Greenpeace Southeast Asia Calls for Investigation on Coral Crashing Incident in Mactan

Following the alleged coral crashing incident in Lapu-Lapu City involving a tourist submarine, Greenpeace Southeast Asia urged authorities to launch a “full-blown” investigation on this to find out the impact of the crash.

“This documented incident should pave the way for a full blown investigation for resort owners and operators in Mactan Island. The objective of the investigation is to sort out what sort of activities they are holding and the subsequent impacts to the marine environment, the investigation will also reveal the carrying capacity of our ecosystem, and efforts should be made to lessen, and strongly regulate activities in the area,” said Vince Cinches, country ocean’s campaigner of Greenpeace SEA in a statement.

Cinches said Cebu should take action on this incident especially that May is Ocean’s Month with a theme – “Corals are forest of the ocean.”

Cinches said if resorts would want to earn, “they should eradicate destructive activities or those that have high environmental footprint.” He said the waters in Mactan Island form part of the outer reef of the only double barrier reef in the country, thus, these should be protected.

Cinches’ call came days after a yellow tourist submarine, which was launched by a resort very recently, was caught by a diver crashing a coral reef in the waters of Lapu-Lapu City.