Mansalay Eco-Park

Mansalay EcoPark (Located right by National Highway in Mansalay, a 3rd class municipality in the province of Oriental Mindoro, Philippines) welcomes you whether you come alone; bring the whole family, or group socialization. You have the pleasure of mountain climbing, picnics and group bonding whether it is nature tripping using spinning wheels or learn the noble art of walking/jogging for those who want more of a challenge. 

Overlooking Fish Sanctuary, a marine reserve managed by the local government with fine sandy beaches and shallow coral formations ideal for snorkeling.

Globe Tower

Background: Mansalay Bay 

A true haven for outdoorsy and nature-loving people, the area has a wide variety of physical activities to choose from. The park opens all day. It is best to go in the morning as you will get to see the beauty of the sunrise and people doing their early morning rituals from exercising, jogging, to just being one with nature.

Cottage overlooking Poblacion Area

Whatever it is that you would like to do here, this place surely champions its cause of ecotourism and environmental preservation by immersing frequent visitors like me in the beauty of nature and the right means to enjoy it. I applaud the Mansalay local government for developing the place and initiating this project.

A rest house built by the local gov't

Cool weather and spectacular scenery.

Overlooking Brgy. B. del Mundo

 A perfect setting for romance or nature tripping

Learn to appreciate nature, improve your senses, relax and leave the cares of the world behind you.

The sweet scent of trees and flowers permeate the air.  

Accommodation facility

This is a familiar place to some but my weekend visit here was exciting. A nice place to appreciate my hometown and commune with nature. Ecopark is just the perfect place to be.

Green Intelligence

      The main goal of green intelligence including strategies on market-based approaches is to provide safe and complete value of natural resources and harmonize environment to improve quality of lives while preventing the environmental impact of depletion and supporting the welfare communities. 

      Yes, market-based approaches could save the planet because current events regarding the environmental awareness face different political and economic issues and challenges today. This will be effective using an emerging generation of information systems to develop market pressures to upgrade the ecological performance of industry and commerce. In spite of the introduction of cleaner technologies in industry, energy production and transport, waste disposal remains a major health risk. 

     The people on market and trade should focus on issue regarding waste disposal or programs that support the integrated waste management.  Green intelligence advocates programs on pollution and waste management including several campaign and activities on the processes to treat waste products, management of hazardous waste landfill (sequestering, isolation, etc), incineration, neutralization, recycling, and destruction and waste-to-energy methods. 

    Green intelligence also investigates the environment generally and such premises necessary to ascertain the nature of pollution and waste products 

Deforestation

Deforestation affects us all. Deforestation is a major cause of flooding, landslide and climate change according to Greenpeace International.

Deforestation

           Illegal logging, slash and burn farming (kaingin), land clearance and charcoal mining (pag-uling) have damaged millions of hectares of Philippine forests. According to studies it takes more than 100 years to rehabilitate them. The destruction affected the country's rainforests and other biological ecosystem. People involved in these activities justified themselves and based their arguments on their economic status.

Uling  House

Open pit use for burning woods

Two years ago, I had a conversation with a local public official in Mindoro and I quoted what he said “Ang mga mamayan dito sa lugar natin ay nakadepende lamang sa pag-uuling at sa pagputol ng mga punongkahoy, maaring mawawalan sila ng kabuhayan oras na ipagbawal na ito.” After two years, charcoal mining (pag-uuling) is strictly prohibited in our municipality in Oriental Mindoro but people can still produce and trade “uling” if they acquire special permits released by DENR and local government. Pag-uuling is still rampant in our area.  I can present many evidences regarding this claim.  Ang pagpapatupad ng total ban sa pag-uuling ay hindi gaanong nagagawa dahil madali lang naman kumuha ng special permit lalo na kung malakas kanf koneksyon. Nakakabahala ang bagay na ito sapagkat laganap na naman ang mga pagbaha, tumitindi ang problema sa climate change at landslide na patuloy na naranasan dahil sa unti-unting pagkakalbo ng mga kabunduhan at pagkaubos ng likas na yaman.

Deforestation

Discoloration of Swamp (may be related to climate change)

Deforestation

I hope that the good governance of the President Noynoy Aquino will cover issues on deforestation and pay attention at least on climate change issues related to forest degradation as he address global agenda for climate change. - Shernan

ULING

Haiy…Natatanaw ko na naman ang makapal na usok na nanggagaling sa bukid sa likod ng aming kabahayan. Naamoy ko ulit ang nasusunog na punongkahoy at halaman sa kagubatan. Kelan ba matitigil ang pag-uuling at pgkakaingin sa lugar namin. Hihintayin pa ba ng mga tao na magaya sa ibang lugar na tinabunan ng lupa mula sa bundok bago ito bigyan ng pansin? Kalbong-kalbo na ang mga bundok, halos wala na ring malalaking puno at tila walang ginagawa ang mga kinauukulan upang ang mga ito ay mabigyang lunas.

Pag-uuling (Coal mining via burning of trees) and Slash and burn farming or kaingin continues on the mountains of Oriental Mindoro despite the arrests and cases filed by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) against those involved in the highly destructive method.

I observed the lack of forest guards as one of the reasons why the effort to prevent slash and burn farming failed. There should be one forest guard for every 1,000 hectares according to the law.

They are now having some kind of a cat and mouse game. The moment our forest guards are away, the mang-uuling and kaingineros (slash and burn farmers) will strike. They cannot sustain their presence because forest guards are very few.

Pag-uuling and Slash and burn farming is highly destructive because it burns even young trees and destruct natural resources.

I hope that after the elections, the local government office would request the national government to hire forest guards to help in forest and ecological protection.

This is my simple advocacy for Environmental awareness and Greener Philippines.

~Shernan Fajutnao Gamol

Photos taken at Mansalay, Oriental Mindoro

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