Teacher-Intellectuals and the Counter-Discourses on Environmental Care

Abstract

Greenpeace (2009) claimed that the Philippines is among the most vulnerable and least prepared to deal with ravages brought by climate change as indicated by the destruction brought by extreme weather conditions in 2009. According to Koïchiro Matsuura, Director-General of UNESCO, “if we want to halt and ultimately reverse global warming we need a radical change in the ways we think and act” (Matsuura, 2009). The required radical change on people’s mind and action implies that education is touted to be the key to deliverance from total environmental collapse, a possibility that haunts not only the Philippines but the whole global landscape (Beck, 1995).
This article draws on an ethnographic research on a local community that inculcated environmental care values and practices on its people. All their efforts resulted in reviving their dying river and successfully implementing waste management practices like segregation, composting, and recycling. Their achievements qualified them to be one of the winners in the first National Search for Model Barangay in Ecological Solid Waste Management (ESWM) in 2004. Environmental care initiatives were catalyzed by Eco-Care, a group composed of community leaders and high school teachers.