Deep Ecology Movement:The Rehabilitation of Sendong Memorial Park

Abstract

The environment is a massive space for everything. It is where the necessities of living and nonliving things ought to come from. For us people to survive, we need food, shelter, and water. Such, the importance of keeping a deep connection and movement with the environment is the significant action we need to do. Because in the end, we still are the ones who will live and will benefit from it. That is, keeping our perspective capable of seeing what is good and bad for the environment. On the other hand, we shall seek attention to the injustices that man is doing to nature. For example, the results of tree poaching as these actions were illegal under jurisprudence as it has no permission to use certain areas for agricultural lands can harm the habitat of living organisms and may be the primary factor in the destruction of lives and properties during floods because of improper storage of logs. Typhoon Washi, or what was locally called Bagyong Sendong, causes a tremendous effect that involves the environment, victims, and the local and national government. These effects are visible as to how actions of different authorities have been expressed towards community involvement and legal matters. According to DENR-CENRO Iligan, the contributing factor to the floods caused by the typhoon was the logs that came from the mountain boundaries of Lanao del Sur, Iligan City, and Bukidnon. Traumatic as it seems, but due to environmental degradation, the result was evidence to show the injustices that man is doing in his environment can cause as huge as they can be.
Furthermore, Arne Naess, a Norwegian philosopher produced the term Deep Ecology Movement to claim environmental actions be a perception that many people shall inherit. Aldo Leopold, an American ecologist claims in his The Sand County Almanac, that thinking like a mountain is accepting our place in the biosphere (as the global ecosystem composed of living and nonliving things from which they acquire their needs) and accepting our duties to all life forms. As a result, we must consider the environment's long-term values as a whole (Leopold, 1949). The latter claim was then supported by Naess in his many works.
Fundamentally, the claims refer to the goal of the special project that centers on rehabilitating the Sendong Memorial Park from a dilapidated and messy to a verdant and clean place. Thus, it can be used as a park for recreational activities, academic purposes, and a tourist spot. Just as it aims to trigger the attention of the public on why the park was built. As it was built to commemorate the lives that were claimed during the Typhoon Sendong, and how the causes of man-made abuses in our environment can result in massive destruction to man itself. Also, it was built to give most people an environmental reflection of how they can change the negativities they have brought towards natural resources. As illegal poaching of trees is a major reason why logs from highland areas of Lanao del Sur, Iligan City, and Bukidnon were brought by heavy rains and floods towards the city and caused the destruction of properties and lives during Typhoon Sendong. By that means, the sculpture that was made by Julie Lluch of a girl (Annalou Lapuerta) riding a log with a snake on the back, which was displayed in the park, projects the catastrophic happening of Typhoon Sendong. Lastly, the park will be an avenue of history and academic approach to environmental philosophy and ethics to the community and the visitors of the park, projecting the Deep Ecology Movement of Arne Naess.