Attack of the water hyacinths

The water hyacinth is reputedly the world’s most destructive aquatic plant. The weed grows into a two-meter-thick carpet that proliferates rapidly, causing infestations in big water-bodies. Uncontrolled, it reduces light and oxygen, changes water chemistry, affects flora and fauna and causes significant increase in water loss due to evapotranspiration. The water hyacinth also vies for soil nutrients causing reduced yield from crops. It chokes irrigation flow and marine transportation, and can become a breeding ground for mosquitoes. The seemingly harmless water lily has become biodiversity’s public enemy number one.

The Amazon Basin was the original home of the Eichornia Crassipes. Due to its beauty, it was introduced in many parts of the world as an ornamental garden pond plant. Its lilac flowers are quite attractive with six petals, one punctuated by a yellow spot. The leaves are green, oval, and lustrous with leathery blades. The leafstalks (petioles) are dense and spongy, filled with air that enable the plant to float. A mass of fine branching roots hang underneath. It propagates by seeds and vegetative offshoots.

Ignored and undisturbed, this innocent-looking weed thrived in Liguasan Marsh — 288,000 hectares of swampland in Central Mindanao. Inch-by-inch it literally gained more ground, covering about 10 percent of the area. When the heavy rain poured, exacerbated by NAPOCOR’s emergency release of burgeoning dam water, eight hectares of hyacinths broke free, inundating 33 out of 37 low-lying Cotabato villages. Mammoth weeds as long as three meters crept downstream, its tangled roots eroding the soil and choking the water flow. It jammed bridges, spillways, blocking up to two km of Rio Grande, Mindanao’s longest river.

As of the last report, the flood affected 120,038 families in nine of Mindanao’s 26 provinces. The overflow levels reached up to 0.7 meters. At least five people were reported dead.

But the war of the lilies is not over. There are still about 20,000 hectares in the Mindanao marshes. Some have stealthily begun their descent downstream, ready to wreak more havoc, unless stopped.

This could have been a sci-fi movie of the dark comedy genre, but no one’s laughing. Least of all Mayor Japal J. Guiani Jr., who lost no time lambasting P-Noy for visiting Cotabato armed only with concern instead of the hand-outs he was used to getting from the past president. It’s the fault of the Palace, DILG, DPWH, DSWD, anyone but themselves. He ended his harangue over the airwaves by saying that aid should be given regardless of “politics”.

Then a few incensed evacuees were also interviewed for good measure. One able-bodied man angrily said, “Dapat ibigay yung tulong sa amin. Kaming mahirap (Help should be given to us. We are poor). Unless the edit took his words out of context, it seemed like the attitude was a fatal combination of beggar’s mentality with a liberal dose of self-entitlement, exactly like the Mayor’s.

An obviously annoyed Sec. Dinky Soliman retorted that P12 million had been given to the affected area. It is likely that the “donation” did not go through the Mayor’s office, hence the discontent. Soliman further noted that the hyacinths did not sprout overnight. The local officials did nothing to prevent its overgrowth, thus the dire consequences. She has a point.

While the dreaded water hyacinth is considered troublesome to river systems, some afflicted countries are resourceful enough to make lemonade from lemons. They pluck out the water lilies from their murky habitats and turn them into something more useful. Practicalaction.org lists doable ideas that Cotobateños can adopt to help themselves deal with their river monster.

1. Burned dried water hyacinth can be used as fuel or biogas that is emitted from digester plants.

2. Used as feed to swine and water buffaloes.

3. It can be woven into sleeping mats.

4. Its flowers, leaves, and petioles can be eaten.

5. Its leaves produce a rich compost, fertilizer, mulch and ash.

6. Vegetables can be grown on a raft of water hyacinth to grow food gardens.

7. Its roots are effective in water purification.

8. It can also be used as green fodder, hay and silage for sheep, and leaf protein concentrate.

9. It can be made into rope, paper, board and other crafts and furniture.

10. For larger scale industrial manufacture of building boards, greaseproof paper, cardboard, fuel and electricity, carbon black, food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and fertilizers.

With a little more imagination and creativity and a little less carping, the nightmare can be turned into livelihood opportunities to improve the Mindanao economy.

The attack of the water hyacinths is a wake-up alarm for sleeping consciences and inertia. It should replace the cover-your-a__ attitude with can-do resolve. Local governments could do better than lie under the guava tree, waiting for the fruit to fall into their opened mouths. Twenty-eight lush hectares of the pesky weed means it was allowed to grow in wild abandon until it bared its fangs. The flood is the consequence of the mañana habit: Put off for tomorrow what should have been done yesterday. Or wait for someone from the Palace, to solve a decades-old local problem. Preferably, he should come with ample munificence to salve the victims’ anger, earn “pogi points” for local officials, if not line some pockets.

While poverty alleviation programs like the conditional cash transfer (CCT) may be laudable ideas that have success records in Brazil and other developing countries, there must be mindful fortitude to ensure that these don’t encourage the dole-out mindset any further. One of the conditions that should be imposed is evidence that beneficiaries are driven to improve their lot through their own initiative and diligence. By all means, provide opportunity and impetus for a better quality of life. But do not pander to the you-owe-me posture. To paraphrase Bill Gates, “If you’re born poor, it’s not your fault. But if you die poor, it is your fault.” Biographies of self-made billionaires all attest to this. Tough love and determination are like water hyacinths: Used well, they go very far.

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