Antonio Oposa: Save Our Seas! Save Our Crown Jewel!

CEBU, Philippines - This gem of an island off the northwest coast of Cebu’s main island —home to some of the finest beaches in the country—may be more famous nowadays as a top travel and tourism draw in central Philippines. But little is probably known of Bantayan island group’s past as a copious fishing ground—so copious that it was once tagged as the “Alaska of the Philippines.”

Recent scientific studies have revealed that the marine resources of Bantayan—girded on all sides by the Visayan Sea—have since gone on a dramatic depletion. The municipality of Sta. Fe, where the famed white-sand beaches are largely concentrated, is confronted with threats to its coastal resources, particularly the “fringing coral reefs,” that are posed by unlawful fishing methods and other harmful human activities.

Bold steps to better safeguard this beautiful yet fragile area’s marine resources and distinctive habitats are being spearheaded by the Law of Nature Foundation, through its School of the Seas (SOS), in partnership with the Department of Tourism (DOT) and the Silliman University-Angelo King Center for Research and Environment Management (SUAKCREM).

The collaboration resulted to 10 new Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) which were collectively launched in a symbolic ceremony held during a gathering for the environmental movement Global Legal Action on Climate Change (GLACC). The new MPAs, which span various coastal barangays of the Bantayan island group, are now areas off limits to fishing and other extra-active activities to afford a sanctuary for fishes, corals, among others, to survive and reproduce. 

The main proponent, the Law of Nature Foundation founder and multi-awarded environmental lawyer Atty. Antonio Oposa, Jr., calls it a “wholesale activity,” which is hoped to not just attract more attention to the eco-tourism cachet of Bantayan, but to also galvanize increased civic action in the protection of the area’s rich, but vulnerable biodiversity.

With an initial P2 million funding from the Department of Tourism, Atty. Oposa says that such establishment of MPAs take inspiration from the remarkable examples set by Apo Island, globally recognized as a community-managed reserve and a project of former DENR chief and prominent marine biologist Dr. Angel Alcala with SUAKCREM; and the Sagay Waters Marine Reserve, which Sagay City Mayor Fred Marañon fought for when he was still a congressman. Mayor Marañon sponsored RA 9106 (otherwise known as the Sagay Marine Reserve Law) in 2001 declaring 32,000 hectares of Sagay’s coastal waters as protected area.

“If we can make a contribution to these efforts, it would be to use these examples altogether, and do something much, much bigger. Build on what they have done, and replicate it to as big as possible,” says Atty. Oposa.

“This is an initial action,” explains Dr. Alcala, whose team headed the mapping, reef surveys, among others, of the 10 MPAs. “From 10, we hope to soon expand it to 20 MPAs.” 

What stands as more crucial now, however, is the follow-up action, especially towards the non-functional MPAs, or areas whose reefs have been reduced to rubble that it will take several decades for them to recover. “There are a few that are working. Meaning, they have good coral cover and there is a high density, bio mass and diversity of fish,” says Dr. Alcala, “but others are not. Corals have been destroyed, caused by blast-fishing and over-fishing. Processes of recovery are really slow—they will take years, even decades.”

In Brgy. Langub, for example, the assessment study made by the group uncovered its promise as a dive site. In Brgy. Hagdan, there is a site previously identified by the community as a sanctuary, but no enforcement regime has taken shape. And consequently, as expected with threatened reefs, big-sized and even moderately-sized fishes were nowhere to be found, save for “indicator species,” or those that are not targeted by fisherman, such as wrasses, damsels, and butterfly fishes which were sighted in the area.  

The assessment study further stated that in Brgy. Kinatarcan, the spur and grove formation in the reefs make ideal habitats for many target species, and that it is possible for fishes to come back within a year or two given that there’s proper protection.

In Brgy. San Agustin in the town of Madridejos, the site showed the “highest live hard coral cover and reef rugosity,” with the research team happily noting the presence of several target fishes in the area such as parrotfishes, breams, groupers, goatfishes, fusiliers, as well as the rare and highly-valuable Mandarin fish.

According to the report, the area projects great potential for tourism, and that it should appeal to divers interested in rare fish and macro-photography. However, there’s a lot of discarded fishing gears, bamboo poles and rubber tires found in the area.

 “[That’s why] it has gotten to be followed up with more community work. We need to empower the communities to help in the management and protection,” says Dr. Alcala, whose team will help set in motion more concrete community involvement, in cooperation with the LGUs, in the next few months.

The MPAs have the positive support of the LGUs, but just like the locations of many MPAs in the world, poverty is a real pressing concern in these areas. Dr. Alcala suggests alternative livelihoods in the first two critical years of the implementation of the MPAs. “They should engage in land-based livelihoods like raising goats, chicken, or engage in the buy-and-sell of pelagic fish (or fish found in high seas) for a couple of years.”

Bonar Laureto, executive director of Law of Nature Foundation, also says that the MPAs will also serve as the bigger playground of the students of its School of the SEAs (which stands for Sea and Earth Advocates), the foundation’s experiential training center on marine conservation and management that is located in Sta. Fe, Bantayan. Bounded by a coastal forest ecosystem and bird sanctuary, the School of the Seas (SOS) already has two demonstration marine sanctuaries right in front of it.

About 5,000 “students” have already graduated from the SOS, which was also re-launched along with the MPAs. SOS is currently undergoing renovation after last year’s typhoon Frank left it in a sorry state. 

Apart from a dorm, and a roof deck that will grow an organic garden, the main SOS edifice will include a floor to accommodate a workplace for Dr. Alcala and SUAKCREM, a marine museum, and a room that will celebrate eco-artistry once finished. Oposa enthuses that artists are welcome here for free as long as their work will be everything and anything about Mother Nature. 

To help in the monitoring is the new and donated gunboat of the Visayan Sea Squadron, the seaborne operation arm of the Law of Nature Foundation, which is made up of volunteer divers, social organizers, topnotch lawyers and educators. But more than just helping in the enforcement, the boat is a vehicle for learning, carrying educative materials that include a full-length feature film for ready screening. The film is partly funded by DOT, features Bantayan locals in acting roles, and puts forward the value of MPAs with a central story hinged on true-to-life events about marine destruction and redemption that fisher folks and most especially young people can very well relate to.

“We’re not here to capture offenders, we’re here to capture hearts,” says Atty. Oposa. “In the end, it is really about educating people of what they have, and making them appreciate it and take better care of it.”

This and more form part of what is yearned to be a catalytic effort towards a much grander scheme of things. The 10 MPAs, in particular, are simply pilot sites of what has been envisioned as a far-reaching network of marine reserves not just in Bantayan, but the whole of the Visayan sea.

“We will go from town to town, from barangay to barangay along the coast, and help them organize marine-protected areas. Johnny Appleseed planted seeds of apple. We are trying to plant seeds for marine-protected areas,” says Oposa. 

Bantayan is, naturally, the choice “launch pad”; after all, this is where the seeds of Atty. Oposa’s environmental dreams were first sowed and nurtured. Though he has long been based in Manila with his family, Bantayan is the place that, to this day, he retreats to.

The happiest of his childhood memories were gleaned from his sojourns to Bantayan. A very close cousin remembers a young Oposa on a vacation break from law school at University of the Philippines Diliman reacting wildly to cyanide blasts he would hear from a distance—shouting, albeit futilely, for them to end.

These days, it’ll be hard to ignore the calls that Oposa, oft-described by friends and colleagues as a charismatic speaker and ebullient fellow, makes. He has copped awards here and abroad for his landmark work (which is enjoying special mention in law schools around the world)—from filing a case on behalf of a future generation vs. the government to halt illegal logging in the country’s remaining rainforests to compelling different agencies to clean up Manila Bay. Last April, he received the latest among his many accolades, the very prestigious 2008 International Environmental Law Award from the Washington DC-based Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). He is also the first Asian to be feted with such honor.

He believes awards like this have given him some level of credibility to “build 10 MPAs in one day” and, if we may also add, the right to speak the boldest against the country’s biggest environmental woes.

But his utmost concern right now is for fellow Visayans to also share their group’s cause and to believe in their work. “I was hoping that through the MPAs, Cebu can redeem itself, since kita nay maestro sa kaingin, sa dynamite fishing, karon kita ang maestro sa love for nature. (We have been teachers on kaingin and dynamite fishing, hopefully, we can be the teachers on love for nature.)

His dreams are as deep and as vast as the ocean, literally, as Law of Nature Foundation sees the declaration of the Visayan Sea as an International Marine Reserve as one of its ambitious end goals—including the building of 100 sustainable communities that will take charge of 100 marine sanctuaries around the Visayan Sea within five years. “[The 10 MPAs] is just the first step. Our planning unit, just for the purpose of making it realistic, is the Visayan sea, which is an area of about 1 million hectares.” 

Citing the findings of the UN-FAO study made by world-famous marine biologist Dr. Kent Carpenter that pronounced the Visayan Sea as home to most of the marine species in the world, he concludes, “That’s my ultimate dream—to have the Visayan Sea proclaimed as ‘the center of the center of the marine biodiversity on earth.’ Because it is, in its truest sense, a crown jewel of the world’s natural treasures and a common heritage for us all.”