By Claro A. Lanipa
PAGADIAN CITY – Recent assessment made by
the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) revealed that of the
24 percent of the total of 44,000 square-kilometers of coral reefs of good
condition in the Philippines, only two percent remain in excellent condition.
Mussaendra G. Tee, chief, Biodiversity Conservation and
Management Section, Protected Areas Wildlife Coastal Zone Management (PAWCZMS),
DENR-9 also presented during the weekly PIA Media Forum last Thursday that of
the original 450,000 hectares of mangrove forests in the country only 149,000
remain untouched.
“But based on the 1995 DENR statistics, these mangrove
areas were further reduced to only 117,700 hectares,” Tee added.
She further reported that “more than half of the
country’s wetlands of international importance covering 14,000
square-kilometers are threatened.”
“The country had an estimated 17 million hectares of
forest lands in 1935, but now only 6 million remain intact and only 800,000 hectares
of these are old growth,” she reported.
“The Philippines is one of the 18 countries in the
world identified as containing 60-70 percent of the world’s biodiversity next
only to Brazil, Columbia and Indonesia,” Tee said.
According to Tee, the Philippines ranks fifth in the
world in terms of plant species, numbering to more than 8,000; fourth in bird
endemism registering 579 species of bird of which 395 are known to nest and
breed in the country. The country is also fifth in mammal endemism.
“The factors that threaten our biodiversity are attributed
to man-made and natural disasters such as logging, fires, land conversion,
destructive fishing, encroachment/occupancy in protected areas, siltation,
volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and typhoons,” Tee concluded. (PIA9)