Lesson 2

• The environment can only be discussed meaningfully in terms of its component parts, which include natural resource stocks such as forests, minerals, water, biodiversity, and soils, as well as air and water quality in specific locations and at specific times
• Major interlinked and sometimes overlapping ecosystems in the Philippines

  • Forest and uplands ecosystem
  • Agricultural/cropland ecosystem
  • Freshwater ecosystem
  • Coastal and marine ecosystem
  • Urban ecosystem
• The Philippines is home to 5% of the world's flora species, 6% of its birds, and 4% of its mammals while 67% of the species in the major groups of animals and plants are not found anywhere else in the world
• The country's coral reefs are second only to Australia's Great Barrier Reef in terms of the diversity of coral and fish species, and it has the second highest number of seagrass species in the world
• Forest and upland ecosystem

  • Covers around 45% of total land area
  • Directly supports about 30% of the population, including some of the poorest in the country
• Deforestation


  1. Reduces biodiversity through its destructive impact on plant and animal habitats

  2. Alters the hydrological properties of soils

  3. Adversely affects watershed functions
• Between 1900 and 1950, national forest cover fell from around 70% of total land to 50%, and by the end of the 1980s had fallen further to less than 25%
• With deforestation proceeding at an average annual rate of 2.9% even according to Philippine government sources, by the late 1990s forest cover was less than 19%
• Main causes of deforestation


  • Land clearance for agriculture
  • Commercial exploitation of forests for logs, lumber, fuel (including charcoal), and pulp-wood
• Deforestation and the associated conversion of upland land to agriculture degrades the hydrological functions of watersheds
• Deforestation and the conversion of land to agriculture exacerbates soil erosion
• Shifting cultivation (kaingin) systems traditionally practiced by indigenous upland communities were environmentally sustainable in the past, but increased population pressure in uplands has reduced fallow periods, and the more intensive farming practices of new immigrants to uplands are more land degrading