THE international community has recognized the Philippines as among the strong performers in environmental protection and management even outranking countries like the United States, Australia, Singapore and Bulgaria.

Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Ramon Paje said that the achievement only shows how the government prioritizes (environment) programs particularly cleaning the air and water, forest protection, national greening, biodiversity conservation among others.

In a recent biennial Environmental Performance Index (EPI) prepared by Yale and Columbia Universities, the country was categorized as a global “strong performer” in environmental performance.

The two universities ranked the Philippines at 42nd among the 132 countries under the “strong performer” category.

On the other hand, Australia was ranked 48th, the USA 49th, Singapore 52nd and Bulgaria 53rd all under the “modest performers” category.

A higher EPI rank indicates that a country or region is closer to achieving its established goals in environmental policy.

The EPI, prepared in collaboration with the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in Italy, studies data to analyze how the global community is doing on particular policy issues against environmental pressures, and is used to steer individual countries toward environmental sustainability.