CHAPTER 9 THE ECONOMICS OF ECOLOGY Sub: True value must not be measured in terms of economics, but in terms of whether

or not it is good for man, his spirit and his planet PART I: Man and Matter Sub: With consumption at an all-time high, man must examine the real cost of materialism to his environment RECALL that the root of the words ecology and economics is Eco, which comes from the word oikos, which the Greeks used to describe their home. The home, of course, is the blue planet made up of land, air, and water. These are the elements that sustain life on Earth. The subject of ecology relates to the proper functioning of those natural systems that make up that careful balance of life. On the other hand, the subject of economics is actually only a human invention, relating to the material provision of humans extracted from the elements of life. While economics depends on ecology, ecology itself is indifferent to economics. The so-called law of supply and demand is certainly not a law. Rather, it is a mental attitude, a mindset of economists that actually reflects an ugly side of the human being. Greed is an emotion and a tendency that need not be allowed to take the reins of the human character. If greed is intrinsic to human nature, it is equally true that humankind is capable of the greatest goodness. He strives for things greater than sensory satisfaction, for things much greater simply working for the accumulation of material things. To be truly developed as a human being, and as a people, the proper measure of development need not be per capita income, GNP or GDP. The proper measure of development is one that would take into account the general well being of the people concerned. For lack of a better term, let us call it genuine human development. At the very basic level, this includes the ability to meet basic material needs. But man must also be provided with opportunities to educate his brain, emotions, and human conduct to such a level and degree as to, at least, approximate goodness and God-ness. Humans have basic necessities: food, shelter and clothing. After filling these basic needs, humans must have chances for the education of mind and

nourishment of spirit. In recent years, countries have been classified as developed or developing, First World or Third World. The sole criterion used is the level of economic development. By this standard alone, the United States of America, Japan, Britain, and Germany are classified as developed. Countries like the Philippines, Indonesia and Bhutan are considered underdeveloped, or, in more diplomatic language, developing. The gauge of development consists of economic indicators such as per capita income, gross national product (GNP) and gross domestic product (GDP). The real costs The elements of lifeair, water, and soilhave always been treated as givens. In the language of economists, these are the assumptions. What is even worse is that they have been treated as free. The natural resources of land, air, and water took billions of years to form. Because these resources were seemingly of such great abundance, they were thought to be cost-free. In law, these natural things which we consider the elements of life are also known as public goods and cannot owned by anyone. In legal language, this is called res communis. As such, they are presumed to be owned by the entire community, entrusted to the State by society at large, for the latter to wisely manage. However, the idea of common ownership, as practiced, is quite puzzling. It seems that because the natural elements are not owned by anyone, they are usedand often abusedby everyone. Picture a pasture land being used for common grazing by all the shepherds in the area. Because it is open and free, the shepherds think only of the grass that their sheep can eat from the pasture land, so they let loose as many sheep as they can and let them graze as much as they can. In time, however, the grassland becomes over-grazed, degraded and unproductive. In the end, because everyone cared only about his own sheep and how much he could get from the land, everyone met the same fate and tragedy. This is called the tragedy of the commons. The present system of measuring economic progress and development, of using only the measures of economic consumption, is basically wrong. In the hierarchy of needs, economics takes care only of the body. It is wrong to

consider a country developed because of the rate of its consumption of material goods. The fact that the elements of air, soil, and water are in seeming abundance and available to everyone gives the impression that they are for free. Also, because they are apparently without cost, the users of air, land, and water do not incorporate the cost of their degradation into the production costs and the price of goods that are sold and consumed. Let us take the price of rice or sugar. The price of this commodity does not incorporate the value of the soil that was eroded due to the hoeing and harrowing. Nor does it take into account the cost and value of the plant and animal lives that were lost by the conversion of the once multi-vegetated land into a mono-cultivated farmland. Nor does the price of rice and sugar take into account the true value of water that was used to nourish the crop by irrigation. In the same vein, the users of water in towns and cities are charged only for the cost of collecting and distributing water to their homes or establishments. They are not charged for the irreversible cost of extracting the water from the underground or from the atmosphere. The laws of nature tell us that there must be a price to this. The cost of depleting resources was not factored into the economic price of the commodity used. Because these costs are outside the existing economic equation when computing the cost of the product, they are called cost externalities or hidden costs. In economic terms, when a product fails to account for major costs, there is a gross price failure. In order to ensure that a product manufactured with the use of the natural elements reflects the closest approximation to its true cost and value, the mechanism of price must be used carefully, and well. Proper pricing will also ensure that the product, especially if it comes from an irreplaceable and non-renewable resource, is not wasted. By definition, to consume means to use up and to spend. According to the dictionary, the synonyms of the word consume are: to waste, to squander, and to destroy. There lies a serious fault-line in our understanding and treatment of the physical and natural world around us. We take the material things from the Earth, use them up, and then throw them away as waste. All this looks fine

and well, at least until we begin to realize that the store of these material things is, after all, quite limited. Once removed from the Earth, these materials will never again return to their original state. We must realize that the steel that we use in cars and buildings, and the oil that we burn in our power plants and vehicles, will never again become the iron ore or the oil deposit of the underground from whence they were taken. The very meaning of the word consumption means not just using, but using up and thereby wasting our natural resources. By its very definition, therefore, consumption cannot be sustainable, and the term sustainable consumption is therefore a contradiction of terms. Even in the realm of economics, a society that consumes more of a commodity than it produces is insecure, irresponsible, immature, and can certainly not be considered developed. A secure, responsible, mature and developed economy is one that follows the closed system of ecological order. In a closed ecological system, all things used are restored and reused, and nothing is wasted. Because it is wrong to call the materially wasteful countries more developed, we will henceforth stop referring to them as industrialized or developed economies. One is tempted to use the word wastrel, but that would be offensive. To neutralize its emotional content, we will simply call them highly-consuming economies. Indeed, if it takes 36 Filipinos to use up the same amount of energy consumed by a single North American, Filipinos do not mind being called a low-consuming people. We look at the US as the model of economic progress and the paradigm of material development. It is a capitalist economy based on the be lief that the market dictates, i.e., whatever the market wants, the market gets. On the surface, it looks like an ideal society with big, shiny cars purring along wide roads and spacious houses furnished with appliances. A study done recently revealed that if we, all the six billion people in the world today, were all to live like the people in the USA, we would need about nine Earths. Because this is simply not possible, reality dictates that we cannot, and should not, live like the Americans. When we walk along a wet path, we leave behind footprints. In the economics of ecology, we also leave ecological footprints. The size of this

footprint is measured by the amount of land needed to provide the resources to satisfy the material needs of a human population. For example, small as The Netherlands may be in terms of land area and population, its pattern of resource consumption is such that it would need an area 17 times more than its own just to fill its need for energy, food, and forestry products. While it is only about 45,000 sq km, it needs something like 800,000 sq kms. To feed its people, for example, The Netherlands had to import four million tons of cereal, 13,000 tons of oil, 480,000 tons of peas, beans and lentils in a period of less than five years. The same is true for London, Hong Kong, New York City and other highly consuming cities of the world. If food security is a basic measure of good governance, a country that cannot grow its own food is not secure. What we consume There are three commodities that serve as a barometer of the level of a societys material consumption: oil, paper, and metals. These are what economists erroneously look at when trying to distinguish between a developed and a developing country. 1. EnergyThe world is now burning about 67 million barrels of oil and millions of tons of coal per day. Because matter cannot be destroyed, that volume of solid matter that is burned and broken up results in an equivalent volume of gas and residual ash that finds its way into the air around us. The light bulbs in our houses, the air-conditioning in our offices, and the gasoline that fuels our cars are tools of modern living that we cannot seem to do without. As an index of economic development, energy consumption is used as a measure: the more the energy consumed per person, the more developed a country is erroneously thought to be. We complain about the increasing price of gasoline and diesel. There is really nothing that the oil company can do. Difficult as it may seem to believe, the oil companies are not really in the best financial position themselves. Between the erratic fluctuations of foreign currency exchange rates and the true cost of extracting, refining, and distributing oil, the global price of oil is still dirt cheap. If the price failure in the cost of oil must be corrected, government must tax oil at five to 10 times the present price, at least. While that would certainly raise the price of gasoline, it is, in fact, sound economics. By doing so, the price would take into account most of the cost externalities and factor them into the market price of the product.

Why should the product be taxed so heavily? Pricing will change consumption patterns. However, conserving the resources is only one aspect of the policy initiative. Aside from conservation and from raising revenues, the other, and more important aspect, is what to do with the money earned. What if large amounts of money were devoted to the establishment and operation of a world-class mass transit system or used to fund research to pioneer advances in renewable energy sources? What if the money could finance ecological endeavors such as watershed management, reforestation activities and the like, or be uses to buy more land within the city to devote to open space and pocket gardens? The true value or realistic price of oil and coal is not simply limited to the costs of exploration, extraction, transportation, refinement and marketing. It also includes hidden costs. Among them: Irreversibility of useBecause oil and coal are non-renewable resources, their price must account for the fact that our children and succeeding generations will never be able to use the same fossil fuels that we use up today. Air pollution and the natural environmentThe sulfur and nitrogen oxides emitted into the atmosphere also have a cost. The sulfuric precipitation (acid rain) that falls to earth resulting in damage to crops and to the soil must also be factored into the cost of the product. Climate changeWhat about the cost of carbon dioxide emissions and its impact on the climate? We now know that we are discharging CO 2 into the atmosphere at more than double the volume of what can be absorbed by the Earths processing capacity. We now know that CO2, a leading greenhouse gas, has accumulated in our atmosphere and is a primary cause of the heating of the climatic temperature. A hundred years from now, when the impact of climate change finally kicks in, our grandchildren may well accuse us of recklessness. We would then have to agree that if there is a way for economics to capture and incorporate the adverse effects into the cost of the product, it must be found. The present practice of not reflecting their true cost is resulting in too much waste. 2. PaperThe consumption of paper is another indicator of the supposed level of civilization. When paper was invented some 2,000 years ago, it was a highly valued material, hand-made from sensitive fibers and processed

with delicate care. Paper-making fibers came from many different plant sources, including bamboo, cotton, hemp, jute, sugar cane, wheat and rice straws, and various woods. For centuries, the principal raw materials used in papermaking were cotton and linen fibers obtained from rags. Today, these fibers have been largely replaced by pulp from wood. In the olden days, paper was very scarce. It was generally used only for important documents, official letters, and to provide a written copy of the laws of the land. Over the last one hundred years, however, with the invention and wide use of the engines of mass production, we have been able to produce as much as 300 million tons of paper every year. We have reached such a level of sophistication in the technology and art of papermaking that we now have about 450 different grades of paper being used around the world for our needs. These needs range from packaging and writing to wiping the openings of our bodies. Let us imagine that the whole world consumed 10 pieces of paper. Of the 10, five are used for packaging, three are used for writing, one is used for newspapers, and the remaining piece of paper is used for household sanitary purposes. The industrial/highly-consuming economies, which make up 25% of the worlds population, use up 75% of the worlds paper; while 75% of the population use only 25% of the paper. Each American consumes an average of 335 kilos of paper per year. One ream of five hundred sheets of writing paper weighs a kilo. One thousand kilos is equal to one metric ton. To make one ton of virgin paper, between two and 3.5 tons of wood are required. This is equivalent to 15 trees. To produce all the virgin paper now used in the world, we would need four billion trees. Translated into land area, this means that about 14 million hectares of forests need to be cut down just to produce paper, an area equivalent to half of the entire land area of the Philippines. To make one ton of paper requires up to 83,000 liters of water. The writing paper we commonly throw into the wastebasket after use is of the highest grade of paper and needs about 80,000 liters of water to produce, enough water for 40,000 people to drink in a single day. The use of chemicals to produce paper is mind-boggling. As we know, chlorine is used to bleach paper to make white writing paper. We also know that these organochlorine compounds are toxic or carcinogenic. Yet, to

produce all the paper that we use today, we have to throw away about one million tons of these toxic chemicals into our rivers and oceans every year. The smokestacks of the power plants that run the paper mills spew out 100,000 tons of sulfur oxide into the air per year. When this gas reaches the clouds it becomes sulfuric acid and then comes back to the land in the form of acid rain. These factories also emit another 20,000 tons of chloroform, which causes liver diseases and is a suspected cause of cancer. After being used, paper is generally thrown away. Almost one-half of the waste found in the landfills of the USA is made up of paper. In the Philippines, up to 90% of the wastes generated by the financial district of Makati is made up of paper. 3. MetalsThe third commodity considered an index of economic development is metals. Once the mineral ore has been removed from the crust of the Earth it is gone, and gone forever. The ratio of ore to metal produced is unacceptably high. For instance, six tons of ore produces only 50 grams of gold. Since all the mine wastes and tailings have to go somewhere, these usually end up in rivers and on the seabed, suffocating all the aquatic life along the way. The volume of water, chemicals, and energy used to separate the metallic minerals from the ore is also unacceptably high and has resulted in the toxic contamination of the freshwaters. After the metallic objects are used, they are often discarded in junkyards. Money and happiness The marginal utility of money is a phrase taken to me an that the joy derived from the use of money grows less important as more money is accumulated. One million dollars means a lot more to a man who has nothing. However, an additional one million dollars for a man who already has a hundred million does not bring as much satisfaction. It is said that money should be treated like horse manure. If left in ones pocket and kept for a long time, it stinks up, rots, and becomes a source of sickness. However, if the manure is spread around generously, if not extravagantly, it enriches the soil, enlivens the earth, and embellishes human life. While money is considered by many as the measure of progress and standard of happiness, the evidence is that money and happiness are, more often than not, inversely proportional.

We look at Japan as another model and miracle of economic progress and development. Yet in 1998 alone, 32,863 suicides were recorded, among them 720 children. Norway, another materially rich country, also has a high suicide rate, next only to Japan. The date September 11, 2001 will live on in the short memories of humanity for a few decades or so. But if anything at all, it will mark, in a brief spectacle of shining symbolism, a turning point of sorts for the economic and military might of the US. In a worldwide survey by an experimental psychologist from Oxford University, people from different countries and walks of life were asked on the meaning and sources of happiness. The results were quite revealing. The conclusion reached was that there are three sources of true human happiness: relationships, work and leisure Relationships refers to the connections we have with other humans, the most immediate of which are members of our own family. When we have good relations with our family members, we are emotionally secure, and therefore happy. Because we relate well to them, we can also generally relate well to the larger community of people in our circle of co-workers, colleagues, friends and others in human society. Studies show, for example, that married people live longer than single people. This is because married people are constantly reinforced by the strength gained from emotional interaction with the spouse. On the other hand, being alienated from the affection of ones own fami ly is the highest form of emotional pain. We spend at least eight hours of our day at work. And that does not include the travel time to and from our places of work. The time we devote for work is the most intense and focused period to which we give our bodies, minds, and hearts. Every single day of our lives is spent at work, except the day or two in a week that we reserve for rest and leisure. If the kind of work we do is something we enjoy, the eight hours fly by almost unnoticed. If a person enjoys his work, he goes the extra mile trying to do well. Success comes naturally to those who love their work. With ones body, mind, and heart in synchronized harmony, the mind is allowed to roam in curious exploration of the thinking world. It is said that there are four levels of technical skill: competent, good, brilliant, and natural. At the lowest level, a man who is forced to do something and decides to do it well can be

competent. At the second level, a man who does his best at something can be good. At the third level, when a man brings the power of focus into this work, he can be brilliant. At the very top, however, is the man who actually loves and thoroughly enjoys what he is doing. To him it is not work, it is natural. It is at this stage where man finds his utmost fulfillment as a human being. Leisure is defined as the time that we are freed from the burdens of work. This is time that we set aside so that we may rest, amuse ourselves, and do the things that we like to do. Enjoying leisure is said to be the mark of a truly civilized human being. In this day and age, however, in the mad scramble to earn a living, we seem to have totally forgotten what living is all about. We spend all our time working every single day, rushing to and from our places of work, spending countless hours on the road, to money. Shortly after we receive our pay, and after the bills are paid, hardly anything is left to spend on leisure. So we go on working, working, working and working. What is even worse is that, in the process of earning for a day-to-day existence, we lose the most important thing of alltime. After retirement, we realize that two of the most important things in life have passed us by time and energy. To these three sources of happiness one might add a fourth: Nurture of the spirit. Indeed, the truly wise man is the sage who has become an ordinary man. It seems that the humans who have reached a certain level of wisdom are those who did not care for the material things in life. Look at the lives of Gautama Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohandas Gandhi, and Mother Teresa. Deep in our hearts, do we not yearn to achieve a level of humanity and spirituality that these people have tried to reach? Deep inside us we firmly believe that there is a greater purpose for all life. Deep in our hearts, we believe in the innate goodness of the human being. All this can only mean that true humanity and the task of realizing the fullest potential of being has almost nothing to do with economics. Material goods exist to serve the creative, emotional, and spiritual needs of man. They are not the ends, only the means.

To be sure, this is a truly difficult task. Identifying and finding ones potentials alone is hard enough. Many people go through life without knowing what they want to do. What is an even more difficult task is to liberate the human spirit in these times of intense preoccupation with material things. It seems that the more one has, the more one wants. But the more material things we accumulate, the less time we have to use and enjoy them. Environmental accounting We have learned that Natures store of life elements is limited. There is a limited stock of fresh water, fossil fuels, fish, timber, and minerals. However, when we compute the costs in our national accounting books, we record the revenues of the mining industry not as a depletion of this natural and national wealth, but erroneously, as income. We refer to it as forming part of the countrys gross national product (GNP) or gross domes tic product (GDP). Thereafter, our national leaders proudly claim we are earning from the mining industry. In fact, if the national economy were run like a business and its accountant used such a method of accounting, the economist would be the first to be shown the door, or better yet, thrown out the window. How much of the everyday goods we buy and use goes straight to the waste can? Think of all the plastic and foil wrapping, bags, gift wrappers, boxes, and tin cans that we throw away without a thought. One of the most wasteful activities in the commerce of man is in the advertising and packaging of material goods. The consumer society of today is bolstered by an immense budget for advertising, about US$130 billion a year in the United States alone, all geared towards the consumption of material goods. Advertising is meant to create a desire in the target market of the marketing campaign. After creating an artificial need, want, or whim, the advertisement urges the consumer to satisfy his need with the product being sold by the company. The mass retail establishments that have mushroomed worldwide facilitate access to material things. This is the consumerist phenomenon of the shopping mall. A symptom of this modern-day malady is that malling has become a family activity. Instead of the simple pleasures of going with the family to the park, the beaches or the mountains for a picnic, families now troop to the shopping mall on Sundays for recreation.

People are unwitting suckers in the mass hysteria of consumerism. Certain psychological techniques are actually being employed to push people into buying more in malls. Notice, for example, the level of artificial noise in the shopping mall. Studies have shown that at a certain level of ambient noise, people become slightly agitated and confused, and this leads them to make hasty decisions, and often buy things they did not need in the first place. A shopping mall is far removed from the slightest resemblance to a natural environment. It is enclosed in a gargantuan concrete structure. Even its temperature is artificially controlled. A society that does not provide for wholesome alternatives to material consumerism needs to rethink its priorities. A government that does not provide for wide open spaces for exercise, physical activity, wholesome recreation and reconnection to nature is not practicing good governance. In law, there are two principal approaches by which human behavior can be controlled and modified: by regulation or by facilitation. In conventional legal thinking, law is the direct regulation of human conduct. It commands or prohibits certain acts under pain of penalty. For example, the prohibition against the indiscriminate dumping of wastes into waterways or the enforcement of air and water quality standards are some of these thoushall-not laws. This is also known as the command -and-control model of law enforcement. On the other hand is the facilitative approach to compliance, founded on the belief that man is, by nature, a thinking being. It is also based on the premise that when man is faced with a choice between good and bad, pleasure and pain, profit and loss, man will make the obvious choice. On the part of business, the tools of profit and loss may modify the behavior of commercial enterprises. Tax incentives, subsidies, heavy taxation and other economic instruments may be used to promote alternative energy systems, recycling, waste water treatment, and the like. These are referred to as the semi-voluntary or facilitative tools of compliance. These two approaches must not only be well thought through, they must also be properly blended into a mix of incentives (facilitative) and disincentives (regulatory). To do this, one must step into the realm of legal marketing, social marketing with a legal spin.

Taxation has two purposes: It is a tool both for raising revenues for government and for the modification of human behavior. As a tool for behavioral change, it can serve to internalize the costs of using (and consuming) the public goods (land, air and water). If the tax on the use of gasoline, for example, is 20 times its present rate, it will drive up the price of gasoline to a more realistic level, and thereby reduce the consumption of oil significantly. If the price of gasoline today is $5 per liter (about P250), people living near one another who own cars will seriously think of car pooling. Instead of five cars on the road transporting five different people, all five people will begin to ride only in one car. The environmental and economic benefits are quite obvious. Instead of five cars occupying about 80 sq m of road space, there will only be one car occupying 15 sq m of space. Of course, there will also be a corresponding reduction in traffic congestion. As a result, the consumption of gasoline will reduce by at least 80%, and so will the air pollution. Economically, instead of having to import and pay for 10 barrels of oil, the country will need to pay for only two. Why, then, is this not done? The issue is simply that government leaders either fail, or refuse, to see the promise of good policy and are not able to communicate the issue and the solutions properly. Without the ability to communicate, there is political resistance to taking painful, but necessary, political decisions. What if, for example, government explained to the people that the added revenues earned from the increased gasoline tax would be set aside to establish a world-class, safe, comfortable, and convenient mass transit system? It can further be explained that this new transit system will reduce the transportation and maintenance costs of car owners, as there would be hardly any need for cars to get from one place to another. Without security of tenure, a property owner would not make long-term investments in soil and water conservation. This is a psychological reality. It must be carefully understood, and its motivating power transformed into a moving force for ecological advantage. The policy on land tenure and property rights must be founded on the simple concept that ownership (or

privilege of use) carries with it a corresponding responsibility. Property rights must also take into account the carrying capacity of the resource. If the body of water can supply only a hundred people, then only a hundred people should be given the privilege to use that water. Otherwise, there will result an imbalance between the supply and the demand for water, resulting in shortage. The carrying capacity of a resource, be it land, air and water, can now be determined with greater accuracy through the use of modern-day scientific tools. The task then is to simply use these tools to apportion the user privileges in such number as not to affect the supply and quality of the resource being shared. Otherwise, there will result a situation we earlier learned as the tragedy of the commons. Combining this with the polluter/user-pays-principle, many combinations and regulatory mechanisms can be devised. Environmental management systems Pollution is said to be about resources in the wrong place. When someone is polluting, it is because he is wasting resources that should have been more efficiently used in the manufacturing process. It took industry a long time since the industrial revolution to realize this simple economic truth. If a motor vehicle belches black smoke from its tailpipe it is because of the incomplete (and therefore inefficient) combustion process. The solution is not to put a cleansing mechanism at the end of the exhaust pipe, but to make more efficient the fuel-burning process, and, if possible, to use better and cleaner fuels. This is the basic idea behind the Environmental Management System (EMS). It seeks to veer away from the conventional approach to pollution control, which is traditionally an end-of-the-pipe affair. Instead, an EMS looks at how to minimize waste and prevent pollution in the first place. This includes examining the entire manufacturing or commercial process and determining how to improve it. This is meant to improve the environmental performance of the company. Most importantly, however, it will also improve the bottom linethe profit picture. An EMS system is not simply the responsibility of the pollution control officer (PCO) of the company. It must be internalized by the entire rank-

and-file. More than that, however, it requires the commitment of top-level management, all the way to the Board of Directors. After all, the Board of Directors is the body that sets the policy and allocates the budget needed for a successful EMS. The welding that joins the metallic parts of cars or airplanes, the size and thickness of the credit card, and the size of nuts and bolts of certain equipmentwhat do all of these have in common? If they have to be traded internationally, it must be done in accordance with certain standards of quality. This assures the buyer-user of the quality of the product, and also ensures the usability of the product in different parts of the world. The international organization that sets these standards is known as the International Standards Organization (or ISO). For example, in terms of quality, the internationally accepted standard is called the ISO 9000. This means that a company certified as an ISO 9000 company is one that maintains high, internationally accepted standards. By natural implication, it also means that this company is a reliable firm. The ISO 14001 sets the specific standards to measure the environmental performance of a company. Thus, a company certified as an ISO 14001 is one that practices environmental management systems and is, by natural implication, a socially responsible and environment-friendly company. In an international market where consumers are becoming more and more environmentally aware, especially in the international market, an ISO 14001 certification has become more and more important. As the ISO 9000 is now understood in the international market as a badge of excellence, the ISO 14001 is slowly being seen as a medal for having complied with the international standards for environmental responsibility. The ultimate tool in the arsenal of an effective compliance program is the legal mechanism to enforce environmental liability. This takes many forms, among them the physical restoration of a damaged resource, monetary liability (e.g., damages, fines, tax audits) and the deprivation of personal liberty (e.g., imprisonment). It must be emphasized that the enforcement of environmental liability must always be the last resort. At the first instance, the techniques of facilitative, voluntary, or semi-voluntary compliance must be explored and used extensively for two reasons. First, prevention is always better than cure,

especially in the case of natural resources damage. Second, the process of detection, apprehension, arrest, investigation, indictment, arraignment, prosecution, trial and imprisonment is a tedious, expensive, adversarial and often faulty legal system. Especially in countries with poorly paid environmental enforcers, prosecutors, and judges, the process is highly vulnerable to undue financial and political influences, so more often than not the justice system fails. Insurance companies in Asia could well take note of the growing reality of environmental insurance. For example, the Philippines Clean Air Act of 1999 requires the establishment of guarantee mechanisms to finance the rehabilitation of damaged ecosystems. The law also includes a provision on long-term liability for damages. Industrial establishments may wish to note that when the source of land and water contamination can be traced to their land, the principle of last touch in the rules on nuisance applies. All it takes is a persistent person to identify the casualties and trace the causalities of environmental hazards. Two films of the late 1990s depicted the realities of industrial hazards and the resulting liability of the concerned establishments. In the first case, the one handled by a lawyer, all the victims ended up losing the money they could have collected from the industrial company. In the second movie, in a case handled by a non-lawyer and who was only a simple housewife, all the victims were compensated to the tune of US$333 million. In effect, everybody won. So much for lawyers. CHAPTER 9 PART II: Going Global Sub: Globalization and its accompanying financial demands are doing more harm than good. Its about time man went back to the basics and learned to make the best use of what is truly his ONCE we fully understand the meaning of material goods and the role they play in the higher purposes of life, our attitude begins to change. Goods and commodities, especially those that are by their very nature non-renewable, must be used wisely and well.

We can look at the processes of nature and attempt to mimic them. We will notice that like man, the animals are also users of the forests: They eat the fruits of the land and drink the waters of the streams. However, in the natural setting of a forest, all waste is ultimately returned to the ground and, in time, enriches the soil. This is not, however, the case with man. He is the only animal that uses matter and then thoughtlessly discards it into the waters he drinks and the air that he breathes. If we must use non-renewable resources, we should do so in a manner that is highly efficient. We should not mine tin, for example, a mineral deposit created over hundreds of millions of years, only to make packaging material for soda cans, to be thrown away. Only when we begin this mind shift in the way we look at things will there ever be a change in the way we use things. The year 1800 marked the rise in the use of coal. And what a mess it made in the air over the city of London, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. The year 1900 saw the emergence of oil as the energy source of preference, and the widespread use of the internal combustion engine. And what a mess it has made of our global air! The year 2000 marked a new period of energy fuel, the turning point in the search for sustainable energy. Henceforth the world will be looking at hydrogen, sunlight, wind power, tidal power, micro power, and even human power as the preferred energy choices of the future. The mass production and abundance of paper has bred unconscionable waste. We all know that reusing and recycling paper is the wiser option. There are ample options available in the use of indigenous fibers to make paper. The use of abaca and banana to make an environment-friendly and high-quality specialty paper is one avenue an enterprising spirit can explore. There are many exciting opportunities to re-engineer the flow of paper in modern-day society. For example, we could pass a simple rule that henceforth, paper will no longer be allowed to be brought to the landfill. Some countries in the world are already doing that. The regulatory instruments available for the implementation of this policy can be as simple as a mere resolution of the barangay (village) council where the landfill is located.

Motor vehicles seem to have become an indispensable part of daily life. The goal of a sound transport system, however, is to reduce the horsepower to passenger ratio. Roads and highways need to be broken up and re-claimed as open space for tree or vegetation corridors. They will provide the muchneeded greenbelts and replenish the depleted oxygen supply in the concrete jungles and heat islands we call our cities. Roads, lanes, footpaths, and pathways, must be provided for non-motorized transportation. The price of globalization While lounging on the beach on some South Pacific island, you punch a few buttons in your cellular phone. Instantly, you are connected to the person you are calling halfway around the world. Punch a button on your TV set and tune in to CNN. Instantly, you see what is going on in another part of the globe. You go to the nearest airport, buy a ticket, and hop onto an airplane. In less than 24 hours, you are transported to any continent in the world, one of the two million people that cross international boundaries every day. The dictionary tells us that the word globalization is the act of making something of worldwide application and scope. One meaning in common usage refers to the shrinking of the world as a result of more efficient communications and travel. Thus the world has supposedly shrunk, and has in fact become a global village. However, globalization also refers to the free exchange of consumer products on a global scale. Economists call this the breaking down of economic barriers. The countries of the world have been arbitrarily divided into the first world, second world, and third world The first world countries are the so-called economically developed countries; the second world countries are the so-called emerging economies; and the third world comprises the so-called economically poor countries. It is time that such classification be rejected because first, development cannot be based solely on the single criterion of economics. Second, and more important, the economically developed countries are actually the more wasteful. Certainly, a country that wastes the most cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered developed. Lastly, development is viewed solely from the anthropocentric point of view; as if the rest of the Earth was created solely for the benefit of human needs, wants, and whims.

The usual assumptions and reasons given for economic globalization are: 1. To benefit consumersOn the surface, the mass production of consumer goods leads to lower prices, something that is supposed to benefit consumers. Since the consumer items produced are mainly non-essentials, the question of whether it is actually of benefit remains a question mark. 2. Production based on specializationThe theory of economic liberalization rests on the premise that a country should specialize in what it does best. Thus, this economic theory tells us that if the soil and the climate of a place are appropriate for the growing of sugar, it must concentrate only on producing sugar to supply the world market. Economists call this competitive advantage. The theory sounds logical and reasonable, but it does not imitate the processes of Nature. If Nature wanted it to have only sugarcane, its fields would be naturally filled with only sugarcane. We thought that that this theory and practice of economics was quite neat and nice, but we are discovering that there is a price to pay. It seems that in the way we now see it, economic sense, at least in the short term, does not make good ecological sense. 3. ConsumerismThe mantra of modern economics is to consume, consume and consume. In order to fill the artificially created need of people for consumer goods, more and more goods must be produced. Moreover, in order to create the desire and increase the wants among those who do not need the products in the first place, the tricks of advertising must be used. To increase the consumption of cigarettes, cola drinks, and other consumer items, the picture of a skimpily clad man or woman is pictured on TV to excite the innate desire for sex. The psychological game in effective advertising is to be able to transform this innate desire into the act of buying a consumer product. The consumer society has also been called the throwaway society. After the contents of the consumer products are used, the packaging is thrown away. There are pitfalls to making these assumptions. This assumption of competitive advantage disregards the fact that a consumer is also a producer. Let us take the case of a Filipino chicken farmer who employs 10 people. If the price of chicken imported from, say, the US is cheaper than the domestic price, people would stop buying locally bred chicken. Because no one buys his chicken, the Filipino farmer would then have to close shop. His employees end up losing their jobs. With people out of jobs, it does not matter how cheap the imported chicken would be; the chicken farmer and

his former employees and their families would simply not have the money to pay for it because they have lost their jobs. Is this what globalization means? Let us assume that a countrys economy is largely based on sugar. What if, all of a sudden, a good substitute for sugar is found? The economy of the country would break up into pieces. This happened to the sugar-producing provinces in the Philippines in the 1970s. With the drop in the price of sugar, largely brought about by the discovery of substitutes and growing health concerns, extreme poverty reigned in a land once known for the material extravagance of their rich. But not before the forests had been scraped bare to make way for sugar plantations. In the same manner that a reef contains different kinds of marine life, or a forest contains different kinds of animal and plant life, so also must a country have a diverse economic portfolio. One of the fundamental principles of good economics, in fact, is diversification. This really means nothing more than imitating the ways of nature. By now, we have fully understood that there is no such thing as a sustainable consumer society. A wasteful society is bound to suffer the consequences of its bad habits, sooner or later. Then there is the question of equity and fairness. The main producers of consumer items, from cars to shampoos and brand name apparel, are the consumptive countries. Having run out of markets to sell their excess products in their own countries, they are now on the prowl for new markets. So they use the techniques and tricks of advertising to create false desires in the people of the financially-disadvantaged countries (FDC). The situation becomes confusing, ridiculous, and downright pathetic. Because the poor man now wants to buy the product that the rich man is selling, the poor man borrows money from, and pays interest to, the rich man. Only then could he afford to buy the product of this rich man, which he did not need in the first place. When too much reliance is placed on the economy of others as the source of ones economic well being, there arises a situation known as economic addiction. In the latter half of the 20th century, it was said that when America sneezes, the rest of the world catches the flu. But as a result of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center bombing attack, great economic uncertainties arose. However, if any good must be distilled from this horror,

it is the chance to sit back and ponder the economic situation of the US and of the rest of the world. Let us take yet another example of the false assumption of competitive advantage. In the late 1970s and 1980s, Thailand and the Philippines converted their mangrove swamps into intensive prawn farms to fill the demand of the Japanese market. Japan was then at the height of its economic prosperity. With the prospect of the seeming millions of dollars to be made in the prawn farming industry, no one cared that the mangrove areas were the hatcheries and spawning grounds of marine and aquatic life. Billions upon billions of tons of fresh water were used to dilute the sea water to supply the artificial balance of brackish water needed by the intensive prawn farms. The governments allowed the indiscriminate grant of fishpond lease-agreements over these mangrove areas, even to the point of giving fiscal incentives to destroy them. Eventually the fishpond proprietors produced too many prawns with nowhere to sell them to. In time, they closed shop, but by then, hundreds of thousands of hectares of mangroves forests had already been cut, and billions of cubic meters of fresh water wastedall irreversibly. It is the statement of a simple truth that some of the richest men in the world are also the unhappiest. They realize that they just spent their time chasing after money, only to realize at the end that they did not want that much after all. Anyone who has achieved some level of material sufficiency knows only too well that upon getting there, the question still remains: What now? Almost all of the rich men and women in capitalist societies end up putting up foundations. Planning by common sense Humans need three things: food, shelter and education. The first two are meant to provide for the physical well being, while the last, education, provides the mental energy to fuel the intellectual and spiritual being. The economic strategy of a country can really be quite simple. Economic planning on the national scale, and even on a global scale, is really an exercise in plain common sense. A government must provide for food at the lowest price possible. It can do this by buying the rice and vegetables produced by farmers at a price that

makes it attractive to return to farming; then it must sell to the people at a very low price. Short-circuiting the process and eliminating as many of the middlemen as possible is one step. Providing for efficient and inexpensive transportation and locating farms near population centers are other options. Government can also promote urban vegetable gardens. Rice is a staple food for Asia, although much of it is useless starch, especially white rice. Also, man is basically a herbivore and not a carnivore, meant to eat grass and not animal meat. While modern man has become so accustomed to eating meat, recent studies by the National Academy of Sciences in the US revealed that the protein requirement of a human being is only between 36 to 50 grams a day. This is meat the size of less than a matchbox. When and how man learned to eat meat is not exactly known. But what is now known is that ingesting too much animal meat has been the cause of so many of the modern day ailments, from cardio-vascular diseases to kidney ailments.. Ecologically, too, we have seen the impact of meat production on the land, air, and waters of the Earth. As a child can be taught to eat vegetables by a good father, so could a people be taught to eat vegetables by the State. Its healthy, not only for the natural world but also for the body itself. As a bird needs a nest, so does man need a home. It is only when a man has a stake in the land he lives on that he will begin to care for the welfare of his community, of his society, and eventually of his country at large. Government can provide minimum housing for everyone. As a family must allocate a part of its income to its housing needs, so should government allocate a large part of its budget for housing. Economists tell us, and on this point we may believe them, that housing construction is a good way to pump-prime the economy. The collateral economic benefits of housing starts are manyconstruction materials, demand for human labor, etc. With respect to the individuals capacity to pay, the money required for the payment of a housing loan must not be more than five to 10% of his income per month. A higher rate would create undue hardship for the family and increase the risk of loan failure. After a man and his family have been liberated from these basic concerns, then, and only then, can they begin to think of developing themselves as beings of an order higher than that of other animals. As it is today, many of

us spend almost our entire lives trying to fulfill these basic needs. Our oftcited excuse for not indulging in leisure is that we have no time. Education is an item of utmost priority in the government budget of progressive countries. In the Philippines, the Department of Education enjoys the largest appropriation (but only after the debt-service). Ideally, placing a high priority on this endeavor would require high salaries for teachers. Students can also be afforded all the benefits necessary while they are in school and while they are doing well. First, tuition could be free for those who want to study. Second, with the advances in information technology, all the tools of education, from books to computers and distance learning techniques, are already available and waiting to be tapped. But how can the Philippines find the money? The Philippines is, in fact, a rich country pretending to be poor. If subsidizing the basic needs of citizens is such a good idea, then we should do it by simply re-arranging our budget. Who is better off economicallya man who earns P6,000 a month and spends only P 5,000; or a man who earns P 10,000 a month and spends P15,000? The answer does not seem to be so obvious for so-called financial whiz kids in countries around the world, as governments insist on spending more than they earn. They even invented a term for it in the language of financedeficit spending. This practice of deficit spending is against all notions of financial prudence and common sense. It is also an example of wrong economics and utter fiscal mismanagement. The question of debt What if, in order to sustain your daily expenses, you borrowed from the bank and paid interest for the loan? This is exactly what the financial experts and economic managers have done, and are doing, to many of the economies of the world. By sheer fiscal irresponsibility, their countries have become heavily indebted. What is even worse is that to pay for their debt and wasteful spending habits, the countries are being stripped bare of trees, fish, waters, and soil. Because the debtor country cannot pay for the entire principal even with what it has earned in foreign currency, the creditor again lends to the debtor.

What then is the solution? First, the country must stop more borrowing. Second, it must negotiate with the creditors for favorable financial arrangements. In the language of finance, this is called debt restructuring. It is time that borrower-countries realize that there is no end in sight if they keep on borrowing money to pay for deficit spending. The longer they wait, the higher the price will be. A heavily indebted country is like a junkie, quite literally an addict of money. Certain points need to be remembered in the aspect of debt restructuring. There is a saying in the banking community: When you owe the bank $1 million, the bank owns you, but when you owe the bank $1 billion, you own the bank. The bigger the loan, the more reasonable the bank will be on the terms and conditions of debt restructuring. Debt service is the term economists and financiers use for the simple act of paying a loan. Two basic common sense principles come into play: When you borrow, you must know exactly where to get the money to pay for it. Also, the income derived from the use of the money borrowed must be more than the amount due for debt service. If the debt service is almost equal to the expected revenues, there will be hardly any money is left for internal investments. If the fickle winds of economics blow the wrong way, and the expected earnings do not materialize, there is great danger of loan default. There is a need to re-examine the terms of restructured loans. Today, loan terms extend up to horizons of only 10-25 years. Given the heavy debt that countries have sunk themselves into today, it is now necessary to look at repayment terms of up to 100-150 years. Funds freed up from the restructured debt could then be devoted to provide for the three basic needs: food, shelter and education. Additional savings could then be used to jumpstart the projects and activities in line with a new way of thinking in the field of economics. Throughout the history of human civilization, man has always been a user of natural resources. In the last 200 years, however, the scale and intensity of this use has been such that the extraction rate has been much faster than the replenishment rate. In fact, in July 2002, a respected head of a worldwide

environmental organization issued a warning: At the rate natural resources are being used up, by 2050, we would need two Earths to fill the needs of humanity. Instead of continually extracting, let us think about restoring the natural world. If we must restore the Earths productivity to fill future human needs, we must restore the damaged ecosystems. The 19th century saw the growth of the Industrial Revolution. The 20th century saw the rise of the Information Revolution. The turn of the 21st century will mark the birth of the Eco-Revolution. People are beginning to understand and realize that our wasteful ways will not work in the long run. It is not a question of whether everyone will or will not, because they all will. The remaining question is when and how fast the thinking shift can happen. The economies of the world will eventually begin to move on to what one of the worlds influential thinkers has called the Eco -Economy. It will be an economy that is based on, and that will aspire for, a non-destructive, restorative and protective relationship with our oikos. Instead of stripping the forests to make logs and lumber to supply the gluttony of the consumptive countries, why not think about restoring the temperate and tropical forests to their original condition? Instead of allowing the soil to simply wash away into the rivers and seas, why not think of soil and water conservation projects? Instead of harvesting every bit of morsel from the seas and the coral reefs, why not think of establishing a network of marine sanctuaries? Instead of mining activities that extract ore from virgin minerals, why not mine the tremendous minerals now contained in the consumer wastes that we throw away everyday? Instead of using fossil fuels to burn, irreversibly and with adverse atmospheric impact, why not invest in the research and in use of renewable energy sources? The tremendous amount of work that an economic paradigm shift will require will keep almost everyone in the uplands and in the coastal zones occupied for at least one or two generations. It will also provide enough breathing space to restore the forests and the coral reefs to their former levels of productivity. By then, there will be enough to feed those who need to be fed. The Philippine economy Philippine economic thinking has long followed the conventional and

erroneous paradigm of extractive economics. This is the mindset that has justified the mindless extraction of anything and everything useful to man. It is grounded on the belief that man is the center of everything, a belief that is, of course, as valid as when men thought that the Earth was the center of the universe. In line with this erroneous thinking, the Philippines has scraped its forests and seas bare in the haste to consume, consume, and further waste away everything it has. However, like the rest of the world, the Philippines is beginning to realize that this manner of thinking cannot be sustained. We cannot go on consuming all that we want because those who will come after us will also need them. Of late, the pace of extraction has become more delirious. Over a span of 50 years, the Philippines has wiped out practically 90% of its primary forest and marine resources. We are finally beginning to realize that after stripping our land bare to sell our natural resources, we have ended up poorer now than we were 50 years ago. The Philippine economy is in very, very deep financial trouble. In rough figures, the budget of the Philippine government for the year 2002 was P750 billion. Of this, almost P300 billion (or 35%) is spent to pay for debt service. The government budget lives solely on what is, in the world of finance, the equivalent of an artificial blood transfusion debt, debt, and more debt. As of the year 2002, the Philippine government had outstanding loans of about P2.6 trillion. On a more personal level, that translates to more than P30,000 for each and every Filipino man, woman and child. That is about six months salary for an average wage earner. Despite the amount it owes, the government continues to exercise utter fiscal irresponsibility. For the year 2002, its budget deficit was expected to hit almost P200bBillion, or more than one-fourth of its entire budget. To finance this deficit, the Philippine government will need to borrow more money. In truth, therefore, the only money it really has and can afford to spend is P250 billion. Yet it spends three times more than it can afford. These sums of money are seemingly too large for us ordinary mortals to easily understand, mortals who try hard to make a few thousand pesos a month to make ends meet. Let us say that you and your spouse had a small business. This business earns P200,000 per month. However, you spend

P400,000 per month living a lifestyle you cannot afford. Because people continue to lend you money, you go ahead with your extravagant lifestyle. To pay for it you borrow more money to finance the deficit. That is not too bad if there is a reasonable chance of the loan being paid back. The trouble, however, is that you yourself have no idea where you will get the money to pay for it. By all standards of economic and financial common sense, deficit spending cannot go on. If our financial wizards insist on going on this way, the eventual collapse of the business is not just a looming possibility, it is an absolute certainty. One law of ecology that applies to economics is that nothing is for free. The longer we wait, the higher will be the price to pay. The year 2002 marked a financial fiasco as the result of irresponsible economics in the country of Argentina. One day, the people of that country woke up and found out that they could no longer withdraw their money from the bank. That was the day the government of Argentina simply ran out of money. Because it could no longer borrow more, it needed the peoples money to prop up the collapsed economy, if only to give it a semblance of stability. In a few months they had half a dozen presidents. Yet again, here, is an example of what can happen, and will happen if we continue to walk along the path of debt. There is, however, one lesson that can be learned from the financial debacles of Argentina, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico and the 1997 Asian Meltdown: One day, the line will snap. The economic doldrums experienced by the whole world today brings to fore one stark and simple fact: Extractive economics is simply not sustainable. Instead of viewing it as a reversal, the present global economic slowdown must, in fact, be viewed as a welcome respite from the maddening pace of extraction. It is also a humbling experience for everyone, and gives everyone a chance to go back to the basics. The difficulty lies not in understanding that this eventuality will happen sooner or later. The main difficulty lies in the fact that there is no single national or international leader willing to face this reality. No one wants to begin to talk about correcting this grievous mistake. The leaders of rich countries are afraid that their banks will not be paid by debtor countries. The leaders of the poor (debtor) countries are afraid to create an economic upheaval that may lead to their being toppled from power.

A place of promise There are, however, some things the country has in abundance. By standards of natural beauty, the Philippines is rather fortunate. Its forests are rich, far richer than the entire continent of North America. Its seas are unsurpassed the world over in abundance, beauty, and diversity. Its land, buffeted by the northeast and southwest monsoon winds, is blessed with rain and sunlight the prime givers of life. From the smallest picturesque volcano, to the smallest mammal, to the smallest fish and the richest seas in all the world, the Philippines has it all. The Philippines must be restored to its former state of being a slice of heaven. It must begin to veer away from the mindset of extractive economics and begin the shift in its thinking to restorative economics. Here lies a great opportunity for the Philippines to show the way and be a world leader in the paradigm of eco-economics. First, our ecosystems restore very quickly. Second, there is great unemployment, idle hands waiting for work. Third, the Filipinos are a highly resilient people. These three factors make up the best ingredients for a successful experiment at restorative economics. There is something unique about the Filipino genetic lineage, a hybrid of the Malay, Chinese and Caucasian races. This unusual and happy mix of hereditary blood makes for an attractive, easygoing and gregarious character. Being island people totally surrounded by the sea, Filipinos are a laughing lot. In addition, the Spanish introduced added to this natural zest for life the fire and fervor of Latin blood. Filipinos will sing, dance, and laugh at the drop of a hat. These make up the two distinctive characteristics that Filipinos are world-famous for: legendary hospitality and amazing musicality. If the above premises are admitted as true, the next step is to use them as the ingredients to formulate the long-term eco-logic and eco-nomic vision for the country. The vision is to restore the beauty of the Philippine Islands and enhance the beauty of its people. By restoring the damaged mountains, seas and rivers, we will restore lost productivity. By restoring the productivity we will assure ourselves of the supply of a basic human need, food. By protecting it, we will preserve this natural heritage for all humanity.

Today, the Philippines is paying almost P300 billion just as interest on its debts. What if it decided to restructure its loans and pay only P20 billion a year? The balance of P280 billion could then be freed up to pump-prime employment towards regenerative (or restorative) economics. People could be paid salaries just to protect the marine sanctuaries, paid daily wages to replant and take care of the mountains, given research grants to study Philippine biodiversity, develop alternative energy systems, and undertake similar activities. What is economically beneficial about restorative investments is that the payback period is very short. In five years, a marine ecosystem protected as a sanctuary becomes almost as productive as it was 30 years ago. In 15-20 years, forests can regenerate to almost the vegetative condition it once was. When the productivity is restored, there will be enough for everyone. Trees would be more economically attractive when they are vertical rather than when horizontal! In Costa Rica, tourists coming in from Caribbean cruises pay as much as $50 per head just for a chance to walk under the canopy of a real tropical rain forest. And they regularly have as many 300 visitors a day. The Maldives charges a minimum of $300-$400 per day for every visitor that goes to its shores. Nearer home is the famous island resort in the Sulu Sea off Palawan where Hollywood stars, international jet setters and multimillionaires have traveled. The word tourism is shallow in its connotations, highly inappropriate because of its purely economic implications. For lack of a better word, let us call the strategic vision proposed here as eco-visitorism. In a sense it is similar to eco-tourism. The principles of sound eco-tourism dictate that natural resources must be protected well. If it must be intruded on by man, this intrusion must have little or no impact whatsoever. Let the carrying capacity of the place of beauty be carefully taken into account, and then let the visitors come in much less numbers than the place could carry. However, the idea of visitorism begs to differ from the conventional connotations of the term eco-tourism. The idea of visitorism is in tune with the hospitable character of the Filipino where guests are treated as kings and dear friends. This distinction between a tourist and a visitor is necessary if only to emphasize the need to veer away from the attitude of

looking at tourists simply as a source of money. If we look at economic gain as the prime motivation for tourism, there is a great danger that because of the lure of money, we will look the other way in the face of the foolishness brought in by tourists. In time, we begin to start tolerating pedophiles, drug addicts, criminals and the other dregs of society simply because they are tourists and bring in money. On the other hand, if we look at our visitors as our guests, we look at them as friends who have come to visit us. And as Filipinos are inclined to do when they have visitors, they roll out the welcome mat. This new attitude of treating tourists as visitors gives rise to another implication: Because they are our guests, we expect them to behave properly. As guests they are bound to respect our rules. If they do not, we are well within our rights to reject them. Visitors are not simply a source of money. Money comes and goes, but visitors are friends. And to a Filipino, friendship is eternal. Land use planning is the first step to environmental planning. Resort towns must prepare a rational, scientifically-based, and technology-oriented land use plan. It should not follow the haphazard development seen in the resort towns of Boracay, Puerto Galera, Mactan, and Batangas, to name a few. Proper land-to-population density ratios must be carefully considered. People do not want to go to the seashore to be with crowds. More important, the land use plans must be diligently enforced. One reason why resorts in the Maldives can attract highly selective visitors (and make top dollar) is that there is only one resort on every island. This makes the visitors feel that they are truly isolated on an island, with a well-protected marine environment. Any eco-visitorism program must be focused on CPR activities Conservation, Protection and Restoration. Under this concept, visitors will not just come to enjoy our seas and mountains. They must also be given the opportunity to help. The following menu of activities can be offered: 1. The delineation of the virgin forests, national parks and land-based protected areas (appealing to mountaineers) 2. Soil stabilization and forest regeneration (for visitors interested in

agriculture) 3. The delineation and planning of coastal zones (for beach lovers) 4. The establishment of marine protected areas and baseline studies (for scuba divers) 5. Study of alternative energy systems, thanks to with an abundant supply of rain, waves and sunshine (for the scientifically inclined) 6. Working with recycling facilities 7. Developing an island of excellence for music and the arts, since the Philippines has produced some of the best musicians, artists and performers in the world. 8, Developing an island of excellence for sea sports, coast guard and rescue service, marine biology, tropical forest ecosystems, and regeneration economics. There are many more activities that can be undertaken in the economics of CPR. Money will come as a matter of course. Forests and marine ecosystems need only to be left alone. Nature is allowed to regenerate, assisted only by caring human hands. Left alone, nature heals quickly. CPR economics requires low capital investments, and yet the returns are almost immediate. The payback period is very short, and it also comes in multi-fold. The return on investment (ROI) is high, something like 1,000% in 5 years. No investor worth his salt would find this ROI unattractive. The social benefits are tremendous, as many of the people now unemployed will immediately find something productive to do. Restorative economics is not new. When the US was in the depths of economic depression in the early 1900s, F. D. Roosevelt came up with the idea of the Civilian Conservation Corps. All of sudden, millions of hands found meaningful work in the restoration of the soils that had all but dried up during the Dust Bowl era. To be sure, there are already sparks of activity moving along these lines. The many examples in the chapter on local governance (Chapter 8) are the best pieces of evidence that restored ecosystems result in greater productivity for all concerned. For its part, the government is beginning, but only beginning, to realize that the age of industrialization and consumer manufacturing has passed us by. If the Philippines must reverse its present path of destruction, it must veer

away from the economics of extraction and lead the world in the economics of restoration.