This morning Typhoon Nanmadol is likely to have done its worst and the shell-shocked people of the Luzon in the Philippines will be trying to count the cost of this latest natural disaster. Given that meteorologists were predicting that Nanmadol was likely to be considerably more powerful than the series of storms which has so far hit the country, it must be feared that the death toll from these tempests, which already stands close to 500 dead is likely to be tragically higher.
At this awful time, our hearts must go out not only to the people in the Philippines but to that country’s citizens who work here in the Kingdom. They must be enduring agonizing hours as they wait to find out that family and friends are safe.
There is nothing that can stop the awesome power of the tropical storms, whether they are cutting a swathe through the Caribbean or the Pacific or the seas of Southeast Asia. They are truly natural phenomena. However, not all of the disaster that they bring is strictly natural. The flooding that assails Bangladesh and the horrific mudslides that have been triggered in the Philippines in past days are to a degree unnatural, in that the human activity has contributed to the damage that has been caused.
One of the key problems is the continuing loss of woodland and forests. The roots of trees bind together and stabilize the soil and the trees themselves help break up the runoff from torrential rain and channel it into rivers and streams. Yet the trees are under constant attack. In part they are being felled to provide fuel for ever-growing communities or cleared to create more farmland to allow a growing population to feed itself. This harvesting of wood is often unmanaged and unplanned. Thus whole areas of woodland are cleared where, once, only some trees would have been taken, allowing the natural regeneration by the survivors.
It is hard to blame people for taking advantage of a resource around them. It must however be asked why the authorities, from the local mayors and councils right up to the government in Manila have not tried to inject some management into woodland clearance, replanting areas that have been denuded and licensing clearance for farm land.
Unfortunately the problem goes deeper than local people. As in Indonesia, there are lumber firms which are busy exploiting hardwood forests as vigorously as they can. There is no attempt to replant this plundered resource. The companies responsible are interested only in quick profits. Where their men and machinery have been, they leave behind bare land which can no longer hold back the rain from massive storms. Millions of tons of mud is swept into rivers and then courses downstream wreaking havoc and destruction.
The Philippines has many challenges but this is literally a grassroots or, better, tree-roots problem. If the world’s climate does, as predicted, continue to deteriorate, no responsible government can afford to ignore the issue of deforestation and the unnatural boost it gives to natural disasters.
