SEARCA pushes sustained mangrove reforestation

MANILA, Philippines - The country needs to pursue a sustained mangrove reforestation program to protect the habitat of mollusks, crustaceans and fish species, a study supported by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) said.

SEARCA director Dr. Gil C. Saguiguit Jr. stressed that the protection of the existing 140,000 hectares of mangrove forests in estuaries and coastal areas in the country is crucial in sustaining food security.

The SEARCA study, Saguiguit noted, provides a basis not only for increasing the area covered by mangrove forests in Ticao Island in Masbate, but also in expanding such forests in other island provinces nationwide.

Hilconida P. Calumpong and Pablina L. Cadiz conducted the study titled “Mangrove Rehabilitation in Ticao, Masbate, Philippines” funded by SEARCA, a regional organization established to promote agricultural development in the 10 ASEAN member states and Timor-Leste.

Calumpong, the principal researcher, works for the Institute of Environmental and Marine Sciences (IEMS) of Silliman University (SU) in Dumaguete City.

The authors stressed in their study that “the biggest threat to the mangrove ecosystem in Ticao Island is fishpond conversion. The survey showed that there are 473.2 hectares of intact mangrove forests compared to 105.38 hectares of fishponds.”

Calumpong and Cadiz added that the highest conversion rate was in the town of San Fernando where there are more fishponds than mangrove forests.

Worse, they noted that “most of these fishponds  have been found wanting in approved leases and are mostly idle.”

In conclusion, they said “the second leading threat to the mangrove ecosystem is the conversion of mangrove forests into settlements. The other causes of loss of mangrove forests are the cutting of trees for construction and firewood.”

In their study, Calumpong and Cadiz argued that the entire country grapples with the problem of disappearing mangrove forests, from 500,000 hectares in 1920 to only 100,000 hectares in 1997, even as conservation efforts and a sustained program to restore mangrove forests led to an increase of 40,000 hectares in 2004.

Globally, there are 5.2 million hectares of mangrove forests in Asia alone, but fishpond culture and logging has reduced the figure to only 65 percent of the previous forest cover.

Calumpong and Cadiz stressed that the situation in Ticao Island mirrors the state of mangrove forests in the country.

“Logging caused a substantial reduction to about half of the 500,000 hectares during the period 1920 to 1970, the introduction of fish and shrimp pond culture in the 1950s exacerbated the problem, fishponds occupied 88,681 hectares in 1952 to over 224,000 hectares in just 30 years,” the authors noted.

Calumpong and Cadiz argued that the cutting of mangrove trees for charcoal making and construction, as well as for the preparation of fishponds, could be attributed to “the lack of appreciation and knowledge of the ecological and economic values of mangroves.”

The authors said Ticao Island was selected for the study as it had at least 25 hectares of abandoned fishponds that could be rehabilitated into mangrove areas. The island could also harbor a nursery for rare mangrove species.

Calumpong and Cadiz had advocated multi-species reforestation. They were behind the reforestation of a 52-square kilometer area in Bais Bay along the coast of Negros Oriental, with the Talabong Mangrove Forest, a 300-hectare wildlife refuge, as a demonstration site for its mangrove nursery and multi-species reforestation.

Moreover, SU had acquired a 500-hectare property on Ticao Island, including 10 hectares of abandoned fishponds that can be reforested, and the propagation of the rare mangrove species like Kandelia candel (L.) Druce in the same area has been proposed.