A Reminder about Forests

[mcar]

On our way to the Quirino’s wilderness, we noticed this one:


One of the caretakers in this area said that gold mining will be established soon. They say that gold and other precious minerals are just deeply covered by the mountains in the site; good opportunities await as well for enhancing the livelihood of the nearby barangays. Yet they were afraid of the effects eventually if ever mining in this area would take place.

[Draco]

You know what these people are like, they'll mine as much gold as they can and won't care about the damage they do.
It is the same sort of thing with hard woods, people don't care how many trees they cut down as long as they can get hard woods to sell.

[alextemplet]

Governments should take a more active role in balancing economic and environmental concerns. There are many third world countries where the poor will be unemployed and thus starve to death if mining or some other inudstry or agriculture does not take place, yet this should not mean that the government should not work to establish a balance between the good of the people and the good of the environment.

[mcar]

I certainly agree. The government should be a body that serves for the humanity and security of its territory as socially and naturally. I am really hoping that better things will soon take place, not as always that they are just exisiting as promises. I hope that the situation in Quirino's protected area will favor both the goodness of its people and their environment as well.

[February Beetle]

So who are you voting for, Alex?

[AstusAleator]

Big Mining and Logging in 3rd-world areas is primarily done by foreign interests, and the locals only see a small percentage of the overall profits.

Social entrepreneurship is becoming more of a big deal these days. It would be nice to see someone go into an area like this, teach the locals how to mine in a minimally invasive and destructive way, and then give them a loan to cover the initial startup costs. This way, we're promoting local economies, while not giving way to big interests that have no concern whatsoever about the environment.

[mith]

You can't fix everything while corrupt governments are around. Those contract moneys are supposed to help the people there, but usually end up going to sweden

[alextemplet]

Corruption and government are almost synonomous; you can't have one without the other. Independent charities and humanitarian organizations can play a useful role, provided they do not fall too heavily under government influence.