The Philippines losing 6,000 hectares of mangrove a year

Charlie Lagasca PhilStar 13 Dec 08;

TUGUEGARAO CITY, Cagayan – From around 140,000 hectares, the country’s mangrove area may go down to only around 10,000 hectares by 2030 if destruction of remaining mangrove continues to go unabated based on annual decline rate from 1938 to 1993.

According to the government’s Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) here, the total hectare of mangroves in the country has gone down from 450,000 hectares in 1938 to only 138,000 hectares in 1993, or a decline rate of around 7,000 hectares per year.

This would go down to 10,000 hectares if the same annual rate of destruction continues until 2030.

This alarming of decline, BFAR said, was mainly due to overfishing, utilization of banned chemicals and explosives and other environmentally destructive fishing methods as well as household utilization of mangrove areas.

Ironically, the advance in aquaculture has been said to be partly responsible for this important ecological zone which is the home of many endemic endangered species.