Improving coastal resource management reduces disaster risk: Plan Germany replicates successful approach in the Philippines

In November 2009, Plan Germany started a new two-year project on disaster risk reduction in the Philippines. It is implemented in the Camotes Group of Islands (CGI) in Central Visayas and covers all four of the region’s municipalities.

The project links disaster risk reduction (DRR) and improved coastal resource management (CRM) recognising the fact that environmental degradation enhances vulnerability to natural hazards. The project is co-financed by the Federal Foreign Office for the Federal Republic of Germany, which contributes 122.381 Euros to the total projects costs of 135.979 Euros. It is built on the experience from a similar project successfully implemented by Plan in Eastern Samar and funded by the same donor.

The Philippines is an archipelago of 7,107 islands and one of the most disaster prone countries in the world. The most frequent disasters are floods, typhoons, monsoon rains, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal surges, tidal waves, tsunamis and landslides, which affect above all the people living in the numerous coastal areas. Risk for disaster is aggravated by widespread poverty and environmental degradation especially of coastal environments combined with low levels of awareness and knowledge on disaster risk among the population as well as a lack of preparedness on the part of government authorities.

The Camotes Group of Islands is located in the middle of the Camotes Sea in the north-eastern part of Cebu Province in Central Visayas. Thirty-eight out of the CGI’s 56 villages are located along the coast where fishing is the main source of livelihood. Even though the CGI were declared a mangrove swamp forest reserve in 1981, degradation and destruction of the coastal habitats through over-exploitation and illegal practices, such as dynamite fishing, has continued and large parts of the mangrove forests and coral reefs are in a critical condition today.

However, these coastal resources are of major importance for disaster mitigation as they protect coastal areas from erosion and flooding. With climate change and the expected rise of sea levels, their importance in this regard will further increase in the future.

The project will conduct education and information activities at 58 primary and 14 secondary schools and with the communities. Introductory Courses on CRM and DRR will be held for 40 fisher and 24 children’s groups. Public campaigns and activities like an environment month and international coastal clean-up day will offer opportunities for community members to become actively involved with the topics and the project.

A set of different training activities will enhance local capacities for disaster preparedness and disaster management. Members of fisher and children’s groups, teachers and members of an emergency response team, to be established through the project, will receive training from DRR and CRM trainers as well as on first aid, search and rescue or organisation management. This will depend on the individual's role to be fulfilled, on completion of the project, with regard to disaster preparedness. Eight of the coastal villages most at risk will receive a four-stage progressive training on community based DRR, while the remaining 48 villages will receive basic training on the topic.

A number of other activities will complement the capacity building component of the project: equipping of the disaster Response Team; installation of a community based early warning system involving simple instruments to measure rainfall and wind; review of existing regulations with regard to coastal resource management and support to community based organisations in lobbying for improvements; conduction of a participative coastal resource assessment; development of community risk maps and community lead monitoring of the 13 existing marine protected areas.

All project activities will be conducted in a participative manner and in close cooperation with relevant local authorities. Enhanced resilience to the effects of natural disasters achieved through the project will benefit the entire CGI population of more than 89,000.