After the Storm: A Small Island Landscape Leadership Journey
Five years ago, Typhoon Haiyan devastated our small island called Ponson, located in central Philippines. Ironically, I was on my way to Bangkok when it happened, going to attend a two-week short course on “Landscape Functions and People: Climate Change, Conflicts and Collaboration in Forested Landscapes”, led by Wageningen University and RECOFTC.
I almost missed the training as I did not want to leave my family, but my wife encouraged me to proceed. On one hand I was happy and relieved that they were alive and safe, but on the other, I felt hopeless for those affected and the various marine and forest conservation projects that I initiated.
The devastation that greeted me upon my return was shocking and I had to take a very deep breath, collect my emotions while seeing what was left of our neighborhood. People fought over how relief goods should be distributed; many politicians scrambled for control and credit in the distribution; and all the infrastructure of my conservation projects were in bad shape.
But I tried very hard to remember the lessons I learned in Bangkok and realized that the training prepared me for what was waiting in my beloved island. Recently, I attended another Landscape Governance course, this time in Wageningen, Netherlands.
As the
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