Ep20 - Birds of the Philippines

Birds in the phillipines is over 760 species including some of the rarest kind. One of the famous place is Candaba Swamp (Pampanga), a stop-over for migrating birds such as egrets, spoonbill and bittern. A count survey done last 2007 revealed that there are around 17,000 individuals (more than 80 species) both visitors and resident birds. Unbelievable di ba! Some of the 'sites' are just around our Metro background like the coastal area in Paranaque, or an abandoned subdivision in Cavite.

Bird-watching (or 'Birding') is a fast-growing eco-tour activity nowadays. I personally suggest lazy individuals (hehe) to stretch there muscles a bit, get an outdoor life, gain new friends, and try this booming activity. Nope, it's not like you're gonna hike for 6 hours just to get a glimpse of these treasured birds (unless you are doing research in the middle of a trail-less, who-knows-where-this-shit-is jungle). Imagine it's cheap, the sites are very accessible; Paranaque coastal area, Candaba swamp in Pampanga, Olango in Cebu, Puerto Rivas in Balanga, well you name it - birds are just everywhere!

And you can brag about your encounters during beer sessions or during your romantic dates :) that's extra pogi points for you.

More info? visit http://www.birdwatch.ph/

EP19 - Diving in Coron Palawan

(picture 1)

Ornate Ghost Pipefish are very difficult to spot! At least when their surrounding background matches their camouflage. But this one I saw was ‘malling’ around the wreck that I easily spotted his weird looking shape. Ghost pipefish is a relative of seahorse and both rely on heavy body camouflage for self-defense and hunting. They don’t obviously have the capability to swim fast. ‘Ordinary’ elongated pipefish can at least swim and hide in the corals.

(picture 2)

It’s a new experience for me to see a school of fish attacking a jellyfish. The poor jelly dude has no escape from the hungry predators, but then again there are thousands of big, white jellyfish in Coron Bay that there’s no threat to their survival. Sea turtles are probably not aware that their favorite snack thrives in this place as I heard that there’s not much sightings of sea turtles here.

Coron
After more than 60 years, the big Japanese cargo ships sunk by the Americans during WWII are now giant artificial reefs teeming with a thousand corals and marine creatures. Wreck diving (penetration) will also provide you a glimpse of the past, as you swim thru the ship’s interior, as if strolling around a giant, underwater museum.

Unfortunately, some of the wrecks in the Philippines have been cannibalized or being ‘salvaged’ for cheap metal trade – throwing away our underwater, historical heritage for good. In Subic, at least 2 wrecks already ‘disappeared’. In Leyte, the historic site of McArthur’s re-entry to the Philippines during WWII, some wreck parts were already salvaged and sold to scrap buyers. If that is not a total lack of awareness, it’s probably plain stupidity and selfishness.

Let’s all Save our Wrecks, save our historical treasures, save our artificial reefs – and save a good future for the next generation.

The Real Threat

(reindeer photo courtesy of www.siberiagym.com)

The Biggest Threat to the Biosphere

It is always difficult to make a stand on a sensitive issue, especially something that will surely make you unpopular. Time and again, we blamed this and that for the continued degradation of our environment. We challenged most of them, and sometimes became selective on sensitive matters. Either we do not think it’s worth our time, or we fear that we may get ridiculed, or simply hope that the issue is in fact not the case.

Climate Change

Today, the widely accepted, and much talked about environmental threat to our survival is Climate Change. We know for a fact that we’re in the brink of global climatic disaster.
Concerned nations started making policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, financial institutions and businesses started significant investments on carbon offsets and sustainable energy source. But is this trend enough to fight global warming?

What people do not want to talk about is the fact the CO2 emission is directly proportional to the population growth and consequential change in lifestyle. From 1960’s until today, we have exploded Earth’s population from 3 billion to about 6.7 billion today. How come we’re wondering why the carbon emission has spiraled up that much? It’s all about high increase consumption. It is true that majority of the well-developed nations contribute to more than 50% of the CO2 dumped in the atmosphere. But looking at it from a local scale, each country has produced more carbon dioxide because of increase in the local population – alongside an increase in energy-consuming activities of course.

Moreover, recent study has concluded that today, we’re consuming 130% of Earth’s resources based on sustainability measure, and that applies not just to ocean, forest and general land resources – it also covers fossil fuel and its actual use. We’re OVER-USING our resources, a situation called “ecological debt”.

It should be no surprise that alongside the humungous depletion of our natural reserves, are the production of equally monstrous garbage and waste products. And yes, these does not only include toxic waste, but greenhouse gases as a by-product of our energy-consuming activities. All of these wastes increase, as our population increases. Simple.


Unregulated Population as the Real Threat

It’s not a question if over-population is a threat to our society, or even to humanity in general. History will tell us this. The collapse of various empires and civilizations like the Mayans and people of the Easter Islands are thought to have caused by economic decline. But recent findings will tell us that the true reason is simply - environmental degradation. Easter Island used to be heavily forested teeming with wildlife and abundant resources. Over time, people cut down the forest and depleted its reserves and until that time that the last tree was cut, the last boat was built and last fish was caught, people went to war to survive. Eventually, inhabitants either died out, or reduced to a few surviving members.

This is the same story of the Mathew Island. During WWII, the US government ‘installed’ 19 reindeers in the island to provide extra meat ration to the men stationed there. After the war, the island was revisited in the early 1960’s the visitors were surprised to see 3,000 plus reindeers inhabiting the small island, thriving on the patches of greenery surviving in the coastal areas. A few years after, it ballooned to 6000+ individuals. And before the decade ended, the residents have wiped out their resources and the next research visit offered them a sighting of only 40+ females and 1 unhealthy male with no younglings. And a few years more, all remaining reindeers eventually died out.

As cause and effect, the environmental degradation can only be attributed to one thing – unregulated population growth!


One Planet

Earth is a rather small planet and even with today’s population of 6.7 billion, we are already depleting more than what the planet can sustainably supply. We’re focusing on the climate change issue, but the bigger threat is something that nobody wants to tackle head-on.
Imagine doubling our population – that means more greenhouse gases like CO2 or methane, and over-using Earth by maybe more than 200%. In some parts of the world, the Mathew Island story is already happening, and in the next decades or so – that would be Earth’s own story.

Philippines

Our country overshot UN projection by 4-5 million. In the 1960’s Thailand and Philippines have an almost similar number of individuals, but today – Philippines has almost 90 million compared to Thailand’s 63 million. And with any attempt to improve economy and basic resources for the poor – the demand had simply grown faster than the supply and the economy is already failing to keep up.

I am a Catholic and I am Pro-Life. I believe that pro-creation is a special gift that is given to man. But if pro-creation will eventually lead to annihilation – then it’s time we talk about secondary principles.

Quality vs. Quantity

Time and again we’ll hear some clergies and pro-life groups saying that contraceptives and family planning are not morally acceptable. It’s difficult to see a different perspective if we have never experienced the hardship that 40 million or so Filipinos are experiencing today, of surviving on a 40peso per day cost of living and even less for a few millions. This isn’t about ‘quantity of soul’ or quantity of life on Earth, it’s about the quality that we can give to each and every living human individuals. A hungry man will find it difficult to pray and give thanks to his Creator. An abandoned and starved 10-yr old boy will not see the moral implication of snatching a fish for food, nor would he even think the word “sin”. Maslow has clearly demonstrated this with his chart. And we’ll never have the time and right setting to think of higher values or aspirations if our daily struggle is to find food, water and shelter to survive.

Doomed

There is no easy solution for any problems that is at a global scale. Implementing China’s 1-child policy in the Philippines and around the globe may slow down the process – but will most likely anger the mob of anti-family planning groups.
Introducing changes and solutions to combat other issues like pollution and climate change may be helpful short-term, but the increasing sources of these (us, humans) would simply be too much to keep up with.

With the ever-increasing problems in natural habitat destruction, over utilization of ocean resources, increasing pollution and garbage, global warming and exploding population – it would be difficult to wage a war when the very army that you’re supposed to fight with is fighting a different war against you.

And so, after the last tree is cut, after the last bird is shot, and the last fish is eaten – only then that we’ll realize, that we’re all but reindeers in this Mathew Island called Earth.

EP13 (Feb20): Swimming with the Giants

“Butanding” is how we call this gentle giants feeding in the waters of Donsol, Sorsogon. This amazing creature is the largest living fish in the world with sizes reaching 18meters or even more. They’re migratory and travel vast distances – (w/c puts them at risk of visiting an area where they’re not protected), they’re surface feeders (swimming near the surface) eating planktons and krills – and hence frequent encounters with fishermen is not uncommon.

With its prized fins, skin and meat (an individual’s price can range from 100,000 to 400,000 pesos)– it was unfortunately hunted down which led to its population decline, prompting agencies and government to declare it as endangered. It is now protected by law, not just in the Philippines but around the world.

Today, Donsol grew from a 5th class, sleepy town – to a 3rd class tourist hotspot. Local and foreign tourists frequent the place from December to June, to get a chance to see and swim with these giant fishes. Donsol is probably one of the most successful eco-tourism stories in the Philippines – with the great giant sharks being protected and conserved, and local community getting big bucks from them at the same time.


WWF (Donsol) introduced this Photo ID program to us. I tried to help take photos, although I didn’t think I helped a lot hehe. It’s difficult to swim, dive and take a photo while trying to appreciate those special encounters with the Whalesharks. The Photo ID program is a remarkable progress in the monitoring, research and conservation effort for the Whalesharks. It’s a citizens’ program wherein ANYBODY can submit a photo of any whaleshark, together with other valuable data such as date, location, other shark description (size, markings) – and the data is then uploaded to a central database. Did you know that the dot patterns in the Whaleshark’s skin is unique to each individual and hence can be used to identify who’s who? Amazing!
You want more info – visit http://www.whaleshark.org/. The photo and data collected in this central repository is very useful to check on the population growth or decline, as well as track down the migratory patterns of these animals. In the future, this will help WWF and other agencies identify w/c migratory area should be protected and managed.

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My key message for this episode: Let's all support eco-tourism programs in the Philippines (like Donsol's) - you will definitely have fun but at the same time help the local community and help the preservation of our wildlife. Saan ka pa?!

Wildlife encounter: 7 Butandings (maybe 1-2 individual repeats), sizes range from 4m to 7-8m.Condition: Choppy seas, windy, overcast, occasional rain. What’s new?! :)

EP10 (Jan30): The Center of the Center

It is sometimes hard to believe that our own little country has a special place in the world. Philippines has a very high wildlife endemism and bio-diversity, we’re like 10 times of Galapagos Island.

It’s not surprising also that within the Coral Triangle, the center of highest marine biodiversity (in the WHOLE WORLD) can be found in our very own Verde Passage. The waters of Balayan bay, Batangas bay, Maricaban strait and the waters between Batangas and Mindoro belongs to Verde Passage. It’s a paradise full of beautiful & colorful corals and bountiful fishes, not only in numbers – but in kind.

Born to be Wild visited and featured this place, to help raise awareness about this treasure and at the same time present potential issues that threatens this fragile environment. Bad fishing habits (like dynamite and cyanide use), threat of oil spill, pollution from boats and local communities – are some of the challenges that we’re facing in safeguarding Verde Passage. We did a look-see with Conservation Internationale who also explained to us how they do underwater monitoring. I tried but found out that it’s easier to drink beer and count stars, than put a survey line or grid and count fish underwater hehe.

What interested me is that fact that CI’s study was focused on identifying spawning sources and sinks. This is a very important factor in establishing “correct” Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), versus discretionary and non-research based MPA programs.

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My key message: Help raise awareness about this special heritage – we can only preserve and conserve something that we can truly appreciate.

Last note: The Center of the center? Coral Triangle spans many countries and territories and includes the seas of south Asia, south-east Asia and western Pacific. Sulu-Sulawesi (bordering Philippines and Malaysia) is like the center of this triangle, and the ‘center’ of this sub-area is the Verde Passage – it is THE MOST BIO-DIVERSED marine area in the world.

Ep8 Jan16: Zoo vs. Wild?

One of the biggest and endless debate about animals or wildlife - is whether to keep them in zoos, or just leave them in the wild. There’s an obvious answer to this. (You don’t have to guess, just ask yourself how you want to be treated).

But given dwindling and degrading habitats, uncontrolled illegal hunting and trading, and unregulated or unsustainable harvesting – some folks are starting to think twice.

In my opinion – the best (or wishful) scenario is to have protected natural parks so that animals can roam freely in their natural habitat, but at the same time enjoy the luxury of getting security from park rangers (to stop illegal poaching or habitat destruction), and even medical attention if park resources permits. My visit to Serengeti and Ngorongoro park reserves (in East Africa) allowed me to see a better way of conserving our animals and their habitat. There, the school kids do not need Zoo for wildlife education, they just visit their parks!

In the Philippines – the rate of habitat destruction is simply alarming. With 3% old forest growth, & 5-10%(?) coral reef remaining – how do we expect keeping healthy animal population in the so-called ‘wilderness’?! The culprits -- too much commercial development and mining, the 2 biggest ‘destroyers’ of our forest. Behind that are various ‘powerful’ people who are successfully leading the way to our self-destruction.

What can we do?
- Kill the demand. Don’t buy wild animal products / derivatives. (Shark’s fin soup, fur, wild animal-carpets, turtle ‘shells’, crocodile-skin bags/wallets, corals, etc.)
- Easy on the old-wood furniture. Why not bamboo? Rattan?
- Help on the campaign against bad mining? (they destroy trees, mountains & rivers).
- When in doubt, just plant a tree! Then some more trees… hehe.

Zoo vs Wild? The bigger issue is habitat & wildlife destruction. You keep the zoos, but help protect the wild! If we have enough safe places for the animals – we may not need zoos or oceanariums!

Ep7 Jan9: Hidden Treasures

Born to be Wild is not just about animals, it also features natural wonders. Natural wonders - that inevitably connects to our eco systems either as a direct habitat, or just an integral part of the life system.

This time, I revisited the trails and crater of Mt. Pinatubo – famous for its gigantic eruption in the early 90’s, as well as its devastating Lahar flow in the years that followed its eruption. When I visited Pinatubo in the mid-90’s, it was a desert exploration! Blinding dust, hot winds, burning sunlight… and the place was a completely dead, barren place!

Today, it’s perfectly ALIVE! It simply showed how nature can reclaim a no-man's land, or how it can heal its own wound. Trees, variety of plant life, hundreds of birds, some small mammals – and indigenous Aeta people now thrive in this once forsaken desert place. And the crater – it is still the enchanting beauty of a mystical (crater) lake, with its color magically changing from blue green, to green or blue. Here, sitting in the beach side of the crater lake, and listening to the whistling of wind, or chirping of passing birds – you’ll easily find peace and serenity (and forget about your credit card debts, work issues and the fact that you still need to walk a few kilometers to get back to your jeep. Hehe.)