WWF-PH National Youth Council encourages youth to participate in marine conservation
May 2020
In response to the current lockdown, WWF-Philippines has taken its conservation work online through educational webisodes to further engage the public. Photograph © WWF-Philippines
In celebration of the Month of the Ocean, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Philippines’ National Youth Council (NYC), led by members Deign Soriano, Kiana Porras, Gab Mejia, Romina Lim, and Nikki Huang, conducted another Conservation Conversation webisode via Facebook Live last May 12, 2020.
The guest speaker for the second ConCon webisode was Dr. Deo Florence Oda, Deputy Research Director of the University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute, who spoke about his academic background and experiences in marine conservation in order to encourage the Filipino youth to explore careers in environmental and marine science.
Dr. Onda, whose interest in marine life and the environment started back when he was a young boy growing up in a coastal town in Southern Palawan, shared that he was eyeing to pursue a career in medicine until he got involved in environmental student organizations and became immersed in the Cordilleran culture during his pre-medicine days in the University of the Philippines-Baguio.
Weaving his interest in science with his personal advocacies, Dr. Onda decided to pursue a career in marine science after contemplating where he can contribute the most.. After getting his Masters’ degree, he flew to Canada to take up his Oceanography doctorate in Université Laval, where he got to understand climate change at a deeper level through explorations in the Arctic Region.
While pursuing a career abroad was tempting, Dr. Onda returned home to contribute to the country’s marine research. With only around 20 practicing oceanographers in the country, he felt that in terms of contribution, the local environmental science field needs his service more.Currently, he is working on research projects concerning emerging problems in climate change, microplastics, and pollution. He also led an exploration recently in the West Philippine Sea to study its biodiversity.
Despite his strong educational background, Dr. Onda shared that the most life-changing lessons he learned as a marine scientist were not from his graduate classes, but from learning the language and the culture of people through community immersion and storytelling. He acknowledged the role of the arts in making scientific information more relatable to Filipinos’ daily lives, claiming that science always needs arts. Arts make science the language of the people by laymanizing it to make the field less intimidating.
Dr. Onda ended his talk by encouraging the youth to not let anyone hinder them from pursuing great things because of age. “As youth, you are actually powerful; use that power, opportunity, vigor, and youthfulness to do good things.”
The NYC concluded the livestream by encouraging the youth to pursue a journey in environmental advocacy, even without having a strong technical background in environmental science, citing that the council’s diverse backgrounds—biology, marine science, liberal arts, and photography—help them have a holistic view of how the advocacy should be.
“No matter what your routine is like, there’s always an environmental element to it, or there is some way that you’re engaging with your world sustainably. That’s really important and everyone can do it,” Huang, a Sociology and International Relations major, stated.
Soriano, a Biology instructor, closed the talk by sharing how youth participation can help #ChangeTheEnding for the planet. “We are, in one way or another, connected to this planet; we have to take the leadership from the most impacted and affected people, inspire and engage the youth sector in advocacies like this. This planet is our shared home, and as the youth, we have the responsibility to protect this shared home, and one way is to engage the youth to participate. The power of the youth can be harnessed in many ways and we can change the ending for our planet.”
The WWF-PH NYC was established in 2015 and aims to encourage active participation from the youth sector in environmental conservation by bridging sustainability to young Filipinos, as well as to represent the youth by providing relevant insights on environmental concerns and participation in related events and projects across the country.
For more information, please contact:
Ms. Isobel Resurreccion
National Youth Council Coordinator
kfiresurreccion@gmail.com
For media arrangements, please contact:
Ms. Pam Luber
Integrated Communications Manager
pluber@wwf.org.ph
Ms. Chezka Guevarra
Public Relations, Media, and Events Assistant Manager
cguevarra@wwf.org.ph
