Source : INQ7.net, Philippines, 16 Jan '06
By : Blanche S. Rivera
  

The DENR is set to limit the areas for lease to depleted mangrove forests and also limit the income-generating activities that could be conducted at the investment sites following consultations with marine scientists.

The new AO, which adopts the suggestions of the scientists, is set to be issued within 30 days.

"Secretary (Michael) Defensor has listened to them. We're already revising the AO based on their observations. His (Defensor) concern really was the conservation of mangrove areas," Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau director Virgilio Vitug told the Inquirer in a phone interview.

"We adopted almost all, maybe 75-90 percent of their (scientists') suggestions. We are not favoring commercial use. It's not for big businessmen, the intention is to protect," Vitug said.

Defensor and other DENR officials have been meeting with noted marine scientists like Jurgenne Primavera and other members of the Philippine Association of Marine Science since last month.

The PAWB director said the DENR may limit the income-generating activities allowed at the mangrove sites to aquasilviculture, but this was still being discussed.

On Nov. 17, 2005, Defensor signed Department Administrative Order 24 which allows for a 25-year lease of "idle and degraded" portions of the country's 266,000 sq km of coastal areas for development, alongside reforestation requirements. The lease would be renewable for another 25 years.

The DAO 24 permits aquasilviculture, pearl farming, mud crab fattening and other non-extractive enterprises in the coastal areas.

Under the DAO, the DENR would have received three percent of the profits from the investments.

Fisherfolk and marine scientists, however, scored the DAO 24, saying it would pave the way for big businesses to take over coastal resources, displacing the country's 1.8 million small fishermen who have first rights to municipal waters.

The fisheries sector is a major source of food and livelihood in the Philippines, where about 900 coastal municipalities depend largely on small-scale fishing.

The Philippine Association of Marine Science said municipal fishers were already the poorest among the fisheries sector, contributing only 29 percent of total fisheries production in 2003 compared to 40 percent from aquaculture and 31 percent from commercial fisheries.

"Thus, granting the business sector 25-year permits to plots of 5-10 hectares or more in the traditional fishing grounds of municipal fishers will push this already marginalized sector beyond the edge of poverty into the abyss of despair, frustration and social unrest," a PAMS letter addressed to Defensor in November said.

The scientists also said mangrove reforestation would eventually yield bigger incomes for the communities as the value of goods and services that could be derived from mangroves in their natural state could reach $10,000.

Defensor, however, has cancelled some community-based forest management agreements covering mangrove areas and held by people's organizations that were performing well.

The Tambuyog Development Center said the CBFMA awarded to one of its affiliate community organizations in Cebu had been cancelled despite the planting of 30,000 propagules in five years and a satisfactory evaluation.