While we are somewhat latecomers to this process, we hope to contribute significantly not just in the legal processes but to the science that is needed to support the evidence that is required for prosecution.

This day is another milestone in our pursuit to conserve and preserve the environment and the natural resources of our country. I am truly grateful to the Justice Sector Coordinating Council or the JSCC, composed of the Supreme Court, the Department of Justice, and the Department of the Interior and Local Government, for this truly noble undertaking – the launch of the first ever Green Justice Zone.

Perhaps some of you will not know, but Puerto Princesa was the first city in this country to actually have a greenhouse gas inventory. This was under the leadership of former Mayor Hagedorn. I was part of that process while I was still director of the Manila Observatory.

While DENR is not a member of the JSCC, the council members recognize that the Department is an integral part of the justice sector as an invaluable pillar of the environmental justice system, which encompasses administrative, criminal, and civil environment and natural resources cases.

The DENR is also the agency with the plenary authority in the management of the environment and natural resources.

In Palawan, administrative duties are shared between the DENR and the PCSD, the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development. The JSCC’s invitation to the DENR to be part of the Green Justice Zone in Puerto Princesa City is a welcome development as we grapple with the challenge of prosecuting environmental crimes – a shared concern of the pillars of the environmental justice system.

The forest that we have, both terrestrial, coastal, and marine, wildlife and marine conservation efforts as a whole will certainly benefit from the swift and fair administration of justice in the last ecological frontier of the country.

This is also an opportune time for the JSCC to engage the DENR, the LGUs, and all the stakeholders in the pursuit of a balanced, integrated, comprehensive, and multi-disciplinary approach in addressing the complexities and the multi-faceted challenges related to crimes that affect the environment.

In fact, in its resolution on preventing and combating crimes that affect the environment adopted on Dec. 16, 2021, the United Nations General Assembly urged member states to adopt effective measures to prevent and combat crimes that affect the environment by making the best possible use of relevant international instruments and by strengthening legislations, international cooperation, capacity building, criminal justice responses, and law enforcement efforts – all of which are in this room.

What the DENR can bring to the Green Justice Zone is an “ecosystem perspective.” One that understands not just the environment and natural resources, but the social, economic, and cultural intersectionalities that drive risk.

At the end of the day, we want to answer the question along with yourselves – Did we serve the ends of environmental justice?

The swift and fair action in cases, lessons learned, and innovations adopted in the first Green Justice Zone in Puerto Princesa City will serve as a guide for the DENR officers and our local partners in other environmental hotspots in the Philippines. We need to enforce strong environmental laws but these do not translate effectively into actual conservation actions and protection actions.

We do move in silos at this point but by building a strong partnership among the pillars of the environmental justice system, we can bridge the gaps and weaknesses in the environmental law enforcement and prosecution.

Palawan is considered as the last frontier of the Philippines, but it’s also among the most biologically diverse in the area of Southeast Asia but also in the world.
It is famous for its underground river as we have said, and of course, its UNESCO status is world known.

However, this biodiversity-rich province is also prone to environmental threats and abuses. And this is already happening on a daily basis. Thus, we need to be more vigilant to abate further environmental degradation in the province.

Allow me to wrap up with what we have done at the DENR in order to bring the science of environmental protection back into our work. Because we have, in fact, realized that environmental crimes have ecological boundaries and not political and administrative ones, it is important to know and do the following:

We must build a shared system-based understanding of risk arising from intersecting ecological, social, and economic geographies. We must understand that hazards can compound and cascade, and they will impact across sectors and scales.

Continuous learning of the science behind climate change, restoration ecology, biodiversity, and species vulnerability, including the thresholds from extinction, and mitigation hierarchies that are applicable to our mining activities. We must be able to access the appropriate tools for observation, analytics, and here we have established, as a basis, a new national natural resource geospatial database, from which we can observe environmental changes that are man made as well as natural.
We need to apply the best in remote sensing, geographic information systems, artificial intelligence, and realize the science and value of climate projections.

We also need to understand social vulnerability and how to do climate and disaster risk assessments in attempting to impose our rules and the order that we need in order to maintain a just society.

We welcome the establishment of Green Zones here and all over the country and look forward to working with the judiciary in enhancing the evidence basis for environmental protection, for responsible and sustainable use of our natural resources, and enforcement and prosecution of environmental crimes in our terrestrial, coastal, and marine ecosystems. These include not only those of local and national significance but those that have regional and global impacts as well.