Save the gentle Dugong

According to some myth-busters, what was imagined by sailors and fishermen as the legendary mermaid was actually the gentle sea creature called the dugong. About the size and shape of a dolphin, with a grayish-bronze color, the dugong is a marine mammal found in warm waters, often in mother and calf pairs.

Sadly, like the mermaid, the dugong itself has slowly become a creature of myth. Once free and abundant, it is now seldom sighted as its survival and propagation succumb to forces of environmental degradation.

The story of the dugong is, in many ways, the story of what has become of our environment today: A blurring between myth and reality, an ongoing struggle towards making memories of the past survive the harsh facts of the present, so that they may endure unto the future.

It is the story of how Mother Nature, whose abundance and generosity we have taken for granted for many generations, is caving in to the irreversibility of man-made destruction.

It is also a story of how Palawan, of which many of us only know in postcards and travelogues, is giving way to the actuality of people’s ignorance and poverty.

It is a story of the World Wildlife Fund, or WWF, an iconic organization made familiar globally by its panda logo, and its real, ongoing efforts to save the endangered.

It is the story of how man and animal are so intimately related, beyond territories and above food chains – and that we are all connected, intertwined, even across land and sea.

Milking The Sea Cow For All Its Worth

The central fact of the existence of the dugong is that it is soon to become extinct.

First, because the dugong, through its 70-year average life span, gives birth to only one calf every three to five years. It is helpless in the wake of destructive fishing methods like dynamite and cyanide fishing, and is also hunted for its meat, which reportedly tastes like veal.

Second, because dugongs weigh about 350kg and grow to about 3.5 meters, making them slow-moving animals. This makes them susceptible catch to gillnets, beach seine, fish corrals, trawl nets and bag nets.

And third, because dugongs, the only herbivorous sea mammal, feed mostly on seagrass (ergo the nickname "sea cow") and spend most of their time eating. The continued existence of seagrass is, surprisingly, menaced by harmful activities done on land: Deforestation, for one, causes soil erosion, which clouds the waters and blocks sunlight. Without the sun, seagrass cannot grow; without seagrass, the dugong will not exist. Thus, despite its bulk, it is the docility of the dugong that makes it so vulnerable to the slightest change in its habitat. And what was considered to be the greatest threat to its survival, man, is now, ironically, the only hope for its existence.

Palawan, The Final Frontier

Recent sightings of the dugong have been in Australia, Somalia, the Arabic Gulf and in the Philippines. The enchanting island of Palawan has the most significant habitats of dugongs in the Philippines, and it is in this "final frontier" that efforts to rebuild a sustainable ecosystem for the dugong are gaining steam.

WWF Philippines is at the forefront of such efforts, which brings us to their ongoing undertaking in Palawan’s Green Island Bay, headed by Victor Reyes, WWF project manager.

And it is a sad fact that Reyes himself has never even seen the dugong, despite having lived in Palawan for the past two years!

However, it is the elusiveness of the dugong that makes the project focus on the tangibles and visibles at hand: seagrass and people.

Says Reyes: "Environment work is basically research and conservation: Research is the science side, and conservation is about the social side. Here in Third World countries, you can’t just exclude people and declare an area a protected area. You can’t just uproot them and take them somewhere else. So you really have to involve the community."

Through a strategy of seagrass research; environmental education, information and communication; research on fishing gear modification; capacity-building and networking, the WWF, with funding from HSBC and other donors, has worked tirelessly towards this goal. Adds Reyes, "We won’t be here forever, so there has to be a transfer of knowledge skills and the desire to protect the environment, so you inculcate that in the people."

This principle is commonly termed as "sustainable development": Shocking media campaigns that depend on the masses‚ attention span are not enough; neither are publicity photo ops by image-conscious corporate donors or sudden banning efforts that leave communities no alternative sources of livelihood.

What is essential to any successful and sustainable environment conservation endeavor is a collaboration among experts, government officials, grassroots communities, the general public, and yes, big business to commit to long-term projects that will be passed on from generation to generation. This is at the heart of sustainability. And this is what will sustain the dugong.

Sea Grass Is Always Greener At Green Bay

It was on a recent visit to Green Bay that I saw first-hand not the dugong, but the seagrass beds and nurseries, as well as met with people from Green Bay’s neighboring communities. I accompanied a contingent of Hong Kong Shanghai Bank Corporation (HSBC) employees, there at their own personal expense, who volunteered to visit the project site as part of the Bank’s aim to educate their staff on the Bank’s corporate responsibility to the environment.

There we finally met one who had actually seen the evasive dugong several times in his lifetime. Nicolas Magbanua, a fisherman from the area, recounted to us his stories of how an occasional dugong would get stranded in their nets or the fish corrals, and how it was through awareness efforts of the government and non-profit organizations like the WWF that they learned the importance of setting the creature free, instead of slaughtering it and selling the meat. This is why the WWF and HSBC also support the creation of seaweed nurseries and help find alternatives to destructive methods of fishing.

At a town fiesta, we also witnessed a charming WWF booth whereby schoolchildren staged a program of puppet shows, art exhibits, games and story-telling all about their love for the sea and the environment. Reyes explains, "It is important that we instill in these children, who will later grow up to be fisherfolk, a love and appreciation of the oceans and the creatures therein. By educating them this early, they will continue to protect the seas and the environment even when we (WWF) are no longer here."

Laine Santana of HSBC explains: "The WWF, with our support, is trying to show these communities the long-term benefits of protecting the environment. The responsibility they shoulder affects not just the sea animals, but also themselves and their future, as well as consumers from the city like us."

From Reality To Myth To Reality

The story of the dugong is an ongoing one, a story that has still not met its end, thanks to the relentless struggle of people like Reyes and Magbanua, of groups like the WWF and HSBC and the Green Bay community.

So that there will be a chance for our children, and our children’s children, to one day see the dugong in the wild, though we ourselves might never see one in our lifetime.

And so that the dugong would continue to exist, to be, abundant and free, and live happily ever after, delivered for good from its near-fate as a mere storybook memory.