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Sunday, March 3, 2024 Vol. 19 No. 140
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THE CHOICE BETWEEN BRINE AND WETLANDS
AN aerial photo of a 1,000-hectare abandoned, underutilized, and underdeveloped fishpond in Zamboanga City turned over by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. International ocean conservation advocacy nongovernment organization Oceana is calling for the immediate reversion of such fishponds to mangrove forests. PHOTO COURTESY OF DIUVS DE JESUS/OCEANA PHILIPPINES
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or raised tiled platforms. “Bamboo is less capital-intensive and does not need a fixed space. But it is not on a commercial scale,” she said. She cited Iloilo where salt farmers use bamboo for salt making. In northern Philippines areas like Ilocos, Flores said the practice is cooking seawater collected from the sea. But this, she said, is energy intensive but with renewable energy, it might be feasible although they combined it with the mined salt from Australia.
By Jonathan L. Mayuga
S the Philippines struggles to revive its moribund salt industry, experts have warned against increasing the areas dedicated to the production of the so-called white gold, citing its adverse environmental impacts. On Wednesday, environmental group Wetlands International Philippines warned against the proposal to convert abandoned, underdeveloped and underutilized (AUU) fishponds into salt farms. The aggressive promotion of salt farming is emerging as the latest threat to the already dwindling mangrove forest cover and wetland ecosystems in the Philippines. Wetlands, according to the Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB), are important habitats and staging grounds of migratory shorebirds or water birds, and their destruction weakens global conservation efforts for these endangered species.
Dwindling mangrove forest
IN its Philippine Forestry Statistics 2020, the Forest Management Bureau (FMB) said the country’s mangrove forest cover is down to just 300,411 hectares, from as much as 500,000 hectares in the 1920s, mainly due to conversion to aquaculture areas and deforestation. Mangroves are often harvested for various uses, for construc-
Revert fishponds to mangrove
IN Barangay Santa Isabel, Kawit, Cavite, a salt farmer diligently harvests dried salt from the remaining salt beds, highlighting the challenges faced by the Philippines’ stagnant salt industry. NONIE REYES “We are already in a race against climate change. If we lose any more mangroves, the more vulnerable our country will be to coastal flooding, erosion and storm surges.”—Dr. Annadel Cabanban, Country Manager of Wetlands International Philippines FACEBOOK.COM/ WETLANDSINTERNATIONALPH
tion material purposes, for nipa and wood for fuel. Charcoal making has also been identified as a major cause of deforestation. According to the 1990 Forestry Statistics Report of the DENRFMB, there are 75,000 hectares of fishponds in the Philippines. Many fishponds in the Philippines, however, are now classified as AAUs.
Reviving salt industry
IN May last year, the House of Representatives’ agriculture and food panel approved a bill aiming to arrest the declining local salt production industry by boosting production and mandating stronger government and financial support for salt farmers. House Bill 1976 or the Philippine Salt Industry Development Act, aims to draw up a government strategy that will upscale local salt production to achieve salt selfsufficiency and shield the country from the global supply chain vulnerabilities. The measure also seeks to pro-
vide funding, training, technical support, trade and export assistance to salt farmers and producers to achieve salt production targets and decrease reliance on imports. However, environmentalists said converting more areas to fishponds is “a bad idea,” considering it might lead to the conversion of more areas into salt farms.
From fishponds to salt farms?
AUU fishponds that used to be thriving mangrove areas are now being eyed for conversion into salt farms. Environmental advocate Jimely Flores, a fisheries and ma-
rine scientist, highlights concerns regarding salt farming on ponds, emphasizing its adverse effects on biodiversity. Flores warns that this practice is susceptible to the accumulation of nano and microplastics, along with other harmful contaminants. Converting AUU fishponds into salt farms, she said, is not a good option, adding that abandoned fishponds can economically be best used for extensive aquaculture of native species or just be reverted into mangrove areas. She said there are best practices in small-scale salt farming, which is done on raised bamboos
MEANWHILE, instead of entertaining the idea of converting these idle fishponds into salt farms, the group called on the government to rehabilitate the country’s coastal and marine ecosystem by fast-tracking the reversion of these fishponds back to mangroves to enhance the country’s natural defense against tsunamis, storm surges and sea-level rise, and boost the replenishment of the country’s fish stock, Wetlands International said. Specifically, Wetlands International urged the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) to revoke and transfer all fishpond lease agreements for AUU ponds back to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). This action aims to facilitate mangrove reforestation efforts under the purview of the DENR.
DENR, DA-BFAR mandate
“THE Department of Environment and Natural Resources originally had jurisdiction over many of the Continued on A2
PESO EXCHANGE RATES n US 56.1740 n JAPAN 0.3746 n UK 70.9309 n HK 7.1753 n CHINA 7.8152 n SINGAPORE 41.7464 n AUSTRALIA 36.4850 n EU 60.7072 n KOREA 0.0421 n SAUDI ARABIA 14.9789 Source: BSP (March 1, 2024)