Champions of environmental causes are needed in the Philippines these days more than at any other time in the past.
These are times when our biodiversity resources face great risk of being permanently lost. Too many signs of this impending total loss are clear wherever one looks whether on land or at sea.
Just ask senior citizens who have lived since the early decades of the 20th century, and they will tell you the extent to which our renewable resources have deteriorated, have been reduced, or have disappeared.
Research scientists have come up with some estimates of how much have been lost in terms of the standing stock of our resources.
But while quantity or volume can be easily estimated, the loss of genetic heterogeneity of the surviving species or representatives of our biodiversity resources may not be completely known.
This is frightening because many of us do not realize the implications of the genetic erosion on the biological quality of the species on which the well-being of the present and future human population depends.
It is urgent that we conserve the gene pools of the species populations that remain on earth today.
One way to do this is to rally behind credible and responsible experts who have shown commitment to conservation through research and actual application of their research findings.
As illustration, let me cite as examples my two friends and colleagues, a Filipino and an Australian, both outstanding marine scientists, whom I had the privilege of association for four decades since the 1970s.
Dr. Edgardo D. Gomez, a leading Filipino coral reef biologist, a Pew Conservation fellow, and now University professor emeritus at the University of the Philippines-Diliman, led the first comprehensive, nation-wide research studies on Philippine coral reefs in the late 1970s.
These studies resulted in a large amount of data some of which were reported at the 4th International Coral Reef Symposium in Manila in 1981, and later at the Regional Symposium on Living Resources in Coastal Areas in 1989.
Dr. Gomez encouraged coral reef research in the country, as well as reef conservation. He is known for his work on giant clams that were on the verge of extinction because of overexploitation and reef destruction.
More than anybody else in the country, he was responsible for conserving the largest species of giant clam (Tridacna gigas) through the establishment of the clam reserve and the clam hatchery of the Bolinao Laboratory in Pangasinan.
He distributed many juvenile clams spawned in the hatchery to many marine protected areas in the country, thereby ensuring the conservation of this species.
Dr. Garry R. Russ, Pew fellow, and currently professor of Marine Biology at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia, has conducted extensive research on coral reef fishes in the Great Barrier Reef.
He first came to the Philippines in 1982 to help us monitor the effects of the newly-established Sumilon Marine Reserve in Oslob municipality in Cebu Province, after reading our report on the fishery enhancement effects of the Sumilon Reserve.
He has regularly visited the Philippines almost every year since 1983 to continue this monitoring. He is one of the world’s authorities on the fishery effects of no-take marine reserves, and has published numerous papers, some of which I consider classic papers on the science of marine reserves.
But what is significant is the wide application of his research findings in the Philippines and elsewhere.
As early as the early 1980s, he had advocated the concept of “network of marine reserves” as the main sustaining mechanism for fishery and marine biodiversity conservation.
His present research includes tracing the parents of juvenile and larval fish found in reefs away from presumed source reef areas in collaboration with younger colleagues.
What the Philippines needs are researchers like Dr. Gomez and Dr. Russ who conduct research with the goal to conserve biodiversity and improve the quality of life of our people.
