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(RESEARCHED BY SHAWN IVAN CRUZ)
URL: https://www.mindanews.com/top-stories/2021/07/forest-cleared-structures-built-within-watershed-in-davao/
TITLE:

Forest cleared, structures built within watershed in Davao

AUTHOR: Antonio L. Colina IV
DATE PUBLISHED: JULY 15, 2021
KEY INFO: Environment groups have raised the alarm on the reported cutting of trees within the Panigan-Tamugan watershed in Sitio Kalatong, Barangay Carmen in Baguio District to give way to human settlements.

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DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 15 July) - Environment groups have raised the alarm on the reported cutting of trees within the Panigan-Tamugan watershed in Sitio Kalatong, Barangay Carmen in Baguio District to give way to human settlements.

The watershed is eyed to be Davao City's next source of potable water.

Lawyer Mark Peñalver, executive director of Interface Development Interventions for Sustainability (IDIS), told MindaNews on Thursday that these activities would compromise the integrity of the critical watershed.

He pointed out the importance of an intact forest cover to maintain water quantity and quality.

"If the quality and quantity of water of Panigan-Tamugan watershed is jeopardized, then the most affected will be the Dabawenyos. Hence, there should be a stronger effort to protect Pangan-Tamugan watershed," he said.

Peñalver said IDIS, Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF), Euro Generics International Philippines Foundation (EGIP Foundation), and Davao City Bantay Bukid volunteers urged Mayor Sara Duterte to take immediate action to stop the clearing of forested areas in the sitio.

In a letter to Duterte dated June 29 a copy of which was emailed on Wednesday, they said cutting of trees and selling of lands to non-indigenous of peoples have been rampant since 2018.

Unauthorized construction of structures was also taking place within the watershed, they added.

The groups demanded an investigation in coordination with the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples to look into the unlawful selling of lands to non-IPs and illegal structures, and called for the immediate demolition of such structures.

The affected area is within the "conservation zone" and considered an "environmental critical area" based on the Davao City Zoning and Land Use Map and 2007 Watershed Code, respectively.

"Clearing the forested area, illegal cutting of trees and establishment of structures, illegal cutting of trees and establishment of structures in the area are violations of the Watershed Code Ordinance of the City," the groups said.

They recommended that the Watershed Management Monitoring Team in collaboration with PEF and EGIP Foundation be allowed to conduct a drone study in Kalatong to "monitor the extent of deforestation" since 2019 to provide more scientific bases in addressing the environmental concerns.

They wanted the activation of Inter-Agency Task Force Kalatong "to monitor and investigate the environmental violations in the area and recommend to the concerned agencies the possible actions to address the concerns."

They also asked the local Watershed Management Council and city council to prioritize the installation of boundary markers in Sitio Kalatong as conservation areas, and conduct an information drive on the Watershed Code among barangay and purok officials and tribal leaders.

In a press release issued by IDIS on Wednesday, Datu Lipatuan Joel A. Unad, chair of Mindanao Indigenous Peoples Conference for Peace and Development, said the unabated clearing of forests will dry up Panigan, Kalatong, Kabinuangan, Laling and Tamugan rivers in five years.

He said at least 200 structures have been recorded since 2018, expressing concerns that the wastewater would find its way into the nearby rivers.

The new settlers are not indigenous people, he said. (Antonio L. Colina IV/MindaNews)

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Forest cleared, structures built within watershed in Davao

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DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 15 July) - Environment groups have raised the alarm on the reported cutting of trees within the Panigan-Tamugan watershed in Sitio Kalatong, Barangay Carmen in Baguio District to give way to human settlements. The watershed is eyed to be Davao City's next source of potable water.

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https://businessmirror.com.ph/2021/12/08/deforestation-threatens-nesting-site-of-philippine-eagle-in-mindanao-anew/
TITLE:  Deforestation threatens nesting site of Philippine Eagle in Mindanao anew

AUITHOR:  Jonathan L. Mayuga

DATE PUBLISHED: DECEMBER 8, 2021
KEY INFO: Conservation advocates on Tuesday called on the government to stop tree-cutting activities in Mount Makahabol-Alikoson Conservation Area, an ancient nesting site of the Philippine eagle, the country’s national bird.

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Deforestation threatens nesting site of Philippine Eagle in Mindanao anew | Jonathan L. Mayuga

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Conservation advocates on Tuesday called on the government to stop tree-cutting activities in Mount Makahabol-Alikoson Conservation Area, an ancient nesting site of the Philippine eagle, the country's national bird. Led by Haribon Foundation, they are calling on DENR Secretary Roy Cimatu to direct the regional and local levels of the...

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https://www.rappler.com/environment/hectares-land-philippines-forested/
TITLE:

7 million hectares of Philippine land are forested – and that’s bad news

AUTHOR: KAROL ILAGAN
DATE PUBLISHED: MAY 15, 2021
KEY INFO: The country has been vulnerable to massive flooding linked to deforestation. The coronavirus pandemic is also a catastrophe that arose from populations occupying wild animal habitats.

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Image courtesy of Shutterstock

At a glance:

Forest loss persists in the Philippines even with a log ban and protection laws in place.

Forest cover has remained the same since the first Aquino administration as losses in some parts of the country have eclipsed gains in others.

The Mimaropa region - covering Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan - has seen the worst deforestation in recent years.

The Duterte government excluded reforestation efforts among its commitments to mitigate climate change under the 2016 Paris Agreement.

Bills that are meant to address legal gaps in protecting forests are languishing in Congress.

Mindoro is the seventh largest island of the Philippines. It sits at the bottom of Luzon, where the country's capital is located, and stretches toward the northern tip of Sulu Sea. Large ships pass through its unpredictable waters, and on its seabed lie the wreckage of vessels that didn't survive it.

On land, a spine of mountains runs across its center. Its forests are home to the tamaraw, dwarf buffalos whose images once graced one-peso coins. They used to be widespread, but are now critically endangered.

Land conversion has wiped out most of the habitat of the tamaraws. The lush expanse of forests where they liked to wallow in mud pits undisturbed have been flattened to make way for human settlements.

The same fate has befallen a species of pigeons called Mindoro bleeding-heart, named so because their breasts resemble a puncture wound with a blotch of orange at the center that deepens to dark red.

The rate of deforestation, which in turn drives the endangerment of species on the island, has been alarming, said ecologist Neil Aldrin Mallari, who studies the Mindoro bleeding-heart as president of the Center for Conservation Innovations.

The birds are also found on the islands of Negros, Panay, and Mindanao but the lowland forests where they used to live - the temperature there is right and fruits are aplenty - have drastically thinned through the years.

Mallari said the few remaining pigeons try to adapt, retreating to high altitudes where there are still trees to offer refuge. Those trees are their last stand.

Mindoro lost more than 200,000 hectares of forest cover from 2003 to 2015. It's about the size of land that 3,000 SM Mall of Asia complexes would cover if they stood side by side. The neighboring tourist haven of Palawan also lost nearly 30,000 hectares of forest land during the same period, based on government data.

The losses of Mindoro and Palawan in terms of forest cover make Mimaropa the most deforested region in the Philippines, even if other islands in it such as Marinduque and Romblon recorded some gains.

Mimaropa is also a microcosm of the state of forests in the country. Some provinces have successfully expanded their forest cover, but the gains were erased by consistent losses in others. (See map )

A log ban and a number of laws have been in place for decades to restore the forests, but the absence of a coherent policy on forest management has resulted in various forms of land conversion that continue to drive deforestation at an alarming rate.

The country's forest cover is only about seven million hectares or 23% of the country's total land area, based on official numbers, although experts are afraid that this number is overestimated.

That's a lot of forest lost from the early years of the Spanish colonial period, when forest cover was over 90%. The first Christian missionaries saw trees extending from the shores to the mountaintops, and likened the country to a paradise.

Abuses of the countrys' forests eventually harmed the population. The massive floods brought by typhoons Uring (international name Thema) in Ormoc in 1991 andOndoy (Ketsana) in Metro Manila in 2009 were just two of the disasters blamed on massive deforestation. Lush forests and watersheds could have held large amounts of rainwater that otherwise flowed into the communities, experts said.

The coronavirus pandemic that is taking its toll on the world - rich and poor countries alike - is also a stark reminder of a catastrophe that happens when populations occupy the habitats of wild animals. COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease that experts said likely jumped from a bat, then to another host species, before it infected humans.

It's a cycle of tragedies where humans are both the culprits and the victims.

Mallari predicted that Mindoro's bleeding-hearts would soon vanish. It's time to think seriously about the impacts of human activities on nature, he said.

"Extinction of species is not just about the cuddly animals," he said. "We care because they are the building blocks of our ecosystem. ' Pag nawala sila, wala rin tayo (If they are gone, so are we)."

The Philippines is one of the world's very few mega-biodiverse countries and one of the most vulnerable to climate impacts. The stakes are higher for the country.

THE VANISHING PHILIPPINE FORESTS. Extent of forest cover loss in the last century. Source: Dolom, 2006; Adopted from Environmental Science for Social Change (1999).

Courtesy of Dr. Neil Aldrin Mallari/Center for Conservation Innovations

Dwindling forests

Forests made up 27.5 million hectares or 92% of the country's total land area in the 16th century, when Spanish colonizers arrived. Forest cover dropped to 15.8 million hectares during the last years of the American occupation and to 10.6 million hectares just before the declaration of Martial Law.

It further shrank to 6.4 million hectares just after the 1986 People Power Revolution. Since then the country's forest cover hovered at just under 7 million hectares on average.

The Americans systematized logging, which worsened during Martial Law when dictator Ferdinand Marcos rewarded relatives and cronies with Timber License Agreements (TLA). The country recorded one of the worst deforestation rates in the Asia and Pacific region during those years, losing 316,000 hectares of forest annually on average. The TLA holders did not adopt selective logging, a sustainable way of harvesting timber. They cleared forests, did not replant, and even went beyond their concession areas. (Click to see the timeline of forest governance in the Philippines.)

Each administration drew up policies and programs to restore forests. Rehabilitation efforts have been in place since the 1910s, and there's a long list of acronyms and agreements between and among national and local governments, communities living within and near forests, as well as the private sector.

But these efforts were mired in allegations of mismanagement, corruption and power play.

Following the fall of the Marcos regime, the Cory Aquino government prioritized reforestation with support from bilateral partners and multilateral institutions. Timber exports were banned in 1992 and community-based approaches were introduced following the devastation brought by Typhoon Uring, whose heavy rains submerged Ormoc City and killed over 5,000 Filipinos.

Jose Andres Canivel, executive director of the Forest Foundation, said massive deforestation stopped when the government halted the issuance of TLAs. No conclusive data was available, but the shift to Community-Based Forestry Management Agreements might have helped ease the pressure on forests, he said. It's a tenurial instrument that allows qualified upland communities and people's organizations to develop, utilize and manage portions of forest lands and resources.

Forests recover if left alone, and conversion to agricultural land, timber poaching, and forest fires are stopped. They regenerate with the help of bats, birds, and other animals that disperse seeds, Canivel said.

He cited areas in the Sierra Madre and Apayao, which were once logged over but now have closed-canopy forests. " Nag-logging d'yan, natigil (They used to log there), now the forest has taken it back," he said.

The second Aquino government also embarked on a massive reforestation program, the National Greening Program, which aimed to double the country's forest cover by 2028. Funded by taxpayers' money, it sought to rehabilitate 7.1 million hectares of unproductive, denuded, and degraded forest lands.

President Benigno Aquino III also banned logging across the country entirely, in the wake of severe floodings that also claimed many lives. Prior to the executive order, the impacts of Tropical Storm Sendong (Washi) in December 2010 and Typhoon Ondoy in September 2009 were linked to deforestation.

Despite these efforts, however, the country's forest cover has not grown from 7 million hectares since the first Aquino administration. It hit a plateau because gains from restoration efforts in some parts of the country were erased by losses in others.

The steady numbers betray the alarming rate of deforestation in many parts of the country, according to experts. The geographical breakdown of 12 years' worth of data showed that half of all provinces registered losses totaling more than 154,000 hectares, based on the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority's satellite survey.

The real situation is probably worse. Canivel said satellite imagery should be verified on the ground because plantations might have also been scanned. Many forests had been cleared to make way for plantations, which did not count as forests, he said. For instance, forests in the Caraga region had been planted with timber, and in Palawan, oil palm.

Samson Pedragosa, Haribon Foundation advocacy officer, also questioned liberal definitions of forests adopted by the Philippines. A half-hectare land with a tree canopy cover of more than 10% is considered a forest, according to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

Mallari said this global definition did not quite match the characteristics of tropical rainforests, which should be dense and diverse. An increase in forest cover might not necessarily be due to growing trees, but because of the way forests were redefined, he said.

Philippine forests are also defined by their physical attributes - more than 1,000 meters above sea level and/or with an 18% slope - rather than their ecological function, Mallari said.

PCIJ requested an interview with the Forest Management Bureau (FMB) to verify the data it had provided as well as understand the country's forest management strategy. The FMB acknowledged PCIJ's letter, but could not respond to questions as of writing.

Global Forest Watch (GFW), a US-based monitor of global forests, has an alternate barometer of annual forest loss showing that more than 7,700 hectares of forest cover, equivalent to nearly 20 basketball courts, were lost every hour in the Philippines.

This adds up to an area the size of Iloilo City in over a year. The loss was 2% higher in 2020, mirroring the global trend. Last year, forest destruction increased 12% worldwide.

GFW also uses satellite imagery to measure deforestation, but its data cannot be compared with FMB's. The former monitors not just forest loss, but all other indicators of deforestation, like tree loss, tree gain, and fire alerts.

From 2002 to 2020, the country recorded 150,813 hectares of primary forest loss, GFW data also showed.

Alarming rates of deforestation are happening worldwide. GFW recorded 4.2 million hectares of forest loss, an area the size of the Netherlands, occurring within tropical primary forests around the globe. Some progress, however, has been recorded in Southeast Asia as forest losses in Indonesia and Malaysia declined for the fourth year in a row in 2020.

Greening program

The Duterte government continued Aquino's reforestation program. The Enhanced National Greening Program (E-NGP) seeks to rehabilitate 1.2 million hectares of denuded forest lands before President Rodrigo Duterte's term ends in 2022.

More than 1.74 billion seedlings have been planted from 2011 to 2020 in more than 2 million hectares of land area, FMB records showed. The program likewise generated more than 5 million jobs.

The E-NGP is among the programs designed to achieve the country's REDD+ objective - results-based climate change mitigation strategy - under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). REDD stands for "reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation." The plus sign represents the expansion of its focus to the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks in developing countries.

The Philippines drew up its National REDD+ Strategy in 2010 but an update published by the FMB in June 2017 showed that the country was still in the "readiness phase" and taking "readiness steps" to establish demonstration sites, as well as undertaking studies to implement it.

FAO's 2015 Global Forest Resources Assessment ranked the Philippines as fifth among 234 countries with the greatest reported gain in forest area annually from 2010 to 2015. The FMB attributed it to the then four-year-old National Greening Program.

State auditors and researchers have raised red flags on the implementation of the program. In 2019, the Commission on Audit (COA) found several issues with the DENR's fast-tracking of the program as it led to the imposition of targets beyond the capacities of officials; the lack of survey, mapping, and planning; and the inclusion of far untenured areas, which will be abandoned after the term of the maintenance and protection contract, among others.

"Instead of increasing forest cover, fast-tracking reforestation activities only increased the incidences of wastage," the COA said.

State think-tank Philippine Institute for Development Studies found that the survival rate of the trees planted under the NGP stood at just 61% in 2016 or below the 85% goal.

Moreover, University of the Philippines researchers found that forest cover loss in three sites in the Sierra Madre mountain range declined from 2011 to 2015 but increased from 2016 to 2018. Using satellite data, the study found that the net effect was a balance of reforestation and deforestation, or no significant gain.

Mallari, Canivel, Pedragosa and former environment undersecretary Antonio La Viña all raised concerns over the implementation of the NGP and the E-NGP. They said the efforts to protect the seedlings, the kinds of trees planted, and where the trees were planted needed to be scrutinized.

GFW data from 2002 to 2020 even showed that forest loss in the Philippines had reached a record high during the Duterte administration. The country lost more than 10,000 hectares of primary forest on average every year during his term. This was higher than the annual averages during the terms of Gloria Arroyo and Benigno Aquino III.

In a span of 18 years, forest loss reached its peak in 2017 during Duterte's second year in office. The decline continued in the following years although the figures remained within the annual average of about 8,000 hectares.

Pockets of success, however, can be found in rehabilitation efforts done by nongovernment organizations, community groups and the private sector in areas such as the Ipo Watershed, Upper Marikina Watershed, and the Masungi Georeserve. At the center of these efforts are the communities that live in or near the forests.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock

Forests and climate change

The Duterte government excluded reforestation efforts from its list of commitments under the 2016 Paris Agreement to mitigate climate change. Instead, it was included among adaptation measures, in which Manila pledged to "pursue forest protection, forest restoration and reforestation, and access to results-based finance in forest conservation."

Mitigation is aimed at addressing and minimizing the causes of climate change, while adaptation is focused on reducing its impacts.

This was curious, according to La Viña, also a former climate change negotiator for the Philippines, and Ian Rivera, coordinator of the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice.

La Viña said he was still studying why the government did not include forests to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in its list of commitments. The sectors included in the country's mitigation efforts are "agriculture, wastes, industry, transport, and energy."

Loss of forests is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. At least 20% of global emissions come from deforestation. Addressing the problem is crucial to avoiding the dangerous impacts of climate change.

"We should be looking at enhancement so we can go back to at least 10 million (hectares), for instance," said La Viña.

Neighbors Indonesia and Malaysia are good examples as they have placed forests front and center to mitigate emissions. Indonesia imposed a moratorium on the clearing of primary forests, prohibited the conversion of remaining forests, and adopted sustainable forest management measures. Malaysia committed to conserve its Central Forest Spine, which supplies 90% of its water, and the 220,000-square-kilometer "Heart of Borneo," said to be Asia's last great rainforest.

The Paris Agreement is an international treaty that aims to avert climate catastrophe. A total of 196 parties were expected to submit action plans last year. The commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are detailed in documents called nationally determined contributions or NDC.

A financial mechanism was also established, in which high-emitting developed countries provide funds to less industrialized countries. This will help developing countries like the Philippines, which emitted an average of 1.98 metric tons of carbon dioxide per capita in 2020 or about half of the global average of four metric tons, bear the brunt of climate change.

Duterte initially aired his misgivings about the Paris climate agreement, questioning how developed countries had dictated the terms of the collective fund that would be used to help developing countries achieve climate goals. He eventually signed it in March 2017.

Based on the NDC it submitted to the UNFCCC on April 15, 2021, the Philippines is targeting to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 75% by 2030. Accomplishing 72.29% of this goal depended on funding and assistance from the international community, based on its report to the UNFCCC on April 15, 2021.

No greenlight for the 'green bills'

Just maintaining the country's forest cover is not enough, said La Viña, who is now executive director of the Manila Observatory, a scientific research center. "[There's] no major initiative or nothing significantly negative comes to mind," he said.

He said proper management of the country's forests is key, but laws that seek to do this have been languishing in Congress.

The country's primary forest code is a Martial Law-era presidential decree that essentially promotes commercial logging, La Viña said. Although P.D. 705 has since been modified with the passage of the National Integrated Protected Area System in 1992 and the Indigenous People's Rights Act in 1997, a different law is needed to set the criteria on how forest resources should be managed and utilized, he said.

"There's no criteria when you can cut or not because we're still using the old forestry code," La Viña said.

Canivel said P.D. 705 promised an industrialization scheme where forests would contribute to the economy, but this didn't happen. He made the same call to pass "green bills" pending in Congress. The log ban that Aquino issued in 2011 is only an executive order.

Experts have identified at least three urgent "green" bills - the National Land Use Act (NLUA), the Sustainable Forest Management Act (SMFA), and the Alternative Minerals Management Act (AMMA).

Passage of the NLUA is needed to delineate forest boundaries and protect them. Land conversions are the main threats to forests, said Haribon's Pedragosa.

" Hindi pwedeng gamitin sa agriculture. Hindi pwede gamitin sa iba pang uses kung hindi forest lang talaga (It cannot be used for agriculture. It cannot be used for other purposes but it's supposed to be just for forests)," he said.

The SMFA is needed to set criteria for allowing logging, and settle debates on whether or not the government should allow selective logging or commercial logging. It should not be preoccupied with issuing timber-cutting or tree-cutting permits, and should set aside areas for conservation and management, restoration, and sustainable use, Canivel said.

"The new law has to be mindful of what we need to protect, what we need to restore and what we need to allow," he said.

Intended to replace the Mining Act of 1995, the AMMA seeks to ban extraction in environmentally critical areas such as small-island ecosystems and primary and secondary forests and watersheds. It also seeks to prohibit dumping of mine wastes into water systems.

All these laws are urgent, said Canivel. "We are faced with different realities. We understand forests better now. We certainly need a new policy framework." - Rappler.com
This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center's This piece is republished with permission from the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism. Rainforest Investigations Network (RIN). To learn more about forest stories across the globe, visit the RIN fellows' page .

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7 million hectares of Philippine land are forested - and that's bad news

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The country has been vulnerable to massive flooding linked to deforestation. The coronavirus pandemic is also a catastrophe that arose from populations occupying wild animal habitats.

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https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/world-wetlands-are-slipping-away-agusan-marsh-underscores-stakes
TITLE: The world’s wetlands are slipping away. This vibrant sanctuary underscores the stakes.

AUTHOR: SARAH GIBBENS
DATE PUBLISHED: FEBRUARY 3, 2021
KEY INFO: About 60 percent of the 15,000 people living in the Agusan Marsh are Agusan Manobos, a local Indigenous group. Seen here, fog and smoke from nearby fires pollutes the air over a Manobo village. Fires have become more common as wetlands fall prey to drought or are manually drained to make room for crops like palm oil, rice, and corn.

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In the lush, bright-green thickets of the Philippine's Agusan Marsh, nestled in the country's far south Mindanao island, children steer canoes through meandering waterways and swim in lakes.

The marsh is a playground, as well as a source of food, shelter, and culture for the Manobo Indigenous tribe that lives there in moored floating houses that rise and fall with the rainy seasons. For hundreds of years, this wetland ecosystem has been a veritable paradise for the Manobo people who make a living there hunting and fishing. The more than 100,000 inland acres is also home to nearly 200 species of birds, as well as mammals, reptiles, and fish living in the region.

The Agusan Marsh represents everything wetlands can offer-storm protection, food security, biodiversity, carbon storage-but also the large challenges they face.

Upstream pollution, climate change, and habitat destruction threaten the sanctity of this ecosystem. Pollutants from mining operations and palm oil plantations compromise water quality, and critical, carbon-rich peatlands are being drained and burned to make room for more palm oil, rice, and corn.

Fifty years ago today, on February 2, 1971, representatives of 18 nations meeting in Ramsar, Iran, adopted the Convention on Wetlands, also called the Ramsar Convention, a treaty aimed at conserving wetlands around the world. Today, 171 countries have signed the treaty. But since 1971, more than 35 percent of the world's wetlands have been drained for urban development or agriculture, polluted, paved over, or lost to sea level rise.

February 2 remains a day devoted to calling attention to the plight of wetlands, and this year, World Wetlands Day is highlighting them as a critical source of freshwater at a time when that commodity is becoming ever more scarce.

"Wetlands and their species and ecosystems services are still in decline, and that is after 50 years of concerted international effort through the contracting parties to the Convention. Something more is needed," says Max Finlayson, an author of a 2018 report that assessed the state of the world's wetlands.

What are wetlands and what do they do?

Wetlands comprise a diverse array of ecosystems that are either flooded permanently or seasonally. They're often along the coast, in the form of grassy marshes or mangrove forests, but can also be further inland, like forested swamps or peat bogs where water collects and saturates the ground. They're often fed by rivers and tributaries and contain lakes.

In Agusan, freshwater marshes are surrounded by forested swamps, peatland, rivers, and 59 lakes.

"I think they've suffered for a long time from the perception as muddy, buggy areas that didn't have a lot of value," says Jennifer Howard, Senior Director of Conservation International's Blue Carbon Program. "We've shown recently you're very hard pressed to find an ecosystem that's more productive, that has all the environmental and climate benefits rolled into one."

It's estimated that nearly a billion people depend on wetlands for a living in some way-be it farming, fishing, tourism, or transportation-and around 40 percent of the world's species breed in wetlands or use them as nurseries.

Wetlands are also an important source of "green" infrastructure. Like a levee that shield a town from a hurricane, coastal wetlands lessen the damage from powerful storms, helping to control flooding by blocking incoming storm surges, while reducing the impact from wind. One recent study found that one lost hectare (about 2.5 acres) of coastal wetland increased the cost of damage from major storms by $33,000 on average.

While forests are often described as the "lungs of the Earth" because they're important sources of oxygen, wetlands are described as the kidneys because they filter upstream pollutants.

When a wetland disappears, it's like pulling a linchpin out of a healthy environment. As pollutants and sediments float downriver, "wetlands grab all that and hold onto it," says Howard. "Sediments are a detriment to coral reefs, and when wetlands disappear, they can choke corals."

To mitigate the effects of climate change, we need to do more than just reduce our emissions, say scientists. We also need to conserve large areas of land like forests, grasslands, and wetlands, which help remove carbon from the atmosphere by containing it in their roots and locking it in the soil. These types of environments are called "carbon sinks," and globally, they store millions of tons of carbon every year.

Wetlands are "one of the few ecosystems that goes from being a super-efficient [carbon] sink to a source of carbon emissions if it's damaged," says Howard. It's estimated that cumulatively, wetlands contain a third of the carbon stored in soil and biomass on land. When wetlands disappear, that carbon is released into the atmosphere.

Issues in Agusan

How wetlands should be conserved and what it will take to do so is no mystery, say environmentalists. The hard part is drumming up enough political will and money.

The Philippines declared the Agusan Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary a protected area in 1996. It spans approximately 101,000 acres. On the international level, it's recognized as both a "wetland of international importance" under the Ramsar Convention and Heritage Park by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Yet the last Asian Waterbird Census of the park's birds, done in 2020, found an overall 11 percent decrease in the past year; 17,780 from 72 different species were counted, as opposed to over 20,000 in 2019. Overall bird counts had been trending up since the census began in 2014, especially as the park expanded its census staff and added new monitoring stations, but a drought in 2019 is thought to have left birds with fewer feeding grounds.

Ibonia says the park needs more resources to accurately track the marsh's many species.

"The park lacks technical capacity to carry out all its mandate due to very limited manpower resources," says Emmilie Ibonia, the protected area superintendent for the Agusan Marsh Wildlife Sanctuary. She writes via email that only about nine employees are contracted to manage the park.

As parts of the wetland dry out from drought or from draining by agricultural companies, the park's protectors must also now contend with forest fires. In 2019 and 2020, an estimated 240 acres of peatland and swamp forests were burned. But Ibonia says they lack the fire-fighting equipment to suppress them.

Solutions in Agusan and globally

One of the biggest hurdles to conserving wetlands is changing how people think about them, says Howard.

For example, when given the choice between turning oceanfront property into a lucrative hotel or leaving a muddy expanse of marshland untouched, it can be hard to convince people to do the latter, she says.

In a paper published last year, a group of scientists argued that wetlands should be granted legal rights.

"Recognizing rights of nature, including for wetlands, may not be conventional in the minds of some, but equally we have seen a transition in the recognition of the rights of people in recent history," says Finlayson, one of the study's authors. The Yurok Tribe on the U.S. West Coast bestowed legal rights on the Klamath River in 2019.

Despite little progress in the past 50 years, conservationists are hopeful that the movement to save wetlands could finally gain traction. Wetland ecosystems have become popular contenders for carbon offset programs, in which polluters offset their carbon emissions by paying to conserve stored carbon elsewhere.

"From the private sector, demand for this carbon offset outstrips supply by a lot," says Howard. "People realize this is a good thing we want to invest in."

Martha Rojas Urrego, who oversees the Convention on Wetlands as its secretary general, thinks that despite an overall loss in the amount of wetlands since 1971, the world could be at a turning point in its appreciation of them. The current pandemic has raised awareness of the importance of nature, she says, as scientists warn that destroying critical wildlife habitat could lead to the emergence of more viruses like the one that causes COVID-19.

"Increasingly, we have seen that there is a recognition of the link between nature and people," Rojas Urrego says. "This is a tragic situation that we are living in, at the same time it is showing what we do to nature has an impact on us."

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The world's wetlands are slipping away. This vibrant wildlife sanctuary underscores the stakes.

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In the lush, bright-green thickets of the Philippine's Agusan Marsh, nestled in the country's far south Mindanao island, children steer canoes through meandering waterways and swim in lakes. The marsh is a playground, as well as a source of food, shelter, and culture for the Manobo Indigenous tribe that lives there in moored floating houses that rise and fall with the rainy seasons.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em1eRDsXD4U
TITLE:  Effects of deforestation in the Philippines

AUHTOR:  Doc Nielsen
DATE PUBLISHED: May 12, 2019
KEY INFO: As we lose more forests year after year, could there be more species that are still waiting to be discovered, and that are already under threat? Before voting on Monday, learn more about the issues facing the Philippine environment.

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Born to be Wild: Effects of deforestation in the Philippines

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https://gayecrispin.wordpress.com/tag/logging-in-mindanao/
TITLE: Deforestation and Forest Criminals in Mindanao: Nature’s message being ignored

AUTHOR: Gaye Crispin
DATE PUBLISHED: July 2, 2012
KEY INFO: The whirring sound of chainsaws was very distinct as our vehicle zigzagged through the road arteries of the provinces of Compostela Valley, Davao Oriental, Surigao del Sur and Agusan del Sur.

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https://denr.gov.ph/index.php/news-events/press-releases/2893-denr-welcomes-10-000-trees-initiative-of-lions-clubs-international?highlight=WyJkZWZvcmVzdGF0aW9uIl0=
TITLE: DENR WELCOMES 10,000 TREES INITIATIVE OF LIONS CLUBS INTERNATIONAL

AUTHOR:
DATE PUBLISHED: 17 June 2021
KEY INFO: "The DENR welcomes the initiative of Lions Clubs International Multiple District 301 Philippines to help in the National Greening Program, a priority program of the government, which addresses deforestation and helps in climate change mitigation and adaptation,” said Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu

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The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has gained a strong ally in the government's reforestation program after the Lions Clubs International (LCI) Multiple District 301 Philippines has committed to plant 10,000 trees nationwide during the 34th anniversary of the DENR on June 10.

"The DENR welcomes the initiative of Lions Clubs International Multiple District 301 Philippines to help in the National Greening Program, a priority program of the government, which addresses deforestation and helps in climate change mitigation and adaptation," said Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu.

LCI Multiple District (MD) 301 Council Chairperson Dra. Elisa B. Valdez said that in pursuit of the partnership, the organization is committing to plant 10,000 trees all over the country to support the National Greening Program of the DENR. She also confirmed that LCI MD 301 will also take part in "coastal cleanup, outreach programs, and information, education and communication initiatives."

The commitment and partnership, sealed through a memorandum of agreement (MOA) signed by Cimatu and Valdez during the DENR's 34th anniversary, aims to strengthen the spirit of volunteerism and promote behavioral change towards environment protection.

It also aims to collaborate on environmental activities aligned with DENR programs and encourage citizen participation such as the clean-up of esteros and rivers, the rehabilitation of Manila Bay, the rescue of wildlife, and the education of the citizenry in care for the environment and natural resources, among others.

The partnership was initiated by DENR Undersecretary for Solid Waste Management and Local Government Units Concerns Benny Antiporda, who is the governor of LCI District 301-A2.

Even prior to the MOA signing, the DENR, through Antiporda, has worked together with LCI districts in various environmental activities such as tree planting and the Manila Bay and river clean-ups, as well as in its programs for persons with disabilities (PWDs) and other stakeholders.

"The DENR is grateful to LCI Multiple District 301 for the spirit of volunteerism, imbibed among its members, that it will bring into the DENR and its stakeholders. This is much needed now more than any other time. We want to eliminate the culture of indifference among many Filipinos which relinquishes all environmental responsibility to the government alone," said Antiporda.

He added that volunteerism is in itself the prime example of behavior change.

"When you have changed your behavior towards the care and protection of the environment, it becomes second nature for you to volunteer for environmental activities," Antiporda expressed.

LCI is a service, civic, non-political organization with thousands of members nationwide. It is involved in community service to help improve the lives of people, and promotes the principles of good government and good citizenship.

In the agreement, the LCI will mobilize its members and its service community within their area of jurisdiction to participate in the environmental voluntary activities of the department related to DENR priority programs in line with the campaign "Tayo ang Kalikasan."

Tayo ang Kalikasan is the DENR's advocacy campaign that aims to raise the level of awareness of Filipinos and promote behavioral change towards the effects of their activities on the environment. ###

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DENR welcomes 10,000 trees initiative of Lions Clubs International

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The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has gained a strong ally in the government's reforestation program after the Lions Clubs International (LCI) Multiple District 301 Philippines has committed to plant 10,000 trees nationwide during the 34th anniversary of the DENR on June 10.

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https://www.jstor.org/stable/25770305
TITLE: Population Pressure and Deforestation in the Philippines
AUTHOR: JSTOR
DATE PUBLISHED:
KEY INFO: This article evaluates increasing population pressure on forest lands, and analyses the deforestation were observed in Mindanao.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yyNKg6I58k
TITLE: In the Heart of Mindanao
AUTHOR: Anthony Collins & Documentary Educational Resources
DATE PUBLISHED: SEP 20 2008
KEY INFO: In this small village called Bendum, the local community has successfully struggled, after decades of commercialized logging and deforestation, to gain control over their ancestral lands. Suitable for teaching Anthropology, Globalization, Environmental Studies, Economics and Asian Studies.

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Bendum: In the Heart of Mindanao - PREVIEW

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https://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/philippinen/14072.pdf
TITLE:  Feminism and the Women's Movement in the Philippines: Struggles, Advances, and Challenges
AUTHOR:  Mylene D. Hega, Veronica C. Alporha and Meggan S. Evangelista
DATE PUBLISHED:  August 2017
KEY INFO:  The dynamic women's movement in the Philippines is the product of a long history of struggle and participation in various historical conjunctures. As a nation rigged by a difficult colonial past, it is important to locate the role of women in the quest for independence

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https://cws.up.edu.ph/wp-content/uploads/UP-Gender-Guidelines.pdf
TITLE:  Guidelines on Promoting Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality in the University of the Philippines
AUTHOR: UP
DATE PUBLISHED: 22 February 2017
KEY INFO:

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https://rainforests.mongabay.com/deforestation/archive/Philippines.htm
TITLE:
AUTHOR: Tree cover loss: Hansen/UMD/Google/USGS/NASA via Global Forest Watch. Administrative boundaries: Global Administrative Areas database (GADM), version 3.6
DATE PUBLISHED: 2019
KEY INFO: Deforestation statistics for philippines.

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2022 deforestation statistics for Philippines

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2022 deforestation statistics for Philippines, including tree cover loss, primary forest cover, and biodiversity data

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https://twitter.com/proarmm/status/1226672963597914114?s=25&fbclid=IwAR2j4PwIAbfSJw6Cw7ZIHlX3FG4QnkqtAx_RkNGGlLq_g9YZXB3r10RV99Y
TITLE: The United Nation Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women led by Miss Riza C Torrado
AUTHOR: Police Regional Office BAR
DATE PUBLISHED:  Feb 10, 2020
KEY INFO: Team Leader Mindanao Sub-Office paid courtesy meeting to PRO BAR represented by PCOL Eden T Ugale, DRDA on February 6, 2020 at Camp BGen Salipada K Pendatun,Parang, Maguindanao.

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The United Nation Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women led by Miss Riza C Torrado, Team Leader Mindanao Sub-Office paid courtesy meeting to PRO BAR represented by PCOL Eden T Ugale, DRDA on February 6, 2020 at Camp BGen Salipada K Pendatun,Parang, Maguindanao.

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The United Nation Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women led by Miss Riza C Torrado, Team Leader Mindanao Sub-Office paid courtesy meeting to PRO BAR represented by PCOL Eden T Ugale, DRDA on February 6, 2020 at Camp BGen Salipada K Pendatun,Parang, Maguindanao. https://t.co/bSiMgZyaGs

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The United Nation Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women led by Miss Riza C Torrado, Team Leader Mindanao Sub-Office paid courtesy meeting to PRO BAR represented by PCOL Eden T Ugale, DRDA on February 6, 2020 at Camp BGen Salipada K Pendatun,Parang, Maguindanao. pic.twitter.com/bSiMgZyaGs
— Police Regional Office BAR (@proarmm) February 10, 2020

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The United Nation Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women led by Miss Riza C Torrado, Team Leader Mindanao Sub-Office paid courtesy meeting to PRO BAR represented by PCOL Eden T Ugale, DRDA on February 6, 2020 at Camp BGen Salipada K Pendatun,Parang, Maguindanao. https://t.co/bSiMgZyaGs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
The United Nation Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women led by Miss Riza C Torrado, Team Leader Mindanao Sub-Office paid courtesy meeting to PRO BAR represented by PCOL Eden T Ugale, DRDA on February 6, 2020 at Camp BGen Salipada K Pendatun,Parang, Maguindanao. https://t.co/bSiMgZyaGs

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
The United Nation Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women led by Miss Riza C Torrado, Team Leader Mindanao Sub-Office paid courtesy meeting to PRO BAR represented by PCOL Eden T Ugale, DRDA on February 6, 2020 at Camp BGen Salipada K Pendatun,Parang, Maguindanao.

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https://greeninvestasia.com/usaid-supports-modeling-of-deforestation-in-mindanao-to-launch-carbon-offset-project/
TITLE: USAID SUPPORTS MODELING OF DEFORESTATION IN MINDANAO TO LAUNCH CARBON OFFSET PROJECT
AUTHOR: USAID
DATE PUBLISHED: June 15, 2021
KEY INFO: The global carbon market has expanded more than five-fold since 2017, reaching a record high of $272 billion in 2020, according to the financial analysis company, Refinitiv. The market for carbon offsets is expected to become a lot bigger as companies and countries set ambitious goals for net-zero carbon emissions.

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June 15, 2021 (BANGKOK) - The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Green Invest Asia project supported Kennemer Eco Solutions (KenEco) to complete a spatial analysis of deforestation in the southern Philippines' island of Mindanao, which assessed past and future deforestation drivers, as part of KenEco's plan to create a forest restoration and protection program compliant with the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) program.

The global carbon market has expanded more than five-fold since 2017, reaching a record high of $272 billion in 2020, according to the financial analysis company, Refinitiv. The market for carbon offsets is expected to become a lot bigger as companies and countries set ambitious goals for net-zero carbon emissions.

KenEco is developing a carbon fund - a vehicle to calculate, reduce and offset carbon footprints - that integrates climate finance into the business model of its parent company, the Philippine agribusiness Kennemer Foods International. Once projects are developed and certified against rules of the Verified Carbon Standard, the world's most widely used voluntary carbon offset program, interested companies can purchase tradable greenhouse gas credits called Verified Carbon Units (VCUs). Those VCUs can then be sold on the open market and "retired," or used by individuals and companies to offset their own emissions. The first step to participating in this global carbon finance market is conducting a baseline carbon stock analysis of a proposed project site.

"USAID's support for the data-gathering and modelling training are concrete steps to scale up restoration and conservation to landscape level, but also puts us one step closer to joining the global carbon market- a new business line for us," said KenEco's co-founder, Florian Reimer. "We are expanding from our focus on the farm to explore nature-based solutions like restoration and conservation. It's good for the land. It's good for forest communities who benefit from a forest-positive future."

Over the next decade, KenEco's Rural Transformation program aims to establish 14,000 hectares of new cacao agroforestry plots, restore 4,500 hectares of natural forest areas, and protect remaining forests on more than 200,000 hectares.

Remote Sensing Solutions (RSS) was selected to provide KenEco estimated baseline carbon stock changes and greenhouse gas emissions from unplanned deforestation and wetland degradation for nearly the entire island of Mindanao. The study examined drivers of deforestation, mapped historic deforestation, and estimated future locations of probable deforestation using geographic socio-ecological data and historical deforestation derived from satellite data.

"Through combining the latest Earth Observation systems, highly automated IT and processing capacities with VCS-conform geospatial modelling, we supported KenEco's endeavor in this forest restoration and protection program," said Jonas Franke, Managing Director of RSS. "Innovative big satellite data analysis provided data-driven evidence of the potential impact such a VCS-project can have in Mindanao."

The analyses are helping KenEco to identify potential project areas including indigenous communities with Certificates of Ancestral Domain Title that have agreed to be part of the carbon accreditation program. With the baseline study, KenEco will now proceed with project design. The study must be renewed every decade after the start of the project, or 2030 next.

"We are pleased to support this innovative business model for an agribusiness like Kennemer to incorporate climate finance into their operations as we recognize the importance of the carbon market to incentivize reduction of GHG emissions. We hope KenEco can serve as a model to other businesses in the region so they can support climate action on a larger scale," said Christy Owen, head of USAID Green Invest Asia.

USAID Green Invest Asia is a technical services project that provides technical and business advisory to established agribusiness, forestry and other land use companies in Southeast Asia, as well as to financial institutions, to help them mitigate risks and capitalize on investment opportunities that result in lowering greenhouse gas emissions from land use change.

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USAID supports modeling of deforestation in Mindanao to launch carbon offset project - USAID

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TweetJune 15, 2021 (BANGKOK) - The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Green Invest Asia project supported Kennemer Eco Solutions (KenEco) to complete a spatial analysis of deforestation in the southern Philippines' island of Mindanao, which assessed past and future deforestation drivers, as part of KenEco's plan to create a forest restoration and protection [...]

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https://www.rappler.com/moveph/advocacies/video-what-you-like-about-being-woman/
TITLE:  What do you love about being a woman?

AUTHOR: Kris Angel Ditan, Sarah Villanueva, and Tara Mercene.
DATE PUBLISHED: MAR 27, 2021
KEY INFO: What I love about being a woman is that we actually fight back

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'What I love about being a woman is that we actually fight back'

As we celebrate Women's History Month this March, the significance of women in the community is showcased. The continuous pursuit of gender equality and the fight against oppression are highlighted this month to show support for movements devoted to women empowerment.

In Our Shoes is a video series with women themselves emphasizing the importance of their role in society.

In this episode, we ask women, "What do you love about being a woman?" Here we show how they empower each other by expressing their strengths. - Rappler.com
This video series is co-produced by Rappler interns Kris Angel Ditan, Sarah Villanueva, and Tara Mercene.

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[WATCH] 'In Our Shoes': What do you love about being a woman?

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'What I love about being a woman is that we actually fight back' As we celebrate Women's History Month this March, the significance of women in the community is showcased. The continuous pursuit of gender equality and the fight against oppression are highlighted this month to show support for movements devoted to women empowerment.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOT8OiopR24
TITLE: Gender Equality

AUTHOR: One Mindanao

DATE PUBLISHED: Oct 26, 2021
KEY INFO: Gina-awhag karon sa DOTr ang mga kababaihan ug miyembro sa LGBT community nga mo-apply isip bus driver sa High Priority Bus System sa Davao City.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGSuZ4pJ0RU
TITLE: Our Trees

AUTHOR: Tegan and Sara

DATE PUBLISHED: Nov 22, 2015
KEY INFO: Song about trees

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https://blog.powertofly.com/feminist-memes?rebelltitem=10#rebelltitem10
TITLE: Stereotyping is not cool. If you're curious to learn more about your teammates, ask HR for some employee engagement team building activities to break the ice and understand each other better.
AUHTOR: UNKNOWN
DATE PUBLISHED: UNKNOWN
KEY INFO: The literal definition of feminism is EQUALITY of the sexes. Just because I advocate for my fellow female colleagues at work doesn't mean I hate men, in fact, studies show that diverse teams perform better - not just female teams.

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Feminist Memes To Keep You Motivated - & LOLing - At Work.

To meme at work or not to meme at work, that is the question.

Memes are a big part of our digital culture. They are an online extension of ourselves and play a key role in our social expression. They also make it pretty easy to fall into Internet wormholes that have the power to make domestic cats famous ( RIP Grumpy Cat) and our coworkers chuckle.

Sure, memes are meant to be funny, but they can also provide a simplistic, visual approach to important human rights issues in the most highly shareable format possible (did someone say viral?!). It also goes without saying that there are plenty of memes out there that don't show women in the most positive light.

So how can we make sure those fun feminist memes we love and find ourselves thumbing through are the ones going viral and those not so fun memes stay hidden from the interweb altogether?

Tiffany Shlain, cofounder of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences and founder of the Webby Awards, practices something called " Growing Up the Internet" - redesigning how we receive and share our internet findings.

Her main tip? Saturate your feed with content that empowers and inspires you each and every day - block the ones that don't. Hashtags like #EmpowerWomen, #GenderGap, #WomenInTech are great starts. Our personal "meme time" on the internet can also be full of positive images.

Check out some of our team's favorite feminist memes to keep you motivated - & LOLing - at work.

Let us know what memes inspire you and make you your most productive self at work.

Tweet us your favorites @powertofly and we'll add them to the list!

Meme-ology:
As we work to break the gender gap together, women in biz/STEM gotta stick together.

PowerToFly Hot Tip:
Get inspired on how to support your fellow female colleague by listening to the Confessions of Successful Asian Women podcast.

Meme-ology:
We are diverse women. Embrace your uniqueness in the workplace so that you can take innovation to the next level.

PowerToFly Hot Tip:
You don't need to hide who you are at work! Watch Michele Cantos, Director of Fullstack Academy's Grace Hopper Program, explain how you can be your authentic self at work and leverage your unique background and experiences.

Meme-ology:
Self-confidence is key - if you believe in yourself, anything is possible!

PowerToFly Hot Tip:
Check out this provocative self-help book on our 2019 summer reading list to develop more self-confidence in your professional and personal life.

Meme-ology:
Self-love, self-care, and body hair. Embrace yourself. You are enough.
PowerToFly Hot Tip:
Ready to change your mindset? It's easier said than done, but our own Diversity & Inclusion Consultant Jamie Lipiner knows a thing or two about self-love! Check out her tips here.

Meme-ology:
Find your professional peers and embrace the sense of community that comes with it. There are people out there who are willing and want to support you!
PowerToFly Hot Tip:
If you are making a pivot in your career and need some guidance, this chat and learn is sure to help you embrace your strengths and weaknesses to "Repurpose Your Purpose!

Meme-ology:
Taking on inclusion means focusing on building meaningful relationships. When it comes to marketing, there are companies who value transparency, open-mindedness, and authentic outreach. The trick is filtering through the content that arrives at your fingertips to see if your best interests are being served, or if it's a tacky attempt to win you over - LGBTQ+ community or otherwise.

Finding ways to include diverse and underrepresented voices is important to us at PowerToFly. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by coworkers who either identify with the LGBTQ+ community or don't, yet still value our voices and community engagement processes.
Unfortunately, there are companies who lack that authentic perspective but may just as well be curious as to how to reach the LGBTQ+ market. Check out this book by LGBTQ+ business strategist Jenn T Grace to help navigate this highly nuanced demographic - sensitively and profitably. Grace shares stories that illustrate the do's and don'ts of doing business with the LGBTQ community.

Meme-ology:
Feminism (n): the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.

The literal definition of feminism is EQUALITY of the sexes. Just because I advocate for my fellow female colleagues at work doesn't mean I hate men, in fact, studies show that diverse teams perform better - not just female teams.

Meme-ology:
Stereotyping is not cool. If you're curious to learn more about your teammates, ask HR for some employee engagement team building activities to break the ice and understand each other better.

Listen to the Creating Espacios podcast on our list of recommended podcasts. You'll find an episode with Nathalie Huerta explaining how vulnerability, community building, and Google helped her build The Perfect Sidekick Gym, the first queer gym in the nation. "Nathalie works tirelessly to create safe spaces for those in the LGBT community in a life-changing way." -Creating Espacios

Meme-ology:
Not every leader develops overnight - and not every woman wants to lead.

Sure, we're living in a day and age where the call for female leaders and role models is louder than ever, but not every woman wants to be a leader - and that's ok! If you're in a leadership position now, check in on the women below you, ask them if they need some help, and what their career goals are. If they are interested in leadership - awesome! Have them check out this video and support them along their way. If they aren't interested, that's ok too. They still need the support and advocacy of other leaders to propel them into the best individual contributors they can be!

Meme-ology:
Teamwork makes the dream work!

We recognize the importance of inclusion in the workplace. As the LGBTQ+ community fights for equality and inclusion at work (for trans employees to be able to use the bathroom, for example), officials like presidential candidate Kirsten Gillibrand are working hard to protect this girl's trans mom, and the LGBTQ+ community in general.

"Fashion you can buy, but style you possess. The key to style is learning who you are, which takes years. There's no how-to road map to style. It's about self expression and, above all, attitude." -Iris Apfel, businesswoman and fashion icon.

PTF Hot Tip:
Are you looking to build a workplace culture with a certain buzz about it? Where employees are thriving and engagement survey scores are through the roof. Where people from different backgrounds, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, ages, and abilities are hired and set up for success-and they all want their friends to work there too, because it's so awesome.

One secret to creating this kind of workplace is allyship. And it's something anyone can do! Check out our recent Chat & Learn with Author of Better Allies: Everyday Actions to Create Inclusive, Engaging Workplaces, Karen Catlin. She'll help guide you to make your workplace more inclusive!

Meme-ology:
I've always just accepted that the universal 'woman' sign depicts a 'woman in a dress'... but why?

PTF Hot Tip:
I don't need to remind you that unconscious bias is a real thing... but it exists, and you have one whether you mean to or not (ask your colleague to draw a female stick figure - I bet I can guess what they'll draw). If your company doesn't offer training that allows you to check-in on this bias, take it upon yourself to do it on your own and encourage your colleagues to join in.

Meme-ology:
Stop saying "I'm sorry" at work.

PTF Hot Tip:
This is a tough one, but it's something we really push ourselves to do at PowerToFly - cut "I'm Sorry" from your vocabulary. You shouldn't apologize for your passion, emotions or human behavior at work. If you don't understand what's being asked, ask. If something wasn't successful, find out how you can do it better next time. Stop apologizing.

Meme-ology:
Work-life balance, people!

There is only so much time in a day, and only so many days in your life. That email that you forgot to send today most likely isn't going to solve world peace, and can absolutely be handled tomorrow. Need a little help putting things into perspective? Watch this Chat with Amy Adams about practicing gratitude - I promise you'll be feeling better in no time.

Related Articles Around the Web

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Feminist Memes To Keep You Motivated (& Laughing) At Work

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Meme-ology:Stereotyping is not cool. If you're curious to learn more about your teammates, ask HR for some employee engagement team building activities to break the ice and understand each other better.PTF Hot Tip:Listen to the Creating Espacios podcast on our list of recommended podcasts. You'll fi...

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https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/empowering-women-podcast-s4-nicole-calhoun-founder/id1457290025?i=1000551990707
TITLE: Empowering Women Podcast S4: Nicole Calhoun, Founder of SC Calhoun Consulting, Courage to be Uniquely You
AUTHOR: Nicole Calhoun
DATE PUBLISHED:  FEB 23, 2022

KEY INFO: The more I began working with women I began to realize I wasn’t alone. We have this struggle, I realize, as women that we want to advance and we want more but we feel like we’re stuck.”

“One day I realized that we’re not one of the guys and we’re not supposed to be. Many times we start trying to emulate what is around us because we think that is how we want to advance.

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ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Vanessa Mathews ,as the founder and chief resilience officer of Asfalis Advisors, the co-owner and host of the Business Resilience DECODED podcast, and an adjunct professor at Savannah State University, is unmatched in her experience and knowledge with a unique ability to translate complex topics with personal anecdotes
Vanessa is a catalyst for change in the world of business and entrepreneurship. She has a passion for women and the black community in highlighting the systemic challenges minority professionals face in the public and private sectors. Her desire is to create forward moving change and decrease the wealth inequality gap in these communities, by sharing her knowledge and expertise through her energetic and encouraging approach.
CONNECT WITH VANESSA
LinkedIn Twitter Learn More About Vanessa as a speaker
CONNECT WITH ASFALIS ADVISORS (@AsfalisAdvisors)
BUSINESS RESILENCE PODCAST (@BRDECODED)

LINKS
Managing the Wealth Crisis Download
McKinsey Study: The Economic Impact of Closing the Racial Wealth Gap
Video - Racial Wealth Gap Explained
Bloomberg: The Historic Issues Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Gap
Forbes Article: What The 3Ps Of The Triple Bottom Line Really Mean
Empowering Women Website
Empowering Women Slack Channel
Empowering Women Events (Including Meet Ups)
QUOTES AND KEY TAKEAWAYS
On What Brought Vanessa to Become a Thought Leader in Racial Wealth Inequity:
Experiences of my grandparents, my great-grandparents, and my parentsVision for my marriage "We're hear to change positively change the trajectory of our last name and to create wealth."Murder of George Floyd in 2020Current state of the black dollar is at a very critical state of emergency (> 50% of black businesses have gone out of business since COVID)What is Racial Wealth Gap? "The difference in assets between an ethnic group and another group." These disparities look like " the lack of social capital or the lack of access to financial capital."
900% asset wealth gap between white and black families.
"Nothing is untouched by racism."
"People became property for profit. That is where the wealth gap began."
"Perception acts as a lens through which we view reality. Perception is a matter of life and death for black people, literally."
"The United States used poverty, cruelty, and totalitarianism to force us to do what they wanted us to do as people."
"It's systemic, its intentional, and it's built into the fabric, the DNA, of every single thing that we do"
"Changing the policies and the systems, it changes the impact and it changes our trajectory. It changes your wealth. It changes our community."
"Crisis, from a business perspective, impacts your operations, profitability, and your reputation."

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empowering women podcast s4:  vanessa mathews

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founder and chief resilience office of asfalis advisors

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‎The Empowering Women Podcast: Empowering Women Podcast S4: Vanessa Mathews, Founder and Chief Resilience Office of Asfalis Advisors, Building a Road to Racial Wealth Equity on Apple Podcasts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
ABOUT OUR GUEST: Vanessa Mathews ,as the founder and chief resilience officer of Asfalis Advisors, the co-owner and host of the Business Resilience DECODED podcast, and an adjunct professor at Savannah State University, is unmatched in her experience and knowledge with a unique ability to translat...

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https://www.pinterest.ph/
TITLE: EQUAL WORK DESERVES EQUAL PAY
AUTHOR: Laura Wells

DATE PUBLISHED: UNKOWN
KEY INFO: This poster showcases the importance of equal pay amongst all genders.

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Discover recipes, home ideas, style inspiration and other ideas to try.