Welcome to our blog while we update our website.
LINC is dedicated to environmental conservation, education, management and restoration centered on pollution-remediation. We work on building community ties, creating new job opportunities, relieving poverty, and providing awareness-raising/training sessions. We seek community-based and supported solutions that include effective new sustainable technologies, eliminate poverty, and encourage gender equality.
Current Project
Our current project focus is the establishment of Project CoralsAsia (PCA) at various locations throughout the Philippines.
Our first project site is Boracay Island (PCABORACAY). Boracay Island is a unique small island located in the Province of Aklan 345km south of Manila in the western Visayas area of the Philippines. Receiving over 100,000 tourists each year, Boracay’s water quality has been severely degraded by lack of proper sanitation, a defective sewage treatment plant, and an onslaught of destructive marine activities. It has dramatically impacted the health of the coral reefs which has led to a fisheries collapse that now threatens the livelihood of the local aboriginal communities on the island. Residents and tourists that may enter the water with a small scratch or other open wound have found that if they spend a significant amount of time in the water these wounds are likely to become infected.
LINC began the implementation of a comprehensive five phase marine reserve and coastal restoration program, Project CoralsAsia (PCA). In PCA Phase One, we created a Community Environmental Management Board (CEMB). The CEMB consists of local business owners, aboriginal community liaisons and other local residents that have a shared interest in solving local and national environmental issues. The CEMB is responsible for the implementation and management of all LINC programs.
As the focus of Phase One, we raised 10,000 USD within the community in order to hire a coral reef and fisheries management expert, Dr. Thomas Goreau of The Global Coral Reef Alliance (GCRA) to visit and assess the island. A Biorock technology™ structure was installed in order to protect, conserve and restore a critical fish nursery site that has been badly damaged by excessive nutrients in the water, over fishing, and general man made pollution.
Currently, we are in Phase Two, the waste management process; we have invited Jim Smallwood of Natural Systems to introduce Electrocoagulation (EC) for liquid wastewater treatment and Glenn Dombeck of Ascend Innovations to provide long-term consultation on strategies for nutrient removal from coastal areas. Our upcoming phases are an employment program, local environmental education projects, and ethical eco- tourism. The goal is an environmental and economic revitalization of Boracay Island that is managed by and benefits all aspects of the local community.
Current Need
Community/internally financed to date, we need to expand and diversify our sources of funding to keep pace with the growth of our projects and new opportunities presented by that growth. Initial funding would be used to update our office equipment, devote time to creating new communications materials and project database, and other organizational management activities. We need a corporate partner to sponsor an upcoming United Nations presentation (or presentation series) focused on public-private environmental partnerships. It would be a large, global audience and high-profile platform. As part of our PCA, we are seeking partners to support and provide business-guidance, perhaps an investment, for stages of our PCA implementation, particularly our employment and eco-tourist efforts.
