Help Save Coral Reefs, DENR Urges Filipinos

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is urging Filipinos to take action to help save what remains of the country’s coral reefs.

It said concerted effort is necessary to ensure the survival of the so-called “rainforests of the sea,” which is threatened by human activities and climate change.

“We must act now to save our remaining coral reefs, before it’s too late,” the DENR said in a statement.

The call was made as the nation celebrates May as Month of the Ocean, with the theme “Stand Up, Save Our Reefs.”

According to the DENR, major causes of coral reef destruction include destructive fishing, overfishing, sedimentation, ill-planned coastal development, and rapid population growth.

Coral reefs are some of the most diverse ecosystems in the world, housing tens of thousands of marine species. Reefs buffer shorelines from waves and storms that cause flooding and erosion, support commercial and subsistence fisheries, and are home to a thriving recreation and tourism industry.

In celebration of the Ocean Month, the DENR’s Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB) has lined up a number of activities aimed at raising awareness on the importance of coral reefs and the negative effects of reef destruction have on food security and marine biodiversity.

The highlight of the celebration is the retrieval of three Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures (ARMS) deployed last year in the waters of Carabao Island in Cavite, Mactan Island in Cebu, and Snake Island in Palawan.

Donated by the United States government through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the ARMS units are designed to monitor the overall health conditions of coral reefs and can yield data on impacts of climate change within a marine ecosystem.

More than 800 ARMS units have been deployed by NOAA throughout the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic oceans.

Prior to retrieval of ARMS, a kick off program will be conducted on Monday (May 18) at the BMB Training Center in Quezon City where US scientists from Smithsonian Institute and Coral Reef Ecosystem Division of NOAA are set to discuss the goals of the project and the partnership initiatives.

BMB Director Mundita Lim and Deputy Mission Director Reed Aeschliman of the USAID Philippines are also expected to grace the kick-off event.

Simultaneous retrieval of the ARMS units will take place on May 27. After that, the units will be dismantled for “taxonomic identification” of the marine species collected from its plates.

The results will be presented at BMB-organized science fairs in various elementary and high schools located in host communities in a bid to educate people on marine life and encourage them to help in conserving marine ecosystems.

The BMB said the ARMS units will be redeployed for further studies. It is also planning to increase the number of units in specific sites to provide additional data for research purposes.

Other Ocean Month activities include a paper clay art contest dubbed Yaman Sining, Yaman Dagat; a three-day workshop in Subic, Zambales, to review the Integrated Coastal Management Implementation Plan in Bataan and Cavite; and a tour of Balabac, Palawan, where a marine area is being proposed to be declared as a marine protected area.

Presidential Proclamation No. 57, issued in 1999, declared May as the Month of the Ocean. The proclamation mandates the DENR and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources of the Department of Agriculture to spearhead the celebration with emphasis on the need to conserve and protect the country’s coastal and marine resources.

The Philippine coral reef system is said to be second largest in Southeast Asia, next to Indonesia. It covers around 240 million hectares of water and is home to some 468 species of scleractinian corals, over 50 soft corals, 1,755 reef-associated fishes, 648 mollusks, and 27 marine mammals.

Source: www.denr.gov.ph