Manila Bulletin, Philippines : Opinion & Editorial - Philippines : An environmental hotspot

31/05/2003

Philippines : An environmental hotspot

By Edgardo J. Angara

TWO great public institutions in Chicago – the Shedd Aquarium and the Fields Museum – offer visitors a grand exhibit of glorious Philippine marine and terrestrial bio-diversity which were a priceless national asset before reckless logging and massive environmental despoliation set in.

The Shedd Aquarium, which opened on Dec. 19, 1929, has for its centerpiece exhibit today, the Apo Reef Island off Dumaguete City. It is called the “Wild Reef “ exhibit.

The literature on Apo Island Reef describes it as a diverse, beautiful showcase of marine bio-diversity. More beautiful and diverse than the Great Barrier Reef in Australia or the marine showcases in Hawaii.

The exhibit captures everything. Willie Red Buhay, one of the Filipino-Americans consulted on the project, said that the exhibit on the Apo Island Reef “recreated a complete paradise.”

An Associated Press dispatch on the Apo Island Reef exhibit was more enthusiastic. “The exhibit captures the sights, sounds and spirit of Apo Island, from waves crashing against a rocky shore to hundreds of schooling fish and more than 25 sharks,” the AP reported last April 12.

The shark species are in 40,000 gallon tank, which is actually the centerpiece of the exhibit. But some visitors are more fascinated with 150 species of fish that include mid-size predators that include the triggerfish and the parrotfish.

The Fields Museum opened in 1893, and it housed the biological and anthropological collections assembled for the World Columbian Exposition that year.

Filipinos, after a visit to the museum, can only feel sad about the massive environmental destruction inflicted on what was once a terrestrial paradise.

Researches and studies on what diverse plant and animal species used to thrive in the Philippine rainforests before deforestation set in, are part of the Field Museum’s literature.

The Philippines used to have 13,500 plant species. Of the total, 8,000 were flowering plants and 3,200 were endemic. There were roughly 1,000 land vertebrate species that included 240 reptiles, 80 amphibians, 556 birds and 174 mammals.

According to studies, 75 percent of the amphibians, 70 percent of the reptiles, 44 percent of the birds and 64 percent of the mammals cannot be found anywhere else in the globe. Philippine mammals had the highest percentage of species endemism on a hectare-per-hectare basis, the Fields studies added.

The biodiversity was more remarkable than the legendary Galapagos Island in South America.

When one talks about Philippine terrestrial biodiversity, it is always about the past and a vanishing paradise.

The Philippines is now an environmental “hot spot” a country of despoilers and reckless deforestation. Loggers and 17 million people eking out survival from upland farming threaten what is left of the country’s vanishing rainforests. And no one seems to mind.

When one kills the forest, one kills all the flora and the fauna in it.

The inventory of this great natural treasure at the Fields Museum will all be gone soon unless we do something to stop the assault on what remains of our tropical rainforest.