The national newspapers (July 10, 2012) headlined the sad state of Philippine coral reefs. Based on several past surveys conducted since the late 1970s mainly by academic institutions notably the Marine Science Institute of the University of the Philippines and Silliman University, the remaining good-to-excellent reefs of the country occupy no more than five to ten percent of the total reef area, which is about 25, 000 square kilometers.
The newspaper announcement happens at the time when the International Coral Reef Symposium, which is convened every four years to highlight the advances and developments in research and conservation of coral reefs, is being held this month in Cairns, Australia. Those interested in coral reef research will remember that this Symposium was held in Manila in 1981.
Coral reefs are mainly tropical ecosystems, and rarely extend to subtropical areas. But in general, they have a limited temperature tolerance; they suffer from bleaching, and could die at seawater temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius and above, if exposed for an extended period.
Coral reefs are home to a large number of marine species. There are more than 500 hard coral species that make up Philippine coral reefs. Fish alone number about 3,000 species. There are literally several thousand species of other groups of organisms on reef environments in the country.
Humans benefit from the biodiversity associated with coral reefs, in addition to their function of physically protecting the land from severe storms.
But the most important service of coral reefs to humans is their fisheries component. This important contribution of coral reefs to human welfare was not mentioned in the newspaper article referred to above.
Let me state at this point that prior to the 1980s, Philippine government agencies did not have data on how much fishery production is contributed by coral reefs per annum.
I suspect that this lack of information was a reason for the lack of protection and management of coral reefs prior to the 1970s by fishery agencies.
It was only in the 1980s when coral reef protection and management began after our demonstration of high fishery yields of reefs. Now, a large body of knowledge on coral reefs and their fish yields is available.
The fisheries contribution of good coral reefs, based on the researches of Alcala, Gomez and Russ as well as others, ranges from 10 to 30 tons of fish per square kilometer of reef every year.
Such yields require no human input, except protection by human communities. Using the minimum yield of 10 tons per square kilometer, the whole reef ecosystem in the Philippines has a potential fish yield of at least about 250,000 tons every year.
If all reefs were destroyed, this amount of fish would be lost. At present, only the five to 10 percent remaining good coral reefs are probably producing fish at 10 to 30 tons per square kilometer per year.
So it is important that damaged coral reefs should be allowed to recover to improve fishery production, especially because poor human communities depend on them.
The question is, can government alone do it? Historically, my experience tells me No.
It was the private sector that started reef protection in the 1970s. Many local governments do not protect coral reefs, or they do not sustain their protective efforts. This is a national problem. Government (local and national) needs the help of local communities.
At present, only five percent of Philippine coral reefs are protected. Marine protected areas should therefore be expanded to substantially improve coral reef fishery yields.
