September 2009

Ateneo de Manila University Disaster Response Group, photo courtesy of L.A. Lomarda under a Creative Commons license.

Some of the big-name, international agencies and NGOs are already mobilizing to assist the victims of typhoon Ketsan (Ondoy) in the Philippines, and donation sites have been set up by the local Red Cross, UNICEF, and the World Food Programme.

I asked a few of my colleagues in the Manila office to list some local aid organizations, and I share their suggestions here with you. Churches in the Philippines are very active at a grass-roots level, so their presence in this short list should come as no surprise:

For 24 hours last Saturday, Typhoon Ondoy dumped 455 millimeters of rain on Luzon, causing massive floods and destroying lives and property in Metro Manila. (Photo courtesy of IRRI Images under a Creative Commons license)

Muelmar Magallanes, an 18 year-old construction worker, had already saved 30 people from the raging floodwaters last Saturday. Shivering and exhausted, he dived back into the murky waters to save a mother and a baby girl who were bobbing up and down among the floating debris and brought them to safety. Then he was gone, swept away by the torrents. His body was found the following day.

Magallanes is one of the more than 240 casualties caused by Tropical Storm Ondoy (international name: Ketsana). For 24 hours last Saturday, Typhoon Ondoy dumped 455 millimeters of rain (double the volume brought to New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina) on Luzon, causing massive floods in Metro Manila and the adjoining regions, destroying lives and property, and creating anguish and devastation in the metropolis.

Go anywhere after a 30 year break and you expect to see change – and you hope things will be better. Thus my wife Jane and I, together with our four children, were intrigued to see what life was like now on Siberut, the largest and most northerly of the Mentawai Islands off the west coast of Sumatra, when we visited it a few weeks ago. Jane and I had lived in a hut in the middle of the island conducting wildlife research for over two years until 1978. We wanted to see our closest friend there, Potifar Tengatiti Siribetuk, as well as other old friends, our old study area, some of the remaining traditional houses, and as many of Siberut’s four endemic species of primates as we could.

Visiting the island and the provincial capital of Padang also provided an opportunity to observe the impacts of the $1 million of grants which had focused on Siberut under the Phase 1 of the World Bank-implemented Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund. These grants had followed on from an Asian Development Bank loan project (pdf) from 1992-2000 which was not a resounding success for a variety of reasons. This had itself followed on from WWF projects.

The Superbotrechus Bennetti beetle was discovered during a survey of cave biodiversity in China.

One of the best parts of the job as a World Bank Task Team Leader is the opportunity to learn new skills. What I never anticipated when I joined the Bank is that I would end up being immortalized by a bug. Or to be specific, a beetle that was named after me – the ‘Superbotrechus Bennetti’.

The World Bank has very strict safeguard policies which we must follow on our projects. These are designed to minimize or mitigate the environmental and social impacts of the projects. During the preparation of the Yichang-Badong Highway Project in China we learned that the route would traverse an area of karst caves.

From a biodiversity point of view, karst caves are very special. They are often completely isolated ecosystems where one can find unique species, particularly invertebrates. When encountering karst caves it is important to record the existing biodiversity as well as take measures to ensure that wherever possible the caves are protected from the impacts of development.