Response from UN

From UNEP-OCHA:

See Attached File: HIT.pdf

Dear colleagues,

We at the Joint UNEP/OCHA Environnment Unit have become aware of the Hazard mapping and environmental summit you are organizing in April 2010. As part of efforts to improve the international response to environmental emergencies we have developed a tool to identify secondary environmental risks that industrial facilities and large infrastructure may pose when affected by a natural disaster: the Hazard Identification Tool (please see the attachment for further information). In addition to using this tool in response to emergencies, i.e. to identify environmental hazards after a disaster has struck, we have been exploring different ways to use the tool to identify and map hazards before the on-set of natural disasters, thereby
contributing to preparedness efforts.

It is before this background that we would like to inquire whether any contribution from our side could be of value to the Eco Summit and/or whether there might be other possibilities for collaboration. I would be happy to provide you with more details on our work in regards to environmental hazard identification.

Best regards,


Environmental Emergencies Unit (joint UNEP/OCHA)
Emergency Preparedness Section, Emergency Services Branch
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Palais des Nations - bureau D-117
CH 1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland
Phone: +41 22 917 1590
Fax: +41 22 917 0257
E-mail: xxxxxxxxxx
http://ochaonline.un.org/ochaunep

Conserve the environment! Please do not print this email unless absolutely necessary.


2010 Hazard mapping and environmental summit (HMES)
[ Eco Summit 2010 ]

Type: Meeting or Conference
Date: 08-15 Apr 2010
Location: Philippines (Manila)
Main organizer: Resource Recovery Movement (RRM)

Description

The Resource Recovery Movement will hold the first 2010 Hazards Mapping and Environment Summit (Eco 2010 Summit) in Manila, Philippines. This is ultimately borne about by the tremendous changing of the Philippine landscape and those of other countries in the Pacific Rim in the last few decades. All efforts towards risk mapping in relation to calamities and disasters in the past should now take into consideration the great shifts and transformations in land mass, the enormous amount of rainfall brought about by climate change and many new factors that were heretofore not factored into national and sub-national planning by governments as well as even by business establishments and non-government organizations.

The 2010 Hazard Mapping and Environmental Summit (HMES) is intended to develop better approaches to mapping risks and dangers to communities in the Philippines and other countries with tropical climates. It takes a cue from the recent experience in China, Indonesia and the Philippines, notwithstanding the previous experiences in Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan where scores of people died due to unforeseen occurrences during the incidence of a natural disaster: earthquake, typhoon, tsunami and other calamities.

The databasing, mapping and full coordination of efforts towards use and sharing of a full function GIS on hazards, volcanoes, water, flood, forests in the Philippines and Asia, vulnerability areas, liquefaction potential, crisis and hot spots is long due because of the long-running phenomenon of climate change in the planet. This is also significant in that the Philippines, among other countries, lies in the Pacific Rim of Fire where a large number of earthquake faults lie.

The most important value of the conference is to determine the plan and the cost of implementing such a plan to make the Philippines and other participating nations safer from increasingly hazardous calamities.

Additional information
http://ecologyguardian.wordpress.com/

How to register

Please contact Sol: +632 7102609 +639212384228
email: saferecover@msn.com
onefestival@live.com