Biology Department conducts mining-related research
Date Posted: March 8, 2018 at 09:30 AM
Adamson University’s Biology Department, in partnership with some faculty of Caraga State University in Butuan City, is currently conducting an intensive research for the post-mining intervention of Dinagat Island to provide a scientific or evidenced-based solution to the harmful effects of mining.
Titled Baseline Survey of Biodiversity and Physico-chemical Characteristics of Disturbed and Undisturbed Environments in the Province of Dinagat Island, Philippines, the research is funded by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) and is headed by Dr. Eleanor Austria, PhD, a senior faculty member of the Biology Department. Assisting her is a team composed of Gil Gabriel Villancio, MS, Maria Regina Quibod, MS, and Ace Bryan Cabal, MS. The team aims to provide a holistic survey of terrestrial, marine, and aquatic environments in Dinagat to provide better solutions to the mining aftermath. The research commenced last August 2017 and is targeted for completion in August 2019.
With consultants from the Zoology Department of the National Museum of the Philippines, the baseline survey aims to be an underlying research for a more sustainable solution of the deteriorating effect of mining. It hopes to provide a more holistic catalogue of the resources of the mining site and adjacent area for its pre- mining and post-mining states.
The research is a part of a three-phased project called Post-mining Interventions for Environmental Rehabilitation and Land Sustainability Program, also dubbed as the Perlas Project. The project was established in observance of the statutory mandated social and environmental responsibility of mining agencies as stated in Republic Act 7942 or the Philippine Mining Act of 1995. This act requires mining agencies to contribute to the rehabilitation of social and environmental aspects of their sites or conduct a research as regard to these aspects.
