A GOOD QUESTION

By Anton Antonio

“How would you popularize Landscape Ecology to the ignorant and illiterate?” is more than a question posted by Dean Inocencio E. Buot, Jr. of the University of the Philippines – Faculty of Management and Development Studies… it is actually a challenge in its purpose and objective.

Analyn Morales, Jerome Adriano and me, students of Landscape Ecology under Dean Jun Buot, seriously took up the challenge.  At first, we were at a loss for ways and means to put our fingers on the right method in popularizing Landscape Ecology to the ignorant and illiterate.  We have a few ideas but we were just not comfortable with them.  So we did a quick survey to gather more useable information.

The survey question was straight-forward:  “Ano ang naiisip mong paraan upang ipabatid sa mga hindi nakapag-aral ang Landscape Ecology?”  We were almost tempted to use “mangmang” and “ignorante” (as translations for ignorant and illiterate) in the question but felt it was not appropriate… so we chose “hindi napakag-aral” instead.  Here are the survey results:

In the conduct of the survey, we noticed that the respondents had a tough time answering the question or making suggestion especially after they are made aware that the “target” subjects are the illiterate and ignorant.  One elderly respondent, with her religiously veteran smarts, offered an alternative:  “Ipag-dasal na lang natin sila.”

The most suggested way was a Music Video on Landscape Ecology (13%).  But we felt that a music video was hard to conceptualize along the lines of Landscape Ecology.  It will also be a logistical and production nightmare.  Besides, we might only end up making a environmental advocacy song that will not be too effective in communicating Landscape Ecology to a specific target audience.  Another relatively popular suggestion was a Cartoon/Animation film (7%).  This may seem to be a good idea but animation films are harder to make than comedy films with real people/characters in it.  The most practical and plausible way was a short Comedy Film (10%) which we finally decided to shoot… entitled: “Landscape Ecology at ang Pamilyang Pilipino.”

The question also resulted in capturing this disturbing information… a clear majority of 64% of the respondents actually had no suggestions simply because they did not know what Landscape Ecology is all about.  This is another indicator on the level of knowledge and awareness regarding Landscape Ecology.  It shows that there really is an immediate need to popularize Landscape Ecology not only limited to the illiterate and ignorant but to a larger number of people.