Global Goal Flag 15 to be raised in Marikina Watershed on Saturday

On Saturday, around 50 Dumagat leaders will raise a symbolic flag at Marikina Watershed as part of a worldwide campaign to spread awareness about the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Project Everyone distributed 17 flags to different countries, each representing the 17 SDGs. Global Flag #15, which symbolizes land protection, was given to the Philippines.


 
According to the UN declaration, SDG #15 is a commitment to "Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss."

"Project Everyone was put up because very few people knew about the MDGs [Millennium Development Goals]. The Philippines did not fare well in achieving MDG targets, especially in poverty reduction and the lessening of infant mortality and promoting maternal health," said Fr. Benigno Beltran, lead coordinator of the Philippine Sustainability Challenge.

Beltran also underscored the importance of indigenous peoples in attaining the targets of SDG 15: "The Dumagats have lived in the Sierra Madre since time immemorial, including the area that makes up the Marikina Watershed, from where Metro Manila gets its drinking water. The Dumagats will symbolize the more than 150 million indigenous peoples all over the world whose habitats in the mountains and rainforests are threatened by climate change and the greed of lowlanders," he said.

More than 300 people, including Armed Forces of the Philippines personnel, will join the Dumagats in planting bamboo trees after the symbolic flag raising.

According to Beltran, the Philippine Sustainability Challenge is promoting bamboo planting in the Sierra Madre because bamboo can provide food and housing materials, prevent erosion of the river banks, and help absorb 400% more carbon than trees.

"An integrated development plan is being crafted to promote the planting of trees and bamboo in the more than 19,000 hectares of the Dumagat ancestral domain in Montalban, Rizal, including the putting up of a pilot farm to teach them regenerative agriculture and how to use technology to have a more efficient supply chain distribution for their naturally grown products in partnership with the dioceses in Metro Manila," said Beltran. — BM, GMA News