Declaration of Marikina watershed as protected area pushed

MANILA, Philippines - The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) yesterday said it is now working for the declaration of the 26,310-hectare Marikina watershed as a protected area pursuant to Republic Act 7658 or the National Integrated Protected Area System.

The proposal coincided with the second anniversary of the “Ondoy” tragedy that killed hundreds of people and affected some four million residents.

Environment Secretary Ramon Paje said his office has already endorsed the Marikina watershed to be declared as a protected landscape by President Aquino.

Under the proposal, the Marikina watershed will be renamed as the Upper Marikina Watershed Protected Landscape.

“The move aims to improve the capacity of the Marikina watershed to retain rainwater and reduce the threat of floods while helping improve water supply for Metro Manila,” Paje said during the signing of the “Statement of Commitment to Save the Marikina Watershed Reservation” at the DENR office.

He noted that the broad-based and multi-sectoral initiative to save the Marikina watershed was defined by the tragedy of tropical storm Ondoy that struck Metro Manila on Sept. 26, 2009.

“Typhoon Ondoy serves as an epitaph to the dire situation of the Marikina watershed area resulting from long years of abuse and neglect (despite) its being declared as a watershed reserve in 1904,” Paje remarked, noting that some 13 executive fiats issued from 1904 to 1996 had led to the exclusion of portions of the Marikina watershed area and blurred its actual boundaries.

Under the United States colonial government, US Civil Gov. Luke E. Wright promulgated Executive Order 33 on July 16, 1904 banning the settlement, entry, sale or disposition of a vast tract of land in the province of Rizal, to be known as the “Mariquina Reserve,” with an area of 27,980 hectares, to “protect the watershed of the Marikina River, the source of water supply of the city of Manila.”

Paje said that many of the supposed reserved areas are now taken over by residential houses, agribusinesses, tourist resorts and other industries contrary to the intent of the law to protect and preserve the area.

Under the Commitment Statement, the DENR and concerned agencies pledged to plant and grow some five million seedlings in some 10,000 hectares inside the Marikina Watershed Reservation (MWR) area between 2011 and 2016 under the National Greening Program.

“We will also work on providing alternative livelihood activities to settlers and indigenous communities living inside MWR to wean them away from kaingin and charcoal-making, two activities largely blamed for tree loss inside MWR,” Paje said.

Among the signatories to the Commitment Statement were members of the Climate Change Congress of the Philippines, Philippine Disaster Recovery Foundation and the Philippine Ecumenical Action for Community Empowerment Foundation, and the Alliance of Seven Cities representing Marikina, Quezon City, Antipolo, Pasig, Cainta, San Mateo and Rodriguez.