Australian environmental regulation and coverage professional Ian Fry final visited the Philippines within the mid-Nineteen Nineties when he attended a workshop on forest conservation as a part of a worldwide coalition.
Since then, he has joined a number of different inexperienced organisations and has served the Tuvalu authorities as its ambassador for local weather change and atmosphere. He represented the Pacific Island nation in numerous worldwide local weather change conferences, together with on the COP talks for greater than 20 years.
This month, Fry returned to the Philippines because the United Nations particular rapporteur tasked to watch points on human rights within the context of local weather change. His job is to make coverage suggestions to nations he visits even when he can not coerce governments to use the really helpful adjustments.
Earlier than the Philippines, Fry had visited two different nations – Honduras and Bangladesh – after his appointment in Could 2022 by the UN human rights council.
Within the Philippines, he selected to go to what he believed had been essentially the most climate-vulnerable areas within the nation like city poor coastal communities in Metro Manila in addition to calamity-stricken locations in Leyte and Iloilo Metropolis within the Visayas area.
Fry went to the Bataan Transport Engineering Firm compound (Baseco) which lies on virtually 50 hectares of poorly reclaimed land round Manila Bay. He spoke to fisherfolk communities about how steady dredging actions within the bay have affected their livelihood, regardless of Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos, Jr ordering the suspension of all coastal land reclamation initiatives within the space.
UN particular rapporteur on local weather change and human rights Ian Fry takes a photograph of a strip of reclaimed land in Manila Bay, on the coast of the city poor neighbourhood of Baseco compound. Picture: Kalikasan PNE
He additionally flew to Tacloban Metropolis in Leyte, the positioning of Hurricane Haiyan, the deadliest storm to hit the nation. He spoke to civil society organsations, which confirmed him locations that might reveal prevailing environmental threats within the aftermath of the storm. These embody a government-planned reclamation mission that many worry will affect surrounding mangroves, that are thriving as soon as once more regardless of being as soon as destroyed by the supertyphoon.
In Iloilo, he met with group leaders to debate the continued building of the Jalaur Dam, blamed for the killings in 2021 of 9 Indigenous Individuals who went in opposition to the mission to guard their ancestral lands.
On the finish of his tour, he mentioned he learnt in regards to the “horrific” methods environmental defenders had been both kidnapped or killed by the army, prompting him to name for the abolition of the federal government’s NTF-ELCAC (Nationwide Process Drive to Finish Native Communist Armed Battle), a taskforce began by former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte as a part of his counter-insurgency efforts.
Since President Marcos, Jr assumed workplace in June final yr, there have been a minimum of 15 circumstances of reported abductions of group organisers and environmental activists, together with two youth leaders who had been opposing the Manila Bay reclamation.
He introduced his findings from his 10-day go to to the federal government, however will submit a proper report back to the Human Rights Council in June subsequent yr.
On this interview with Eco-Enterprise, the local weather professional talks about why he feels strongly about disbanding the anti-insurgency job pressure, the hazards of reclaimed land, and why it’s essential for President Marcos, Jr to attend the upcoming COP28.
That is your third nation go to as UN particular rapporteur. When contemplating human rights within the context of local weather change, how does the Philippines evaluate to the 2 different locations you’ve been to?
I visited Honduras in September this yr, after which Bangladesh final yr.
There are similarities with the Philippines, notably with Honduras, as a result of they’ve points with the remedy of environmental human rights defenders. I met with some group teams which had been subjected to numerous types of violations by the army and personal establishments due to their opposition to dams and mines.
For Bangladesh, there are similarities with the Philippines in connection to floods.
These three nations all share excessive vulnerability to the impacts of local weather change.
Former UN particular rapporteur Vicky Tauli Corpuz mentioned that the Philippines by far has the worst human rights violations on this planet by way of environmental defenders. Do you agree?
So far as the nations I’ve visited are involved, sure. I feel maybe the Philippines is simply behind Brazil within the variety of deaths of environmental human rights defenders.
I had various conferences with civil society organisations and Indigenous Peoples in all of the locations I visited within the Philippines, and almost all people I spoke to had been pink tagged (which refers back to the malicious blacklisting of people who’re vital of the federal government). There had been horrific tales of individuals, who’ve both been kidnapped or harassed by the army. I heard of extrajudicial killings of individuals. This can be a main concern. The nationwide taskforce is clearly transferring manner past its mandate.
One in every of your suggestions was to disband the taskforce. Do you assume it would clear up the nation’s human rights points?
It received’t clear up every part however it would definitely repair an enormous drawback. This taskforce appears to be uncontrolled. It’s not doing what it was initially established to do and subsequently abolishing the duty pressure will definitely go a great distance in getting the federal government to rethink what it must do. It must deal terrorism, somewhat than deal with different people who find themselves not associated to terrorism in any respect.
What are a few of the “horrific tales” you heard?
9 [Indigenous] Individuals had been killed extrajudicially and there hasn’t been any actual investigation into the causes of their dying and who was behind it.
One of many suggestions that I made to the federal government was to arrange a fact and reconciliation course of, in order that there is usually a correct listening to into these extrajudicial killings, convey folks earlier than the courtroom system, [find out] who’re accountable for these killings, and think about what kind of reparations must be offered to the households of those individuals who have been killed.
You noticed throughout your go to that the Philippines has good local weather legal guidelines, however is missing in implementing them. What makes you say that?
The Philippines has the Local weather Change Act – which acknowledges the nation’s vulnerability to local weather change and the necessity for acceptable adaptation – but it surely goes again to 2009 so it must be revisited.
There may be the local weather accountability invoice, which is at the moment pending in Congress and that offers with the problem of carbon majors. I feel that this problem must be legislated.
Whereas the federal government has fairly good laws and it mainstreams gender points inside its planning processes, there isn’t been lots of motion on the bottom. This nation has one of many highest charges of individuals displaced by local weather change on this planet. There may be a lot of folks internally displaced as a consequence of local weather change, which impacts folks’s lives dramatically. Within the growth of hydroelectric dams, minerals, notably transition minerals, which are in excessive demand globally for electrical autos and for electrical batteries, there must be cautious consideration of how they need to be developed, with out human rights violations.
UN particular rapporteur on local weather change and human rights Ian Fry (proper of desk within the centre), holds a dialogue with environmental defenders, civil society teams, and survivors of Hurricane Haiyan in Tacloban Metropolis, Leyte, within the Philippines on 10 November 2023. Picture: Dwelling Laudato Si
Upon seeing the impacts of reclamation and dredging, you additionally really helpful for the federal government to implement a moratorium on all coastal land reclamation initiatives nationwide, particularly in Manila Bay, and together with one other one deliberate in Tacloban. Inform us extra about it.
I spoke to fisherfolk in Manila Bay and their livelihoods are critically affected by the land reclamation initiatives there. Dredging sand exacerbates a few of the impacts of typhoons so there are critical implications round that type of work.
There are additionally onerous engineering proposals in a few of the locations I visited like in Tacloban. The federal government desires to construct a concrete wall [on the Cancabato Bay] and refill some a part of the bay with concrete.
However we learnt this lesson in Tuvalu that if you happen to construct a seawall and the waves go over these partitions, you lure the water which could have a big ecological affect that impacts groundwater provides, like mangroves.
Mangroves play a critically vital function in dissipating the vitality of storm surges. If you happen to take away them, you’re making coastal communities extra weak to the impacts of local weather change. These types of reclamation initiatives have to be rigorously thought-about.
Shifting to a extra world matter, you might be attending the upcoming COP28. Loss and harm can be one of many predominant agenda objects of the Filipino delegation. How do you assume President Marcos, Jr can take a extra lively function within the talks, even when he doesn’t go in individual?
I did hear that the President can be attending the upcoming COP to launch the nationwide adaptation plan. I sincerely hope that he does attend and develop into actively concerned within the negotiations on the loss and harm finance facility.
These negotiations aren’t going nicely.
In the course of the time I used to be within the Philippines, the transitional committee met and got here up with a tax proposal, which I feel has critical issues. There are additionally no particular necessities to think about human rights within the final result doc. There are points across the World Financial institution being the trustee for this fund, which I feel brings lots of inherent issues primarily based on my lengthy expertise in local weather change negotiations.
Originally of the COP, there can be a excessive degree phase the place heads of states will be capable of make a press release. President Marcos wants to present a transparent sign to the COP president that the Philippines just isn’t glad with the present final result of this loss and harm fund and it’ll do an enormous disservice to essentially the most weak nations just like the Philippines, if it goes by in its present kind.
He wants to obviously sign that extra must be performed. I feel it’s significantly better that we permit extra time for correct consideration of the modalities of the fund, somewhat than simply pursue a fast answer.
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