Another glimpse of sustainable living

Madrid, Spain – While the advocacy for a sustainable world has its fair share of challenges, which obviously need not be enumerated, it also offers distinctly unexpected yet remarkable perquisites. The constant opportunity to meet and learn from outstanding personalities and global leaders in various fields of endeavor is one.

The other is the privilege to travel and appreciate more our lovely home planet, our co-inhabitants and the various cultures that help shape the behavior of people. To say that one is changed forever from each experience and encounter is an understatement.

Traveling the past days in various places in Spain gave this columnist another glimpse of how it is to live in a sustainable place. Two months after the inspiring Tarragona experience, which was the subject of my July 7 column entitled “Tarragona, a Sustainability Exemplar”, I am amazed and definitely envious that its distinct character of livability is replicated in the new places in Spain that I have been to.
Sevilla, Cadiz, San Sebastian, Bilbao and Madrid offer spacious pathways and bike lanes for their constituents. The sustainable mass transit system makes commuting via train and bus easier and faster.

Buses have cleaner fuel. Families and friends of various ages walk and congregate in pedestrianized streets. Trade is flourishing as people gaily drop by stores and relish precious moments in assorted eating places.

The determination to shift to cleaner energy is manifest in the huge and carbon-free wind farms and solar panels in the areas in Cadiz. Always, the question why the leadership in tropical Philippines is blind to its benefits haunts.

As sunny weather prevailed, the invigorated citizens enjoyed the public beaches and the plastic and waste-free sea. The waters in San Sebastian were so clear that a certain species of fish, six or seven inches, in length can be seen swimming, with the naked eye.

Unlike the disheartening situation in our country, the hotels did not obstruct the view of the seascapes and were never a nuisance, maintaining instead a respectable distance from the shores.

The trip to Bilbao was particularly stirring, as it re-affirmed the belief that change is possible, despite the seemingly insurmountable odds. From an industrialized and highly polluted place where mining and industries dominated the way of life and left the rivers and the sea biologically dead and the air dirty, Bilbao has been transformed and has become a model for sustainable living.

The economic crisis triggered openings for the leaders and inhabitants alike to think out of the box and commit to a safe and an ecologically sustainable future. It chose eco-tourism, arts and culture as springboards to prosperity without sacrificing the environment and the quality of life of its people.

Bilbao hosts the world-famous Guggenheim Museum, which draws a million visitors annually. One cannot even imagine the river now teeming with life to be the dirty and hazardous waterway that it once was.

When do we realize that it is no longer an option not to think long-term, and to do away with the short-sighted goal of immediate profits that are too often harmful to our natural life support systems?

The news regarding the planned conversion of Bantayan Island as a wildlife area into substantially alienable and disposable land is sad. Doing so would have predictably devastating consequences from human activities such as pollution and coastal development on fisheries, livelihood and biodiversity.

Has there been a thorough assessment on the over-all impacts on the Visayan Sea and Tañon Strait Protected Seascapes, of which it is a part, and the threats to the species therein? Did they consider that Tañon Strait is a high priority conservation area for reef fishes and cetaceans?

Decades after the laws require authorities to plan and adopt, there is not even a management plan for both nor is there a genuine protected area management board for Tañon Strait, as specifically required by RA 7586, the National Integrated Protected Areas System Act of 1992.

Was it just a few months ago that the governors of the province of Cebu, Masbate, Iloilo and Negros Occidental committed to protect our fisheries and seas? Does this conversion of Bantayan Island not contradict the said commitment?

At a time when more protected areas and seascapes should have been prioritized, it is lamentable that its reduction is even contemplated.

Would it be sensible to turn a fragile island ecosystem into a bustling hub of economic activities, despite our high vulnerability to climate change and being tagged as “the hottest of the hot spots in species and habitat loss and destruction?”

President Aquino is visiting Spain, Brussels, France and Germany this week. Let us hope that his journey to these countries, which are way ahead of us in making sustainability a way of life, will rub off on him and the political authorities.

The words of author Neil Galman can perhaps stir us to rethink about saving our future and those of our children’s:

“We have an obligation to make things beautiful. Not to leave the world uglier than we found it, not to empty the oceans, not to leave our problems for the next generation. We have an obligation to clean up after ourselves, and not leave our children with a world we’ve shortsightedly messed up, shortchanged, and crippled.”