"Green Tourism", Anyone?

In a recent professorial lecture delivered by Dr. Mon Razal, Dr. Marge Calderon, and Prof. Robie Cereno of the College of Forestry and Natural Resources (CFNR) of UPLB, they focused on “green tourism.”  What’s meant by being green?  Put simply, the team says that a company or agency may be green if it “advocates environment friendliness.”  Now that’s a bit broad, but appropriate point to start from.

I don’t recall all the good points, of which there were lots, that the team presented, but I’m focusing on the concept of green tourism which they introduced rather strongly.  Dr. Razal made some good effort defining what they meant by being green, Dr. Calderon explained how they typologized and tested the “greenness” of UPLB technologies developed and have been “commercialized” through the years, while Prof. Cereno presented the group's collective recommendation, that of developing and offering an undergraduate curriculum on green tourism.

All three issues are very interesting and let me offer my personal views on them singly. 

First, the team said much about UPLB’s “slogan” in 2011, “UPLB Leads Green.”  That, they said, was a significant indicator that UPLB has gone green.  Immediately after UPLB declared its slogan about January, the UPLB-CA launched its slogan “CA Always Green” thereby pinning down what the Team referred to as the UPLB’s niche, the ABE Niche (for agriculture, biotechnology, and environment).  Not everybody will agree, but the idea of establishing UPLB’s niche is a good idea.  Traditionally, when UPLB was still UPCA, its acknowledged niche was agricultural and rural development.  What happened to the Philippines in the last decades?  Well, certainly not the fault of UPCA, rural development efforts have resulted in the conversion of most of our first class agricultural land (used to be planted to rice) to high-end subdivisions.  How about agriculture?  We’re still importing rice (even if the primary reason might be more political and corruption-oriented than lack of the staple itself).

In any case, it looks to me like UPLB’s new focus on “greenness” is a zero-sum game.  Focusing efforts on becoming a green institution requires substantial amount of resources to be poured into such new undertaking.  Those resources are likely not going to be new resources coming into the university as a result of the green program, but resources likely re-channeled from existing programs.  Of course, resources reprogramming is acceptable but it would be more meaningful if certain existing programs that are not likely to result in benefits to the institution be reassessed and perhaps frozen if not discontinued in favor of a new program likely to succeed.

Second, the Team made quite a noise about UPLB-developed technologies.  Having existed more than a century, UPLB certainly should have developed technologies that should have transformed Philippine agrarian society into a modern technology-propelled society.  The Team said much about their research, determining which UPLB technologies were adopted in the CALOBA (Calamba, Los Baños, Bay) landscape.  I would have been more interested to know the impact of UPLB technologies on the entire country and perhaps the ASEAN Region, but the Team obviously didn’t have the time to undertake such huge study.   The team felt disappointed, they said, because not many UPLB technologies were adopted.  Still, they did claim there were lots of UPLB technologies developed over the years. 

Perhaps the most significant technologies, those which had impact on Philippine society, that have been developed at UPLB over the years have not been many.  Some that I could name include the C4-G varieties of rice (which substantially increased the national average of rice production), the development of coconut trees bearing some 85% macapuno nuts (which has largely been “stolen” by another country through its citizens who have come to Los Baños to study macapuno culture), the Farm and Home Development approach which transformed farm management techniques in the Philippine country side, and a few more.  All these, were newspaper front-page fare for brief amounts of time but have largely been relegated to the background now.  What does that mean?  Well, the technologies of such nature as has just been described really don’t last.  They have all been overtaken by new technologies, which is what technological development is all about. 

The only lasting technological collectivity that UPLB has ever developed is its curricular programs.  The curriculum is the end-result of a university’s primordial function of providing education to the citizens of the country.  You will note that practically all state universities in the country, and even including many private higher education institutions, have adopted UPLB curricular programs in agriculture, forestry, environment, biotechnology, development communication, and even in small, less popular programs like agricultural business (agribusiness).  Still, even confronted in the face with this fact, there is little effort now that is focused on improving curricular programs of UPLB.  Instead, it appears that the proliferation of curricular programs is a continuing phenomenon.

I do have basic questions regarding technologies, considered anchor points of substantial efforts of both human and non-human resources at UPLB.  For example, what are the criteria in determining whether or not a technology developed at UPLB has resulted in a permanent imprint that would always flow back to UPLB as an institution?  What should be the nature of impact that we ought to expect from adoption of a UPLB technology?

Third point is the proposal to offer a curricular program on green tourism.  Listening to the Team, I felt that the the idea of offering a curricular program on green tourism may be worth pursuing but not from the point of view that was being emphasized, which was that UPLB should be first to go into this idea of a curricular program in green tourism in order to claim it as a new niche.  That is, let’s beat everybody else on this one.  I like the fighting spirit embodied in this, but is UPLB ready to offer an entire curriculum on green tourism?  Does UPLB have on its faculty people trained and experienced in tourism, more so in green tourism, and does UPLB have the resources necessary in running an efficient and effective tourism curriculum? 

The Team recommended that the proposed green tourism program would be a joint program among the CA, CFNR, CEM, and SESAM.  This looks perfect on paper, but there are a couple of loose ends here.  One, UPLB hasn’t yet mastered the art of collaborative work.  Based on experience, perhaps one of the first points of arguments would be: who shall be the lead college?  A second point of contention would be: how much resources must each college contribute?  From which college shall students graduate?  Of course, these are not content issues, but primordial issues, just the same, for all units concerned no matter the denial. 

Then, of course, the most corrosive of these issues will be the inability of people to work closely together such as in honest-to-goodness implementation of multidisciplinary projects.  Collaborative work isn’t as easy as it sounds.  A simple example would be a multi-disciplinary course at UPLB.  Such course is supposed to be team-taught, for example, but it would end up being taught by more than one individual who divide the course into hours so that there are certain hours for certain topics.  The assigned faculty members to teach will be there during the time scheduled for their topics.  There’ll be as little effort at synthesizing content and inter-relating issues across disciplines.  Hence, the multidisciplinariness is lost.  If a multidisciplinary course is taught by a single individual, such as the experience in the course, Science Technology and Society, the course shall take the general focus according to the field of specialization of the person teaching the course. 

I am, of course, aware that nobody would be interested in my unsolicited advice, but let me say it just the same.  Our traditional strengths are in agriculture, biotechnology, environment, development communication, forestry, veterinary medicine, and human nutrition.  Why can’t we strengthen all these programs and be the best in Asia and possibly one of the best in the world in these fields?  In the long haul, having the strongest programs in these areas will result in more foreign graduate students coming to UPLB.  That’s how UPLB could exert its academic influence not only nationally but internationally as well.  And that’s how UPLB should go because it is a university, not an NGO.

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