Pamumuno - Philippines
Description
Case Study: : Ecosystem leadership with culture and nature in climate- vulnerable cities
Sara Silva et al. :
"The Philippines ranks number one in the world with the highest natural disaster risk in the world according to the Global Disaster Risk Index in 2024. It is a country repeatedly and increasingly experiencing impacts from severe weather (typhoons, droughts, flooding, storm surge, etc). Green Releaf has worked with communities in the frontlines of climate emergencies through ecosystem regeneration labs and learning journeys which partners with place-based organizations across government, civil society, and sustainable businesses as co-hosts and co-facilitators. Pamumuno Lab by Green Releaf Initiative worked with three typhoon-stricken cities in the Philippines — Tabuk, Tacloban, and Cebu City - for ecosystem regeneration and climate resilience in a two year learning journey. It has been working with food, farm, forest, and marine ecosystem innovators in designing, prototyping, and testing the scalability of their work in collaboration with others in ways that would help scale their solutions up by influencing policy and integration into development plans; wide by replicating solutions across multiplers; and more importantly deep, ways that heal silos, divides, and mental models held in systems.
One of the ways they did this is by using creative climate narratives and indigenous values. “Pamumuno” means leadership and comes from the root word “puno” which means tree. The organization collaborated with the Living Story Landscapes in engaging arts and culture along with wisdom keepers and climate scientists in documenting climate narratives that were aimed to inform local development plans. Its collaboration with the University of the Philippines has inspired the university to pursue loss and damage studies bridging the arts and science."
(https://ecolise.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Bioregional-Governance-Training-Guide.pdf?)
More information
- Learn more about their work via livingstorylandscapes.com and greenreleaf.org