Iloilo community gets P77-M grant

ENVIRONMENT leaders from France and American nonprofit environmental group Conservation International (CI) have signed a grant agreement for the allocation of 1.5 million euros (about P77 million) for a program to boost community resilience in Iloilo.

The project, which will focus on the Municipality of Concepcion in Iloilo, is also expected to directly improve the livelihood in this part of the Visayas region.

According to CI, the said grant will specifically be allocated for the development of “green/gray infrast ructure,” meaning that the project will see the construction of both natural defenses such as mangroves, and man-made structures like coastal armoring and small levees.

Ricky Nunez, country executive director of Conservation International Philippines, said in an e-mail that the project was a grant to CI by the Fonds Français pour l’Environnement Mondial or French Fund for Global Environment (FFEM), a public fund that was set up to promote protection of the global environment in developing countries.

The grant will be managed jointly by CI Philippines and the Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB) of the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

“The BMB is the prime partner of CI in implementing this project. The DENR, local government of Concepcion, and CI provided complementary support to this project. A project steering committee that will be led by BMB shall be set up with members from other national and local government agencies, including the private sector,” Nunez said.

The agreement was signed at Le Bourget by FFEM general secretary Francois-Xavier Duporge, and CI chairman and CEO Peter Seligmann. It was witnessed by Ségolène Royal, French Minister of Ecology, and Nereus Acosta, Philippine Presidential Adviser for Environmental Protection, who also affixed their signatures to the grant agreement.

“This two-pronged approach outlined for the grant is crucial. Seventy percent of Filipinos depend on agriculture and the oceans. The only social security they have is nature,” Acosta said.