No forest, no farm, no fish, no food

Any day along any coast in these islands is like New Year’s. Boat gangs blast tubs of fish from shallow waters, unmindful of picnickers or patrols onshore. Some even dive to the corals to squirt cyanide for extra catch. Farther off but still within municipal waters, commercial vessels haul in heavier fills using Danish seines. Tied to floats on the upper edge and sinkers on the lower, the long fine nets snare everything in path and scrape the seabed for bottom feeders. Crewmen pick out only the big catch and throw back smaller but mutilated ones. And still within sight from shore are bigger poaching ships from China and Taiwan. Fitted likewise with dynamite, cyanide and fine mesh, they scour the coasts with sonars and global positioning scanners for dolphin, shark, giant clams, turtle and squid. At any given time rangers sight 200 poaching vessels in Philippine seas.

From the waters, the shore sight is as grim. Bald mountains, long shorn of hardwood and underbrush, spew silt down rivers. Huts crowd around diminishing patches of mangrove. No more fish roost by the roots; there are only plastic bags, bottles and tin cans. Because coastal dwellers no longer have good fish catches, they hire themselves out as woodcutters of big logging concessions.

Illegal loggers and fishers are part of a vicious chain that blights nature. They ostensibly bring food and jobs, yet destroy the very sources of nourishment and livelihood.

The World Wildlife Fund-Philippines revealed that, since 20 years back, 80 percent of reefs already were dying, incapable of holding more than 15 tons of marine life per square kilometer. Barely 15 percent were healthy enough to sustain 15-30 tons per square kilometer. Less than five percent were untouched. With daily dynamiting and cyaniding, the figures can only be worse today.

The World Fish Center reported that by 2001, 90 percent of the fish stock that thrived after the Pacific War already had been consumed. GPS, sonars, radars, fine-mesh trawls and fast seacraft are fast depleting what remains - in wasteful manner. Dolphins netted in by Chinese poachers in Cagayan and Palawan are used as shark bait; only the fins are taken from the sharks for fine-dining soup. A favorite of poachers is Tubbataha Reef off Palawan, a UN marine preserve where all of Southeast Asia’s tuna are spawned before swimming out to the China and Celebes Seas.

If that weren’t bad enough, according to a study by the Environment Science for Social Change, 95 percent of forests had been logged over since 1999. Barely 600,000 hectares of old growth are left from what used to be 22 million hectares only 95 years back. Loggers, pretending to raise softwood inside concessions, continue to cut narra, almaciga, molave, lauan, yakal, ipil and tanguile in adjoining protected areas. The denudation includes mountains by the sea. Logs are dropped from cliffs to the sea in Isabela, then tugged by boats to sawmills in Quezon. Slash-and-burn farmers add to the spoliation. Same with game poachers who openly sell birds, bats, monitor lizards, crocodiles, snakes, deer and wild boar along city streets. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources estimates that 18 million people live in the forests.

The remaining forests serve two main functions. They are filters that clean the air we breathe and draw in carbon dioxide to balance the climate. They are watersheds that provide us with reservoirs from which to drink and rivers to irrigate our farms.

At its three-percent growth rate, the present population of 82 million will double in 35 years. Without the forests, unfiltered air will bring only disease and death. There will be no watershed and rivers; farms will dry up. Silt will slide down the mountains into the seas and choke the corals, driving fish away from the coasts. In short, no forests means no farms, fish and food.

Already, scientists are seeing a fast decline of air quality. The predicted effects on humans will be physical and cognitive dysfunction, as well as endocrine disorders that will impair reproduction. "Tragically, children will be hit first," warns Lory Tan, president of World Wilflife Fund-Philippines.

Present farming methods can hardly sustain a growing population. Paddy cultivation utilizes 4,000 liters of water to produce a kilo of rice. Massive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides further pollutes rivers that spew the toxic substances to the sea.

The fish catch is fast dwindling too. Fishermen who used to catch 20 kilos per day are now down to only two kilos if they’re lucky. Half of the population depends on fish as source of protein. Half of the population lives along the coasts. Destructive, illegal forms of fishing, along with siltation and farm toxins, are depleting what should be their most readily available food supply.

WWF’s Tan is growing more and more exasperated with the forest and marine destruction that his group detects each day. "It is callous and probably immoral to simply dismiss these facts and say that we will import or buy the food we need. With what?" he asks.

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Is celibacy the cause of sexual infractions by the clergy? Find out from Msgr. Nico Bautista in Linawin Natin, tonight at 11 on IBC-13.

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