts at the local levels.
The disaster council is an entity that functions occasionally, mainly during calamities and disasters. It is, akin to the election commission, dormant during long periods. By the nature of such occasional task, it is expected to be ready when needed, preparing during the long periods of inactivity. Unfortunately, cramming seems the convenient strategy that it is often caught unprepared when calamities and disasters strike.
If the recent calamity that hit provinces in Luzon is to be the yardstick, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council and its local counterparts deserve to be reduced to insignificance as it utterly failed to reduce risk of the recent disaster. It was practically caught in deep slumber as tremendous volume of water inundated communities, drowning peoples, animals and crops. The floods wrought devastation upon homes, farms and infrastructure that is now being touted as having exceeded the havoc brought by typhoon Ondoy.
Viewed from such backdrop, people may be swayed to accept the suggestion that the recent typhoon is indeed more devastating than Ondoy. But a closer look at the situation may led us to the fact that there may just have been lapses if not utter failure by the agencies concerned to reduce the impact and destruction of the typhoon and floods. In the first place, the flood now appears as a human error in terms of managing water resources.
By and by, we reach the realization that the huge funds allocated to the government agency tasked primarily to reduce the risk of disaster, It failed to manage water resources, resulting in the onslaught of voluminous waters that wrecked homes and entire communities. No reduction had ever been felt by the people, especially those who suffered from the floods that submerged their homes and destroyed their properties.
On the contrary, the risk brought by the disaster even increased which caused tremendous devastation upon hapless people who were caught in the middle of inundations. It seems timely to reduce the council to oblivion for failing to reduce risks of disaster that it is primarily mandated to perform. What we saw was a council doing data gathering of the extent of damage caused by the disaster, a manifest indication of its failure to perform disaster risk reduction.
Comments to alellema@hotmail.com
By: Al Ellema
- Excited
- Fascinated
- Amused
- Bored
- Sad
- Angry
Short URL: http://leytesamardaily.net/?p=19983
Posted by 
Emanuel Cukaj says
Graeme Hall SwampDuring the most recent cycle of erosion at Sandy Beach, I refrained from asking: Who owns Worthing Beach now? It is about Graeme Hall Swamp and the adjacent marine environment that I write again.With regard to recent press, explicit self-interest is readily dismissed. Sometimes blatant statements are far more insidious because readily missed! Take the Graeme Hall national park plan, for example. When we erase the “white elephants” decorating the edge of the plan, we are left with the stark reality. The entire plan, it seems evident, is to prevent sewerage from entering Graeme Hall Nature Sanctuary. The plan describes the destruction of a large area of fresh water sedge habitat that waterbirds of many kinds rely on for feeding to be replaced with a “fishing lake” (sewerage catchment) that will be useless for birds. All this on the Government-owned east side of the wetland!Further, the plan favours human recreation use over biotic conservation. Loss of foraging habitat and increased human disturbance will spell disaster for the ecological integrity of the wetland. The Ramsar Convention Status mandates “wise management.” The destruction of valuable wildlife habitat has no place near the category of wise management. Our Governments have been very wise to ignore this proposal. Unfortunately, some locals endorsed the idea of a national park at Graeme Hall Swamp without critical analysis or cross-examination of the plan.Mr. Allard cites lack of Government interest in the plan as influencing his decision to close the Sanctuary. There are alternative explanatory hypotheses, but, again, I will refrain. Without doubt Graeme Hall Swamp requires a greater level of local protection. The wetland is internationally recognised by the Ramsar Convention as of global importance and most recently by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area. I would not want anyone to “give” me a new “free” sluice gate to get tangled up in strings. However, a functioning sluice gate and provision to move sand blocking the gate are fundamental to the health of the swamp’s ecosystem and the adjacent marine environment. A Management Committee for Graeme Hall Swamp urgently requires reincarnation! An inter-disciplinary committee of informed, objective, dedicated people whose overall mandate is conservation of what is left of the ecological integrity of the wetland, is the place to start.The fact is that the more frequently the gate is opened, the less obnoxious the discharge. Further, the more seawater that gets into the swamp, the healthier the swamp and the discharge. Any surfer knows that under certain conditions of tide, wind direction, and sea swell that sea water will get into the swamp. Several times over the last six years I have seen sea water come up the canal, under the road, and into the mangroves. A reliable witness reports this to be the case on the evening of Friday, October 17, 2008!Next, during the most recent (not last) cycle of erosion at Sandy Beach, the “rebuilding” of the beach demonstrated the authorities’ priority. To quote an unknown graffiti poet: “Every time history repeats itself, the price goes up!” Does anyone remember when Mr. “Sonny” Edghill moored a large houseboat barge off Sandy Beach that Uncle Vincent Burke towed through the channel in the reef and into the lagoon? This was before human changes to the shoreline east of Sandy Beach slowed and deflected the inshore current that scoured the lagoon of excess sand. These were the days of sand dollars, sea grass beds, music shells and bivalve mollusks thriving in the lagoon at Sandy Beach.Quite obviously, when the sluice gate was installed it was at the historical high tide mark not the current one. This artefact would better be relocated and displayed at the Barbados Museum. It is a simple matter to manage a new automated sluice gate to facilitate discharge of swamp water and recharge with oxygen-rich sea water. Depending on sea conditions, discharge at night and recharge by day! Does anyone remember the floods of October late 1970s? When floodwater was coming own Bush Hill and Garrison Hill like Kaiteur Falls? Does anyone remember how GHS flooded surrounding areas? Surely it is time for an automated gate that can be operated by a single person. Who is going to pump what where when the Sewerage Plant is under floodwater?Were the Government-owned east side of the wetland to be restored to look like an old shooting swamp, it would do two things. One, it would increase the numbers and species of waterbirds feeding there and so increase the ecological value. And, two, it would significantly decrease the numbers of mosquitoes breeding there. Do not forget the Greek root “eco” meaning “house” at the base of both ecology and economy. Our house is our environment. To “externalize” environmental costs, as in conventional economic theory, is, to put it nicely, short sighted.What is my agenda? Protecting the ecological integrity of Graeme Hall Swamp and the adjacent marine environment. Remember when Sir David Seale had a really fast colt named Local Knowledge? Well, without doubt university degrees are important, but local knowledge is key. “One-Eye-Jack is King in Blind-Man-Country,” for short, but not for long.Wayne “doc” Burke
Arminda Kuper says
Jenny said: “He or she is obvs not the intended audience.”
maths tricks says
Stousse rightly highlights some outrageous problems with education in this country and then consistent with his right wing conservative bias use them to argue for dismantling the “monopoly” of public education with vouchers and competitive free market capitalism to run our schools.
maths tricks says
Good day! I simply would like to give an enormous thumbs up for the nice info you’ve got right here on this post. I might be coming again to your blog for extra soon.