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ARTICLES, SPEECHES AND OTHER READING
GRAY AREA from the Phuket Gazette
A TALE OF TWO CITIES - Phuket Gazette April 2006
Introduction to Puerto Princessa
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Are you tired of traffic,
rubbish, dangerous airport taxis, pushy tuk-tuk drivers, two-stroke exhaust
fumes, undisciplined driving, commission stops, illegal fishing, corruption,
coral reefs becoming marinas, shrimp farms, jet-skis and pushy touts?
If you are, then there is hope. In February, I studied a city of 200,000
people in Southeast Asia and found none of the above.
For two weeks I searched for a single cigarette butt, candy wrapper or
bottle cap on the street, in a yard, anywhere - and found none. Motorbike
tricycles were orderly, polite, charged a fair price and always had proper
change. The sophisticated emergency center, meanwhile, had taken just one
call in January - and that wasn't even a crime being reported.
There is a province-wide "prison", really a rice farm. Its handicrafts shop
sells curios made from recycled plastic, and only one convict in every 500
is recidivist.
Valentine's Day was celebrated as a "Love Affair With Nature". While most of
Southeast Asia is extracting mangroves for shrimp farms, on February 14,
3,000 people started planting mangroves at 4 am - for the fifth year in a
row. Schoolchildren consistently told me, "Somebody has to make a
difference."
We can't get World Heritage status for Phang Nga Bay, but this small city
has two World Heritage sites, with another in process. Beaches, seas, even
harbors are swimming-safe and run like clockwork.
The city is Puerto Princessa on Palawan. Within the Philippines, "Princessa"
is legendary - Mayor Edward S Hagedorn is a national hero, a living legend
who chairs the powerful National Council of Mayors. Unfortunately, because
Princessa is in the Philippines, it is virtually unknown elsewhere.
After 11 years of occasional visits there, I wanted to go again to study how
the city had become a Southeast Asian environmental Utopia - and how we
might do the same on Phuket.
The phenomenon isn't difficult to dissect, but the qualities feeding it are
rare - unless you are "there" already. For one, Princessa residents openly
accept outside ideas because they want to be at the top of the environmental
curve.
Like most of the Philippines, before 1991 Palawan was devoured by mining,
logging, and fishing, mostly illegal. Remote Palawan was virtually denuded.
Then Princessa's city wells ran dry - something Phuket adroitly averts
almost every year.
It didn't take long before a handful of concerned artisans and
environmentalists realized that Princessa was destroying its watersheds.
Princessa needed trees on its mountains - and fast.
These visionaries created a tree-planting celebration to replant forests and
create environmental awareness. In 1991, 2,500 volunteers planted seedlings
and 7,500 volunteers did likewise in 1992. The numbers leveled out at 30,000
from 1993 to this day. Several million trees have been planted, and today
Palawan's jungles are back.
Better yet, participants in this exercise know why they do what they do.
Even children's comic books discuss the consequences of siltation from
mountains to coral reefs, watershed management, and loss of wildlife
habitat.
The "Festival of the Forest" made people feel so good that other
environmental concepts easily took hold. "Environmental" included a clean
and litter-free city, clean water in the harbor, cultural authenticity,
healthy mangroves, no crime - and clean tap water.
In Princessa today, "Environmental" equates with "Cool". Everybody stays
clean and orderly, and it makes them feel good. Unlike that other clean
Asian city, Singapore, Princessa achieves this through inner happiness, not
the sometimes heavy hand of the state. Except for traffic cops, I never saw
a policeman while I was there.
How can this be?
This answer is role model leadership - honest, sincere, hard-working
untouchable leaders who set the example by serving with unquestioned
integrity and commitment.
Mayor Hagedorn is inspirational, always visible, approachable and helpful.
He knows every environmental angle, and even invents some - including his
giant tridachna clam colony, conserving this highly-endangered bivalve. His
house is simple, his private island magical but undeveloped, and his door is
always open. He's the first to say he is just one of many.
How does he do it?
Educate the Kids: Starting at the age of three. Environmentalism is
taught in the schools, in the playground, in coffee shops and at rock
concerts. In schools or while out shopping, experienced eight-year-old tree
planters discuss watershed management and coral reef conservation with
authority.
Make it feel good: Every Manila rock star at a city-sponsored rock
concert said on stage how great it was to be in "Puerto Princessa,
environmental capital of the Philippines". This wasn't a rehearsed line -
they had just driven from the airport to their hotels, and had seen for
themselves.
Princessa, Festival Capital of Everywhere: My first night there
coincided with a mass wedding celebration that continued with the mangrove
planting the next morning.
I enjoyed the culturally-authentic Princessa City Dancers, attended the
teenybopper rock concert and finished with a 7 am "Three Festivals In One"
parade that kicked off the week-long Foundation Day Festival.
Everybody takes part, feeling good about being honest, environmental and
crime-free. Civic pride is overwhelming, and is so much more fun than drugs.
As I flew home I looked down at Princessa from 30,000 feet. Surrounded by
perfect jungle, Ulagan Bay - home to 10% of all the mangroves in the
Philippines - appeared. Then we crossed an imaginary line and only brown
hills lay below, denuded. We had crossed into another municipality, and the
rest of the world.
The next Festival of the Forest is on June 24. Go and take a look. Do it for
Phuket. A believer in the sister cities concept, Mayor Hagedorn extends an
invitation to you personally.
John Gray started commercial sea kayaking tours in Hawaii in 1983, and
moved to Phuket six years later, setting up the first sea kayaking operation
in Phang Nga Bay, the multi-award-winning SeaCanoe. Today he runs John
Gray's SeaCanoe, also based in Phuket. For more information call Tel:
076-254506. |
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