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Biodiversity goal

The 15th United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) emphasizes the critical importance of biodiversity as humanity’s life support system. It aims to address the relentless depletion of forests, the alarming rate of species extinction, and the need to safeguard key biodiversity areas, encompassing critical challenges such as biodiversity loss, pollution, desertification, land and soil degradation, drought, and deforestation.

The Philippines has been facing major challenges in achieving its SDG 15 objectives, as over the last eight decades, the country has lost an estimated 60-70 percent of its forest cover due to logging, mining, population growth, and other man-made factors.

There are some positives, as according to the country’s Voluntary National Review in 2022, forest cover modestly increased from 7.01 million hectares in 2010 to 7.18 million hectares in 2021.

Efforts include the National Greening Program, the country’s most ambitious reforestation program to date, which sought to plant 1.5 billion trees in 1.5 million hectares for a period of 6 years, from 2011 to 2016. Its coverage was expanded in 2015 through another executive order that ordered the rehabilitation of all remaining unproductive, denuded, and degraded forest lands, estimated at 7.1 million hectares, from 2016 to 2028.

At the end of the program, it is expected that the country’s forest cover has increased by 12 percent from the 2003 level of 7.2 million hectares, with an 85 percent survival rate; an increase of 8 percent in carbon sequestration; increased water holding capacity; reduced downstream flooding and soil erosion; and improved environmental services. The NGP is also expected to bring about increased and sustainable supply of forest-based raw materials, increased economic activity in the uplands, and optimized utilization of upland resources.

To be fair to the Philippines, although the losses in forest cover and accompanying biodiversity has been truly significant, progress has been made as far as SDG 15 is concerned. If we can sustain, or even ramp up the work that has been done to roll back the damage and ensure a better future for the country’s biodiversity, we should still be able to make a difference.*

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February 2025
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