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Meet Davao’s ‘Watershed Warriors’

Published: April 25, 2007   |     |     |   Subscribe: RSS or Email    

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Bonding for the Watershed. Participants to the youth camp in one of their activities. (davaotoday.com photo by Alberto P. Egot Jr.)

As part of te WMYC’s Earth Month activity, members visited the Tamayong area of the watershed and saw for themselves the consequences of human activities that disturb the balance of nature, such as the indiscriminate throwing of garbage and littering.

The WMYC has earned recognitions for its advocacy. Last year, they were chosen as one of the Ten Accomplished Youth Organizations (TAYO) in the country, an award given by the National Youth Commission, for its campaign titled “Youth Working Towards Saving Davao Drinking Water, the Source of Life.”

The campaign, according to a statement from the Davao City Water District, “summarizes the youth’s constant pressure and lobbying efforts to institutionalize their concern on watershed issues stipulated in their open letter which calls on the government to strengthen laws, enact appropriate and useful forestry laws, enforce current policies on illegal logging and protected areas, provide young and healthy forest guards, to prosecute errant government personnel who violate forestry laws and to stop immediately the banana and pineapple plantation expansions in the third congressional district.”

The campaign successfully lobbied for the declaration by the City Councol of theTamugan-Panigan and other watershed areas as “Environmentally Critical Areas.”

Dream On. A participant enjoys some solitude near the turbine of the old dam in Malagos. (davaotoday.com photo by Alberto P. Egot Jr.)

It also led to a “terrain analysis” by the City Planning Development Office which in turn helped the authorities plan a more effective strategy to save the watershed.

In 2004, the WMYC also received the TAYO award for its campaign, “Saving Davao City’s Drinking Water.” This initiative, the DCWD said, “was cited for their vigilant action in pressuring the City Council to issue a resolution for the immediate stoppage of the banana plantation operating within Mt. Apo Natural Park last July 10, 2003 after two years of lobbying and mobilizing efforts.”

At their early age, the WMYC environmentalists are very much aware of the big issues concerning the environment. “I would like to encourage all the youths out there to please join us,” said Patrick Pag-ong, WMYC’s president. “The next generation will benefit from what we do now.

For WMYC member Daniel Arpafo, the group’s president last year, his contribution to helping the environment does not end with his tenure. “I will continue what I have begun,” he said. “I will protect nature. I will protect the watershed.” (Alberto P. Egot Jr./davaotoday.com)