In an effort to rehabilitate and recover the coral reefs damaged by typhoons that ravaged Apo Island and Siquijor in particular, government and nongovernment organizations have collaborated and pooled their resources to achieve this goal. With the Institute of Environmental and Marine Sciences (IEMS) of Silliman University as the main proponent and funded by the Foundation for the Philippine Environment (FPE), it has partnered with the Coastal Conservation and Education Foundation (CCEF) based in Cebu through the UNICO Conservation Foundation.
In Apo Island, the local government unit as well as the barangay have been working closely with the Apo Island Protected Landscape and Seascape under the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
In Siquijor, the provincial government has been steering the activities together with the Office of the Provincial Agriculturist with the able support of the Provincial Monitoring Team (PROMOTE) composed of fisherfolk and divers as well as the Philippine National Police of which the Bantay Dagat is a part of and the various local government units.
According to Dr. Aileen Maypa, principal investigator of the project, it was in the latter part of 2012 when she came back to Dumaguete after she earned her Ph.D. under a Fulbright grant in the University of Hawaii. “Little did we know that typhoon Pablo would hit us in December of that same year, devastating the Apo Island Marine Sanctuary and our neighboring province of Siquijor. My colleagues and I got together to prepare a proposal for coral reef recovery in typhoon-damaged reefs and, fortunately, we were successful in getting some support.
Three years after, we have rehabilitated approximately three percent of the corals on the eastern side of Apo Island. In Siquijor, particularly the town of Maria, 94 percent of the reefs were damaged, thus, the work is still ongoing,” explains Dr. Maypa.
She said that through the research that she and her team are doing, they should be able to come up with community-friendly and LGU-friendly protocols, especially in safeguarding the coral reefs in the area. “The reefs are the habitats for fish, thus, if these reefs are damaged because of strong typhoons, we would also lose our fish. The protocols are meant to address quickly and efficiently huge and vast devastations that would still be forthcoming as the Philippines is the topmost among countries that are prone to be visited by strong typhoons,” Dr. Maypa expounds.
She recalls how the residents of Apo Island and Siquijor would call their office or visit them with tears in their eyes because of desperation on how they could recover their main source of livelihood which is fishing. “Because the residents did not know what to do, they sought help from us,” recalls Dr. Maypa, while at the same time emphasizing that as scientists, they cannot do it by themselves, thus, they have taught the residents capacity-building. According to her, the resilience of the Filipinos is already legendary, but it could propel us to rise from any adversity if we are equipped with the requisite knowledge and skills.
Dr. Maypa further informs that natural recovery of these reefs takes from 5 to 70 years. “It can really get to be a long time and very expensive, too,” she says, confessing to also getting tired and frustrated of the entire endeavor, especially if certain sectors of society even cast doubt on what they are doing.
Because both Apo Island and Siquijor depend much on ecotourism, the need for recovery and rehabilitation was really felt. For this, the 22-hectare sanctuary in Apo Island was closed down, while 8 priority sites in Siquijor have been identified for assessment and monitoring with food security as a primary concern.
Dr. Maypa shared that more reef fish recovery tools in the form of fish habitats were deployed in the Apo Island Marine Sanctuary. “They were simple dome-shaped fish habitat modules that were fabricated and designed by dive rangers and carpenters of Apo Island made up of limestone rocks available along the shorelines and cemented together,” Dr. Maypa describes the activity. The design, according to Dr. Maypa, was patterned after the fish habitats originally made by the local community of the Calag-calag Marine Sanctuary in Ayungon, Negros Oriental.
In 2007, Dr. Laurie Raymundo conducted a research on the rehabilitation of their dynamite-blasted reefs in 2003-2005. Another study was conducted by Clarissa Reboton on the live hard coral cover of the Apo Island Marine Sanctuary before it was “decimated to less than one percent after typhoon Pablo hit the area in December 2012.” Moreover, according to Dr. Maypa, reef fish abundance and biomass also declined four to five times compared to a baseline in 2008.
“Our work is far from over. We are fortunate that certain agencies have given us financial support in this effort. But, the success of any scientific venture can only be realized with the concerted actions of the community and other stakeholders. We do not need to wait until the next strong typhoon to do something about our marine resources,” concluded Dr. Maypa. | NWI
