At Apo island scientist: fish production drops

DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines — World-renowned marine scientist and "father" of the marine protected areas concept, Dr. Angel Alcala, disclosed Friday a decline in fish yield at Apo Island in Dauin town of Negros Oriental, following the onslaught of typhoons Sendong and Pablo.

Before the typhoons in late 2011 and late 2012, fish production outside the Apo Island marine sanctuary was reportedly at an average of 150 tons of bio-mass fish a year, but now fish yield outside the no-take zone has dropped to as low as 15 tons a year, Alcala said during a forum on climate change at Silliman University (SU).

The forum is part of the activities for the Ocean Defenders campaign of international environmental group Greenpeace, which was launched in the country Tuesday for its first leg of the tour at Apo Island and in this city from July 9 to 13.

The decline in fisheries production at Apo Island was largely linked to the two typhoons and to extreme weather conditions due to climate change, said Alcala and other scientists present during the forum. He said that 10 percent of the current total fish catch of 15 tons a year here comes from the marine protected areas (MPAs).

In 1984, the MPA was first established at Apo Island, which was later declared a protected landscape and seascape and eventually became one of the best documented MPAs in the world.

Today, Apo Island has suffered massive devastation of a large chunk of its total 104 hectares of coral cover, the biggest of which is at its 24-hectare marine sanctuary where about 99 percent of the coral reefs have been reduced to "rubble," according to scientists and divers following reef checks and surveys done early this week.

Alcala said MPAs are necessary to sustain fishery production, and he attributed the decline in population also to overfishing and the use of destructive fishing gear and overpopulation, among others.

The Philippines has an estimated 25,000 square kilometers total of coral reef cover, but only about four percent of this have MPAs, which is not enough for the country to sustain fish production, Alcala said, adding that the only way to protect the Philippines from its declining eco-systems from direct and indirect threats is to establish more no-take zones to allow fish biomass to recover.

Alcala, now the director of SU's Angelo King Center for Research and Environmental Management, recommended for the conversion of as much as 30 percent of the Philippines' total coral reefs cover to save these from further degradation. Of the estimated 600 MPAs in the Visayas, only 30 percent is now working, he said.

Stronger government policies must be adopted to save the country's coral reefs from further degradation, he said, because these provides habitat for fish and other marine life, besides being sources of livelihood and income for the people.

Coral reefs not only provide a natural habitat for fish and other marine resources but is also a key source of livelihood and income for people highly dependent on them, such as in the case of Apo Island, as well as an eco-tourism attraction for the island.

Greenpeace campaigners and its largest vessel, M/Y Esperanza, arrived at Apo Island to document the current state of its coral reefs and determine the extent of the damage to its coral cover. Greenpeace believed that the damage to the reefs is a warning of things to come unless measures are done to possibly reverse the situation.

The Esperanza docked Friday morning at the Dumaguete port where local officials, led by Governor Roel Degamo welcomed its crew in an arrival ceremony. Its chief, Capt Waldemar Wichmann told reporters that Apo Island and the oceans are now in crisis, thus the urgent need to address marine and coastal conservation issues that put the fishery sector under threat of collapse. (FREEMAN)