Philippines struggles to preserve marine biodiversity

Ted P. Torres The Philippine Star 29 Jan 12;

MANILA, Philippines - Eighty-percent of the efforts to save the country’s coral reefs, known worldwide as “the center of the center of the marine shorefish diversity” are still private sector-initiated.

In a presentation at the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) conference yesterday, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) lamented that efforts to restore the biodiversity of the coastal and marine ecosystem are dispersed and uncoordinated.

Government has extensive programs to save the country’s rich biodiversity.

DENR Protected Area and Wildlife Bureau (PAWB) director Dr. Theresa Mundita Lim said that while the efforts are laudable, it is prone to errors that may negate whatever gains were achieved.

“For example, the mangrove species being planted may not be suitable to the specific restoration areas,” Lim said.

Private sector initiatives also to restore the coral reefs were numerous but without coordination with relevant government agencies.

She said that the improper development activities would in fact result to further destruction of the coastal resources.

The DENR official said others have resorted to creating artificial reefs. However, the use of tires, junk, concrete reef balls and the like, are not the proper materials.

Lim said that the country’s coasts and seas have suffered heavy degradation over half a century of destructive practices. In fact, the Philippines is one of the nine countries in the world with high to very high exposure to coral reef threats, but low to medium adaptive capacity.

Studies show that only four percent of the country’s coral reef is healthy. Twenty-seven percent was classified as poor, another 27 percent classified as good, and 42 percent classified as fair. Officials lamented that the trend has not yet been reversed.

Since the coral reefs are the most critical element in the sea and coastal biodiversity, the country’s fish catch have been declining since the early 1980s.

Fish kill in Taal Lake last year and the jellyfish dominance in the fishing nets of fisherfolk in Pangasinan are just a few signs of the negative impact of a deteriorating coastal and marine biosystem.

Meanwhile, DENR data indicate that the areas covered by mangrove forests had declines from 450,000 ha in 1918 to 288,000 ha in 1970. In 1988, it was reduced further to 140,000 ha and down to 138,000 ha in 1993.

Lim said that the downward trend has stopped as government and the private-sector initiated efforts has picked up.

But the positive results of the newly-planted mangrove forest will take decades to make an impact.

UNEP officials said that what must be attained in the near term is to stop the destruction of the coastal and marine biodiversity. “Avoiding more losses is the order of the day, rather than wait for further deterioration,” Jerker Tamelander, UNEP head for coral reef unit, said.

It will cost $2,000 to restore a 13,000 ha coral reef. But it will only amount to P40,000 to manage a marine protected area.