Get to know us
Lingkod Tao-Kalikasan (LTK) is a national non-government organization engaged in the advocacy for environmental protection.
LTK was founded in 1985 and registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission as Lingkod Tao-Kalikasan Foundation, Inc., by Sr. Ma. Aida C. Velazquez OSB, a Benedictine nun, together with some professionals who composed the original Board of Trustees.
Originally LTK assisted in organizing ecology desks in Catholic Dioceses all over the country and conducted environmental awareness in schools, parishes and communities to promote the importance of caring for the environment even before the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), held at Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in 1992.
After UNCED there was a global awareness on the impacts of environmental degradation which necessitated environmental groups to work together at both the policy level and good practices such as reforestation activities, coastal clean-up, recycling initiatives, zero-waste, advocacy against mining and other activities related activities environmental protection. LTK joined these advocacies with other environmental groups in the country such as Green Convergence, the Philippine Federation for Environmental Concerns, advocacy on responsible mining and other environment movements in the country.
Capitalizing on its more than 30 years of environmental advocacy, Lingkod Tao-Kalikasan continues its advocacy and campaigns to raise environmental awareness on environmental protection,focusing on several key areas such as:
Climate Action and Climate Change Adaptation
Advocating the inclusion of environment education in the curriculum of the Department of Education(DepEd)
Providing assistance to groups engaged in environmental protection activities and enforcing environmental protection laws such as forest rangers, and bantay-dagat in the seas.
LTK will continue to conduct activities that engages people and groups from various sectors in its initiatives to protect the environment such as planting and growing of trees, participation in coastal clean-ups, seeking solutions to air, water and ground pollution, and addressing the issues related to solid and plastic wastes, implementing environment-friendly livelihood activities in support of disadvantaged communities including indigenous peoples (IPs). These initiatives will be implemented in collaboration with other stakeholders in civil society, government, the private sector, schools, religious groups and interested individuals.
The Lingkod Tao-Kalikasan Story
Lingkod Tao-Kalikasan was born in 1984-1985 before the United Nations formally discussed a more sustainable development at Rio de Janeiro in Brazil in 1992 known as the United Nations’ Conference on Environment and Development or UNCED. Although the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) was set up in 1983, it was only in 1987 when it finally came up with a report called “Our Common Future” which was a result of the study by the Bruntland Commission headed by Gro Harlem Bruntland, former Prime Minister of Norway, which provided guidelines for sustainable development. Sustainable development was the recommended call to action by the findings of the Bruntland Commission on the unsustainable pattern of consumption and production by the industrialized countries of the north leading to environmental degradation and the impoverishment of the poorer countries in the South. Eventually the report by the Bruntland Commission was formally discussed by the international community at UNCED in 1992.
In the meantime, Sr. Ma. Aida C. Velasquez, OSB, a Benedictine nun, founded the Lingkod Tao-Kalikasan in 1985 to begin an advocacy for the environment that would later assist Catholic Dioceses in the Philippines to put up ecology desks and raise awareness on environmental issues in the country. A chemical engineer with a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sr. Aida as she is commonly known in the environment sector, was deeply involved in the advocacy for a Nuclear Free Philippines in the 1980s when the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant was being constructed. LTK through the leadership of Sr. Aida, organized trainings and orientation seminars among students, professionals and communities which contributed to getting people work for environmental protection.
In the 1990s after UNCED, several groups and non-government organizations formed environment movements to address the growing environmental degradation in the country. The Philippine government under then President Fidel V. Ramos was among the first to respond to UNCED’s Earth Charter dubbed as Agenda 21, which came up with what was known as the Philippine Agenda 21 or PA21. PA21 was a product of various interventions from civil society, the private sector, the academe, Church groups and the government to craft sustainable development policies. In the Catholic Church, Sr. Aida and the LTK played a crucial role in providing technical assistance to understanding environment issues both at local and global levels. In 2011, after 25 years of environment advocacy Sr. Aida was asked by her Congregation to return to a more convent life as she was also nearing retirement age.
Sr. Aida asked some members of LTK to form a new Board which included Dr Ernesto Gonzales, Dr. Philip Penaflor, and Emy Perez, among others, as the old Board of Trustees also have literally grown old. Dr Ernesto Gonzales took the helm of LTK in 2012 as Board Chair, however he passed away in 2021. Dr. Philip Penaflor was Vice-Chair but was always working abroad as a humanitarian and development professional. When he came back from his recent foreign travel by the end of 2022, he initiated the reorganization of the LTK Board.
The current LTK Board is composed of Dr Felipe Mendoza de Leon, Jr., Board Chair, who is currently the President of the Asian Social Institute; Dr Philip Emmanuel Penaflor as Vice-Chair, Ms Emy Perez as Secretary-Treasurer; Zeno “Nonoy” Zuniga, Jahziel Tayco Ferrer, James Mangun, and Ms Jennifer Gutierrez as Executive Director.
The Plastics Invasion
There is a big patch of garbage in the North Pacific Ocean known as the Pacific garbage patch measured at 1.6 million square kilometers, thrice the size of France and twice the size of Texas. In the Atlantic, the garbage patch, also known as the North Atlantic garbage patch, is hundreds of kilometers in size, which according to studies, has a density of 200,000 pieces of trash per square kilometer. Most of the garbage found in both the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans are plastic trash as they are easily carried away by the currents from the river systems in countries which have access to the sea. In Asia the Philippines is next to China in plastic waste leakage.
Globally 450 million tons of plastic are produced annually. From studies already conducted on plastic waste leakage, there are about 9 to 14 million tons of plastic waste that go to the oceans every year which is equivalent to one garbage truck per minute. Overtime these plastic wastes disintegrate into micro plastics and ingested by fishes and other marine species, which eventually get into our tables. It is estimated that we ingest at least 5 grams of plastic every week. However, not all plastic dissolve and they cause great harm to the environment as pollutants. It is estimated that since 1950 about 75% of plastic produced consequently end up as waste. In time, with the current trend of plastic entering the oceans, the oceans’ capacity to absorb carbon will be greatly limited which will impact on the climate, exacerbating the already menace brought about by climate change.
How do we combat this escalating plastic crisis?
At the policy level we have to ask our government to regulate plastic production, especially to ban single use plastic and search for alternatives to plastic. The industries have a great capacity to reduce plastic waste by finding alternatives to plastic. Lingkod Tao-Kalikasan (LTK) in 1992 wrote two of the leading fast food chains in the country to ban the use of styrofoam in their food packaging. Whether it is because of LTK or out of their own initiatives, the two leading fast food chains began to use paper boxes in their food packaging. At the community level, barangay local governments and community members can work together to find alternatives to plastics, but there should be awareness-raising campaigns to get everyone to understand the impacts of the plastic menace. More importantly, at the household level, we can begin to reduce our use of plastic by re-using the plastic we already have, or recycling them. We have to do our part in disposing our plastic waste properly by segregating them and not include them in organic or biodegradable wastes.