DENR focuses on ‘blue environment’

The DENR is intensifying the rehabilitation of the "blue environment", that is the coastal environment through activities aimed at developing/enhancing consciousness, and drumming-up support and action toward development and conservation of the country’s endangered coasts.

Our country has 18,000 km coastline stretches. According to the report of the Philippine Biodiversity Assessment Action Plan, our coastal resources have at least 4,951 species of marine plants and animals, with fishes, non-coral invertebrates and seaweeds constituting the greatest numbers. It also reported that coral reefs are by far the most diverse of the species rich with 3,967 species in coral reefs ranking the Philippines the 2nd to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Seagrass beds have 481 species and mangroves have 370 species. These are currently threatened by pollution brought primarily by people’s activites like destructive and over-fishing coastal development logging agriculture and sewage disposal.

These are the factors that brought forth the creation of the Coastal and Marine Management Office (CMMO) in the DENR through Administrative Order No. 2002-2. Primarily , this Office will be the catalyst to make Community Resources Management a basic LGU service as mandated the Local Government Code. It is mandated to respond to the need of strengthening the coordination of all coastal and marine environment programs and projects pursued by the Department to ensure the adoption of integrated cross-sectoral and holistic coastal and marine environment strategies. Among others, the CMMO will adopt precautionary approach in the management of coastal and marine resources, maintain healthy and productive coastal and marine ecosystems; involve stakeholders in all stages of development and ensure that coastal and marine resources shall be allocated to uses that will provide long-term benefits compatible with sustainable development.

Pursuing these concerns is a Herculean task. The staff of CMMO under the current leadership of Director Florendo Barangan, should therefore be fully capacitated to perform their responsibilities. Stakeholders should also be competent partners in the participatory process of planning implementing and monitoring the activities. For these reasons, this November 2002 a series of Community Resource Management (CRM) training will be conducted to CMMO personnel from the national and local level. One of its objectives is to come up with a pool of trainers who will capacitate other CMMO personnel, LGUs peoples’ organizations and fishers, among others. Simultaneous with capacity building is reviewing, harmonizing and formulating CRM policies and plans at the national level and developing an integrated coastal and marine information managements.