Compendium of Philippine Environment Statistics Republika ng Pilipinas PAMBANSANG LUPON SA UGNAYANG PANG-ESTADISTIKA (NATIONAL STATISTICAL COORDINATION BOARD) hile the Philippines continues to experience accelerated economic growth, the environmental quality is fast deteriorating as dramatized by the increased incidence of environmental disasters associated with mine tailings, deforestation, pollution, drought, salt water intrusion and other destructive activities. This has prompted the Philippines to adopt the strategy of sustainable development and growth with equity, bringing to fore the need for environment statistics. However, the lack of an organized and integrated framework in the collection and utilization of environment statistics has become a major deterrent in man’s struggle to effectively manage and conserve the natural environment. To address this concern, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) initiated efforts to help the Philippines as well as other developing member countries (DMCs) to develop and collect environment statistics on a continuing basis. Thus, the Philippine Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics (PFDES) was developed. The PFDES is a systematic organization of the interdisciplinary nature of environment statistics and focuses on the identification, description and presentation of data variables which are useful for tracing and verifying interrelationships among human activities and natural events. This compendium is an initial attempt to compile priority environment statistics/indicators based on the PFDES. It covers data for the period 1990 to 1998, whenever possible. Latest figures presented vary depending on the availability of data. Updating of the compendium will subsequently be done every two years. Although the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) is the implementing agency, this compilation is a result of the collaborative work of all government agencies generating environment-related statistics. We are very much grateful to our colleagues for providing the data and other relevant information. We hope that the fruits of our efforts will be useful in the formulation and evaluation of socio -economic and environmental programs and policies. We wish to emphasize, however, that the immense task of saving our environment and our future for that matter demands the contribution and support of each one of us. Through this publication, we hope that we were able to impart to the public a sense of inspiration to personally share in the conservation efforts. ROMULO A. VIROLA Secretary General nvironment statistics in the Philippines is a new area that has recently been introduced as a vital component of sustainable development management. At present, statistical agencies are just starting to incorporate this new concern in their surveys and censuses. Agencies EfromE the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and environment-related agencies have been collecting environment data mostly through their administrative reporting systems. Recently, the DENR started to improve and redesign its internal reporting system to meet its information requirements for planning, policy formulation and management. This effort is being done jointly with statistical agencies. Despite these, environment statistics in the Philippine is still considered inadequate. While several agencies collect subsets of environment-related data, no single agency is coordinating the collection of environment statistics. Moreover, in the Philippines, there is no conceptual framework for compiling and organizing environment statistics and the methodology for data collection is not well developed. In response to the broad issue of inadequacy of environment statistics, several efforts were undertaken to address it. One such effort is through the implementation of the Philippine Economic-Environmental and Natural Resource Accounting (PEENRA) which focuses on the proper valuation of the country’s environmental and natural resources. The institutionalization of the PEENRA system will serve as a tool and mechanism to integrate environmental concerns in planning, policy-making and project implementation. Aside from the PEENRA, the formulation of the Philippine Framework for the Development of Environment Statistics (PFDES) was undertaken to solve the inadequacy in the collection and compilation of environment statistics. This effort was initiated by the Technical Assistance of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) through RETA 5555 “Institutional Strengthening and Collection of Environment Statistics in Selected Developing Member Countries”. The primary objective of the project is the development of the PFDES and the institutionalization of its compilation. The PFDES provides a systematic approach to the development of environment statistics and is an instrument by which data coming from various data collecting institutions are compiled and integrated in such a way as to be more useful in the formulation and valuation of socio-economic and environmental programs and policies. Statistics presented in the succeeding chapters were thus based on the PFDES. The document is divided into seven chapters corresponding to the following components of our natural environment: Flora; Fauna; Atmosphere; Water; Land and Soil; Mineral and Energy Resources; and Human Settlements. The first six chapters concern our natural resources while the last chapter, Human Settlements, deals with the “habitat” or environment of human beings encompassing both rural and urban areas where man settles to live. Each chapter/component contains: (a) an introduction about the environmental media covered and highlights of its importance, status and interventions being implemented to protect it; (b) the conceptual framework defining the more specific and more detailed environmental concerns and issues under each information category; (c) the statistical framework showing the specific variables and the measurements needed to quantify the topics/items in the conceptual framework; (d) data assessment where every variable is assessed in terms of availability, disaggregation, periodicity and manner of collection; (e) situational analysis discussing the major issues and concerns supported by data collected; and (f). additional statistical tables reflecting the sequence of events from human activities and natural events creating an impact on the environment and individuals and social responses to avoid or mitigate these impacts. The levels of disaggregation vary depending on the availability of data. Additionally, the List of Acronyms and Abbreviations of terms used in the compendium and the members of the different Technical Working Groups (TWG), are provided as appendices. The Glossary of Terms, which contains the terminologies and definitions used in the compendium, is included as a supplementary publication. Inclusion of the Glossary is a way by which we hope to enhance the usefulness of the statistics presented in the compendium. As work on the institutionalisation of the PFDES continues, we hope to expand and improve our future publications, including the standardization of terms to conform with internationally-accepted definitions while at the same time maintaining relevance to the local situation. ii The PFDES is a systematic organization of the interdisciplinary nature of environment statistics and focuses on the identification, description and presentation of data variables which are useful for tracing and verifying interrelationships of human activities and natural events with the environment. As agreed upon during the Inception Workshop on the Institutional Strengthening and Collection of Environment Statistics in selected developing member countries (RETA 5555) held in Manila on September 18-21, 1995, the United Nations FDES (UNFDES) will serve as a guide in formulating the PFDES. The UNFDES was then realigned to the Philippine setting to meet the country’s specific concerns. The PFDES relates each component of the environment (Flora, Fauna, Atmosphere, Water, Land and Soil, Mineral and Energy Resources, Flora and Human Settlements) to four information categories, namely: (1) Social and economic activities and natural events; (2) Environmental impacts of activities and events; (3) Responses to environmental impacts; and (4) Stocks and inventories. Social and economic activities and natural events include human activities and natural events which directly affect the different components of the environment, thus, producing environmental impacts. Human activities like the production and consumption of goods and services affect the different components of the environment through the direct use or misuse of natural resources or through the generation of waste and the emissions in production and consumption processes. Likewise, natural events such as typhoons, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions also have impacts on the different environmental media. Natural disasters, largely caused by human activities, also stress the balance of the environment. Environmental impacts of activities and events, as the name suggests, attempts to quantify the negative effects on the environment of man’s activities and natural events. Negative impacts are manifested in the depletion of natural resources (measured in terms of changes in the quantity), environmental degradation (measured in terms of the changes in the quality) and the consequential health and welfare effects. Man’s various attempts to curb and mitigate these negative impacts gives rise to the third information