EDITORIAL | Coastal management

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Sunday, December 3, 2017
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THE DEPARTMENT of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) recently conducted a simultaneous nationwide coastal cleanup to mark the National Climate Change Consciousness Week.

In Iloilo province, this was held in the coastal village of Poblacion East in Oton, Iloilo. The cleanup yielded an estimated 200 kilos of solid wastes.

We cannot overemphasize the importance of protecting the country’s coastal resources, and even having a comprehensive water resource management program. It is actually ironic that we are poor when we are abundant in water resources. We have used our bays, lakes and rivers as sewerage and garbage bins. This is not the way to treat our water resources — our source of life. A few years ago, the city government of Iloilo ordered the removal of all obstructions from the Iloilo River – decrepit ships, illegal fish pens, illegal structures such as restaurants, shanties, etc. That was a good start. We need to decongest our bodies of water from, for example, encroachers such as informal settlers.

Let us implement our environmental laws, plant mangroves or restore coral reefs, whichever is applicable. We should bring back the bounty and restore the ecological integrity of our threatened bodies of water.

Moreover, there is a need to complete the mapping of coastal resources all over the country because we would not know what we will protect if we do not know what we actually have. DENR’s Biodiversity Management Bureau should coordinate closely with the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources so that where there are rich fishing grounds there should also be community fish landing centers, and that coastal protection and conservation programs are in place.

We have 822 coastal municipalities all over the country and we must know the state of the corals in these areas, the resources that they have, including those that can serve as natural buffers like mangroves and sea grass beds, and their resilience programs.

Undertaking coastal resource mapping would give us a clearer view of what we have and what interventions are necessary to preserve, protect and sustainably manage these resources.
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