Green Earth for Good LIFE. The Lasallian Institute for the Environment (LIFE) is a major component of the Philippine Lasallian Family’s mission to bring responsive and liberating education to the Filipino youth based on the charism of Saint John Baptist de La Salle. LIFE aims to mobilize the Lasallian network (44 schools, 100,000 students, 10,000 faculty, 180,000 plus alumni, parents and grandparents) in the protection and preservation of the environment. It seeks to educate and to move people to action by instilling in them the integral role of a healthy planet in bringing about genuine and total human development.

Guided by the Lasallian Family’s tradition of service to God and nation, LIFE has started to define its future plans, programs, roles, and responsibilities. The Institute will work with the various environmental programs of the different La Salle schools and their affiliates to provide technical assistance and draw on available experience and expertise from the Lasallian family, as needed.

LIFE is supervised by the La Salle Provincialate, Central House of the De La Salle Brothers in the Philippines.

Operation Watershed

For its flagship project, LIFE has chosen the large and complex watershed which contains the 21 sub-basins surrounding Laguna the Bay, the lake, the Pasig River and its significant tributaries, and the areas impacted by the Pasig River discharge into Manila Bay. LIFE will partner with the residents of communities and NGOs in the watershed.

It will collaborate with government agencies such as the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and Laguna Lake Development Agency, academic institutions, and private organizations.

With the hope of protecting and promoting the biodiversity in the area, LIFE will tap various Lasallian institutions, organizations and individuals. This project is expected to identify and raise many environmental concerns, from watershed management to area development. The Institute hopes to integrate these various concerns with the La Salle schools’ curriculum development, research thrust, and values formation program.

But the flagship watershed management project is just the start of LIFE’s long line of anticipated short-medium-and long-term environmental and natural resources management projects. By 2011, the centenary of Lasallian education in the country, LIFE hopes to find all La Salle schools having made significant contributions to environmental education and the improvement of sub-basins in the flagship watershed project.

LIFE People and Support

LIFE is headed by La Salle alumnus Bienvenido Eusebio, who is also the director of the Natural Resources Management Program of De La Salle University-Manado in Indonesia. In its initial phase, LIFE will tap the support of volunteer faculty members and researchers of the various Lasallian institutions. Alumni and friends here and abroad who are experts in the field of environmental management as well as those from other disciplines are welcome to extend assistance. The Institute will seek the help of, among others, agriculturists, foresters, soil and ground water experts, economists, legal experts, sociologists, and communication specialists. It will also require the support of its partner community and the local government.