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Wednesday, March 24, 2004
Osmeña: Economic value of coastal resources
By Antonio V. Osmeña
Estatements
WIPED OUT. Theencroachment of beach resorts has practically wiped out most of the coastal resources of Cebu.
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources should not blame the destruction of the coastal resources on the poverty of the coastal residents, but mainly on the ignorance of these people to appreciate the economic value of marine life.
In the early 1950s, the Marigondon shoreline in Mactan Island was teeming with sea life such as sea grasses, sea urchins, starfish, sea horses and corals. Today the same area is biologically dead. It is about time the government agencies concerned solved the problem of pollution on coastal areas, which have become the ultimate sink for natural and human wastes.
The water used in homes, factories and farms flows into rivers and canals, which eventually empty into the ocean. The major pollution problems of the oceans are around its edges—the estuaries, wetlands, bays and harbors.
Although the ocean can dilute and break down sewage and some types of industrial waste, its capacity to do so has limits.
In addition, its natural purifying systems cannot readily degrade many of the plastics, pesticides and other synthetic chemicals created by human ingenuity.
Cebu’s estuaries are thin, fragile zones along coastlines where freshwater streams and rivers meet and mix with salty oceans. Our coastal wetlands are normally wet or flooded shallow shelves that extend back from the freshwater-saltwater interface. They consist of a complex maze of marshes, bays, lagoons, tidal flats, and mangrove swamps.
The estuarine zone, representing less than 10 percent of the total ocean area, contains 90 percent of all sea life. Sunlight can penetrate the waters in this shallow zone, allowing photosynthesis to occur among its vast population of phytoplankton, the floating plants that are the grass of the sea.
Gone are the floating giants that used to abound on Cebu’s coastlines.
Some critics say estuaries and coastal wetlands are desolate mosquito–infested worthless lands that should be drained, dredged, filled in and built on. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Because most estuarine zones are at the end of rivers flowing into the ocean, they receive and trap the rich silt and organic matter that rivers wash down from the land. They then hold and use these nutrients to produce phytoplankton, marsh and sea grasses that are important food sources for marine life.
Coastal zone management, which involves protecting the estuaries and wetlands, is difficult because (1) over 90 percent of Cebu’s coastline has been encroached on by private groups, (2) plans to protect and use one estuarine system may not apply to another, (3) even when an ecologically sound plan exists, there is tremendous pressure to use estuarine areas primarily for economic purposes, and (4) protection plans are hampered by conflicting goals of the coastal municipalities sharing an estuarine zone.
Adequate funding and compulsory drawn-up plans are necessary not to hinder the protection and management of the national coastlines.
(March 24, 2004 issue)
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