LOS BAÑOS, Laguna – A photography contest on climate change covering Southeast Asia has been launched by a regional center based here.

Sponsored by the government-hosted Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization–Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEAMEO-SEARCA), the competition has for its theme “Community-based Climate Change Adaptation: Best Practices in Southeast Asia’’.

SEARCA, currently headed by Dr. Gil C. Saguiguit Jr., is one of the 15 “centers of excellence’’ of SEAMEO, an inter-government treaty organization founded in 1965 to foster cooperation among Southeast Asian nations in the fields of education, science, and culture.

To run from August 3 to October 2, 2009, the contest is open to all Southeast Asian nations except SEARCA employees and their immediate family members.

The photo competition centers on adaptation measures practiced and used by Southeast Asians in the fight against climate change.

It is one of the initial activities programmed by SEARCA’s newly-launched Knowledge Management
Center on Climate Change (KC3).

KC3 aims to help Southeast Asia nations to understand the whats and whys of climate change and how they affect agriculture and natural resources. It will access knowledge situations to adapt and mitigate impacts on climate change, connect and empower Southeast Asian nations to act regionally vis-à-vis its impacts and strengthen regional capacity through sharing of knowledge solutions, pooling of databases of experts and related research and development work.