Manny Bonita is the recipient of 2017 Mancono Award

Manny Bonita, 2017 Mancono Awardee

Congratulations to vrod Manuel Bonita (Magnificent Seven ’67) who was given the Mancono Award on April 21, 2017 during the 107th Anniversary of the College of Forestry and Natural Resources, UP Los Baños.

The citation reads:

The Mancono Award is given to Dr. Manuel L. Bonita for his fifty fruitful years as a brilliant Filipino Forester that was shaped initially in Los Baños and continued in Vancouver where he obtained his PhD at age 23. His illustrious forestry professional career started in the academe, where he rose from instructor at age 19 to Assistant Professor at age 24, Associate Professor at age 28, Professorial Chair holder, Department Chairman, and Vice Chancellor for Planning and Development at age 32.

His forestry calling transformed from the academe to an unparalleled career in international forestry consulting that took off in forest policy and sector planning, which gave him recognition as the principal writer of five forestry master plans of Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Kenya. His consulting career then made a fateful transformation from policy level to ground level forestry, when he demonstrated the application of good forest policy by crafting the implementation of participatory sustainable forest management in more than 3 million hectares of production forest areas in Laos, which include internationally certified forests acclaimed as among the best managed forests in Asia by FAO in the early 2000s.

This Award is further given for his contributions, even from afar, of sound and wide-ranging practical ideas for taking Philippine forestry closer to its former glory and for his dream and continuing efforts to make the re-emergence of Philippine forestry a reality in years to come.