Protection of coral reefs a world responsibility
I urge the government to make preservation of the coral reefs a multinational struggle, as all countries have a stake on the outcome.
The country has done its part, but the protection of the sea around it is something it cannot do alone. It needs to tap foreign governments and multinational corporations for funds and universities and research organizations for their technical expertise.
The coral reefs happen to fall under our stewardship, but every country has equal interest in its continued well-being.
Experts have determined that tropical seas serve as cradle of bio-diversity, and that marine animals originate from them, spreading outward to the temperate oceans and on to the poles.
And the Philippines is the center of this most productive place on Earth. Destruction of the center will result in the world’s ocean becoming a lifeless watery grave.
Kaustuv Roy, associate professor of biology at the University of California in San Diego, pointed out that the destruction of the center will affect the biological diversity in the temperate areas at high latitudes.
The Serengetti Park of Tanzania is sustained by foreign grants and aids. The millions of wildebeest and impalas, zebras and giraffes, and other mammals would have vanished long time ago if the country had been left to its own devices. It just could not stop poachers with its meager resources.
Like Tanzania, the Philippines could ask the Global Environment Facility for grants and soft loans to hire personnel and purchase boats and equipment necessary to protect the coral reefs.
The strait between Batangas and Mindoro, which contains the largest concentration of marine life in the world—1,736 species in a 10-kilometer by 10-kilometer stretch—is of equal importance, if not more so, as a world heritage.
The same holds true with the sea off the coast of Palawan. The Armed Forces of the Philippines has settled one of the bigger islands in the area, but Chinese fishermen regularly exploit that part of the country with their destructive fishing methods remain unabated.
The government ought to identify ecologically sensitive coral reefs and declare them a marine sanctuary. But other countries should contribute funds to establish a program designed to protect them.
