Local government units (LGUs) play a key role in promoting environmental sustainability and the sustainable use of the country’s natural resources, La Liga Policy Institute (La Liga) says.

LGUs themselves can finance programs that protect the environment. La Liga’s environment campaigner Jonathan Ronquillo insists.

“LGUs are in a better position to fund and implement programs that will help protect the environment, particularly protected areas and national parks, in their respective localities. They should be the ones co-managing the country’s natural resources together with communities,” he added.

Ronquillo cited the effort of Alaminos City, Pangasinan, which has successfully funded and implemented programs with local communities in rehabilitating the Hundred Island National Park (HINP).

La Liga, which acts as secretariat of the environment cluster of the Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI), has various tie-ups with Alaminos City, which include the promotion of organic farming under the successful Organic Fields Support Program (OFSP) phase 1, a project funded by the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the on-going “MDG Pathways: Cementing Pathways to Financing the MDGs.”

The MDG Pathways project, which will be implemented by La Liga in two other Pangasinan towns, namely, Bani and Burgos, and the municipalities of Dauin, Sibulan and La Libertad in Negros Oriental, will help build capacities of concerned LGUs in identifying challenges related to MDG targets, particularly Goal 7, which calls for United Nation member-countries, including the Philippines, to pursue programs through resource mobilization.

It aims to prepare LGUs in undertaking partnership building activities for financing and implementing MDG-related programs services around poverty and hunger, universal primary education, maternal and reproductive health, and environmental sustainability.

Through its own initiative, Ronquillo said Alaminos City, led by Mayor Hernani Braganza, was able to reverse the degradation of the marine environment within the HINP after taking over the management of the famous tourist attraction from national government agencies in 2005.

Ronquillo noted the initiatives led to increased tourist arrivals from 92,000 in 2004 to 200,000 in 2009.

It also helped in the revival of marine life in the entire Lingayen Gulf, and provision of alternative non-destructive livelihoods to fisherfolk, tourist guides, boatmen and park rangers.

Before the local government of Alaminos took over, HINP, famous for its more than 100 islands and islets is in a “sorry state” — with most of the corals, seaweeds and sea grass, fish and other marine life vanishing rapidly if not already “extinct” — because of destructive fishing practices and pollution caused by the indiscriminate dumping of wastes in the area.

“With funding and implementation of relevant programs, our forest and marine resources have a better chance of survival, benefiting our future generation,” Ronquillo said LGUs particularly in coastal areas should implement an integrated coastal resource management in partnership with communities to better protect their environment and natural resources from further degradation.