What happens to the land, happens to the sea. And it is the sea that suffers the most. That’s what happens to the coral reefs, which are on the verge of extinction, as forests are continued to be cut in the uplands.
“When trees are cut and human beings are affected as a result of flash floods, people rallied against deforestation. But like forests, coral reefs are also suffering the same magnitude of destruction,” explained Dr. Bernhard Riegel, associate director of the National Coral Reef Institute in the United States.
Before probing deeper, let’s get some basic facts. Almost 100 years ago, the Philippines was almost totally covered with forest resources distributed throughout the 30 million hectares. These resources provided income, employment, food, medicine, building materials, and water as well as a healthy environment.
In the 1950s, only three-fourths of the archipelago was covered with forest, according to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). By 1972, the figure had shrunk to half – and by 1988 only quarter was wooded and just one tiny fraction of this was virgin forest.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said about 7,665,000 hectares of the country is forested. Between 1990 and 2010, the country lost an average of 54,750 hectares per year.
In his book, Depletion of the Forest Resources in the Philippines, Singaporean author Ooi Jin Bee wrote: “The once forest-rich Philippines is well on its way to becoming the first country in Asia to achieve the dubious distinction of complete deforestation by the year 2000.”
Eighteen years has already elapsed since the prediction was written and the Philippines still have some forests left. But catastrophes – as a result of denudation – continue unabated.
One of the consequences of cutting trees, particularly in the uplands is soil erosion. Under most conditions, soil is formed at a rate of one centimeter every 100 to 400 years, and it takes 3,000 to 12,000 years to build enough soil to form productive land.
“But what nature takes a very long time to form could be washed away in 20 minutes or less by just one heavy rainfall in areas where the farmers don’t use the land carefully,” said Harold R. Watson, former director of the Davao-based Mindanao Baptist Rural Life Center and a recipient of the 1985 Ramon Magsaysay Award for peace and international understanding.
According to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), about a billion cubic meters or about 200,000 hectares of one-meter deep topsoil are lost every year due to erosion.
“No other soil phenomenon is more destructive worldwide than is soil erosion,” wrote Dr. Nyle C. Brady in his book, “The Nature and Properties of Soils.” “It involves losing water and plant nutrients at rates far higher than those occurring through leaching. More tragically, however, it can result in the loss of the entire soil.”
When soil erodes from fields, it does not simply move to another spot on the farm. Much of it ends up in streams, rivers, lakes and coastal areas. Sedimentation, as a result of deforestation in the uplands, is said to be the most important single cause of coral reef destruction.
“The biggest culprit is perhaps forest denudation,” pointed out the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), a line agency of the Department of Agriculture.
“When loggers, kaingineros, firewood gatherers, and charcoal makers cut down trees and burn underbrush,” the BFAR explained, “they leave the soil of the mountainsides bare and defenseless against strong wind and rain.
“During rains, runoff carries eroded soil down to the rivers that deposit it in the sea,” it further said. “This siltation smothers reefs and kills or drives away to inhospitable areas the fishes that feed and shelter among the corals.”
Deforestation is also cited as one of the perpetrators of global warming. Intact forests produce a substantial portion of the earth’s oxygen and remove carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere. Cutting and burning trees contribute 25% of the world’s global warming gasses, studies show.
In recent years, corals are exhibiting a new kind of degradation: massive bleaching. “When subjected to extreme stress, (the corals) jettison the colorful algae they live in symbiosis with, exposing the white skeleton of dead coral beneath a single layer of clear living tissue. If the stress persists, the coral dies,” explains John C. Ryan of the Washington, D.C.-based Worldwatch Institute.
Bleaching has been cited as “the worst threat to the survival of coral reefs.” “While its causes are not known, bleaching appears when ocean temperature are abnormally high,” Ryan writes.
This phenomenon lead some scientists to call it “a harbinger of global warming.”
But the biggest threat is still deforestation that causes soil erosion. As the recent study, published in “Nature Communications,” puts it: “Curbing sediment pollution to coral reefs is one of the major recommendations to buy time for corals to survive ocean warming and bleaching events in the future. Our results clearly show that land use management is the most important policy action needed to prevent further damage and preserve the reef ecosystem.”
The researchers of the study found that mitigating erosion on land is more important to saving coral reefs right now than even addressing climate change. “Without addressing the current issues, we won’t have living coral reefs to try and save from warmer ocean temperatures,” they pointed out.
Meanwhile, studies on reef conservation are being implemented in various places in the country, including: Bolinao, Pangasinan, Zambales, Marinduque, Palawan, New Sagay in Negros Occidental, Dumaguete in Negros Oriental, and Misamis Occidental.
The targeted coral reefs are in Ilocos Norte, Cagayan, Batanes, Batangas, Mindoro, Romblon, Palawan, Panay, Negros Occidental, Bohol, Eastern and Northern Samar, Zamboanga, Tawi-Tawi, Camiguin Island, and Davao.
