Moratorium on reclamation

By sheer serendipity, I was in Metro Manila last week and took advantage of the opportunity to attend the congressional hearing conducted by the natural resources committee on reclamation projects including a P14-billion one planned on a 635.14-hectare portion of the historic Manila Bay.

Held at the Ramon Mitra Building at the Batasan complex, the conference was packed with the convergence of fisherfolk, professionals, church members, scientists and other constituents largely from the Parañaque and Las Piñas areas. Many of them are petitioners for a writ of kalikasan now being heard by the Court of Appeals. The residents, including the members of the Alliance for Stewardship and Authentic Progress (Asap) led by co-convenors Msgr. Melcohor David and Dr. Joseph Carabeo, are understandably worried that the proposed project impacts the 175-hectare mangrove and marine habitat at the Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area (LPPCHEA) and will cause unprecedented flooding in their areas, among other disastrous effects.

To put it bluntly, it is sheer folly and gross irresponsibility for the government, including local government units (LGUs), to embark on reclamation projects. Reclamations in this era of climate change and sea level rise are passé, irrelevant, wasteful and definitely destructive. They are an aberration in the strong legal framework of environmental protection and sustainable development under the 1987 Constitution. Don’t you think they should be treated and condemned as a form of ecocide?

According to the People’s Resolution in the Impacts of Reclamation issued by the newly- formed Network for the Integrity of Coastal Habitats and People’s Resilience (the “Network”) in conjunction with the People’s Summit on the Impacts of Reclamation last Oct. 24 to 25 at the University of the Philippines Diliman, land reclamation is noted by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization as an “irreversible form of environmental degradation.” The Resolution noted that “Its resulting biomass loss will have immediate and severe ecological and socio-economic impacts, such as coastal community and fisherfolk displacement and the destruction of ecosystems.”

Not just one but at least three major ecosystems are heavily impacted by any reclamation project: mangroves, corals and sea grass. They are all interconnected. Destroy one and all the others will suffer. Without functioning marine and coastal habitats, there will be less fish and other marine resources which contribute to 80 percent of the Filipino’s total animal protein intake.

Where then will our hapless and “poorest of the poor” fisherfolk and their families go?  Aren’t they granted the “preferential right to access traditional fishing grounds” by no less than our Constitution and the Fisheries Code?

The people’s resolution noted that “the country’s annual fish catch is on a steady decline largely attributable to the severe degradation  of coastal and marine habitats with up to 98 percent of our coral reefs currently at risk, 75.6 percent of mangroves lost in the past 82 years, and 50 percent of seagrass beds lost in the past 50 years.”

The government’s National Reclamation Plan which covers 38,272 hectares, including 6,000 hectares in Cebu threatens to affect further one-tenth of our coastal and marine habitats.  These projects could potentially translate to a loss of a value of nearly P30 billion per year in good sea grass and ecosystems services alone. These services that we obviously do not count include “primary productivity, spawning, nursery and feeding grounds of various commercially-important organisms, in close interconnectivity with mangroves and coastal habitats.” In addition, sea grass and mangroves provide “coastal integrity and sediment retention functions, barriers against storm surges” (remember the devastating storm surges in August this year?), “filtration of pollutants and sequestration of atmospheric carbon.”

Our laws require integration of heritage, climate change and disaster risk reduction, as we are one of the most vulnerable to disasters and climate change impacts in the world. Implementing the NRP and any reclamation, for that matter, will create more environmental refugees, cause tremendous loss of lives and livelihood and make people and ecosystems less resilient in the face of calamities. The officials pushing for them can even be held administratively, criminally and civilly accountable under RA 10121, the Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010 and other laws.

More than ever, the Aquino administration and the LGUs should be fully conscious of their tremendous responsibility and not just salivate over potential profits that coastal developments are anticipated to bring.  An LGU without the required comprehensive land and coastal development plan, that is remiss in enforcing environmental laws and is without a real participatory, transparent and accountable governance has no legal and moral basis to go into reclamation projects.

Considering the pervasive social and environmental impacts that reclamation projects bring, we have yet to hear of government making a serious effort to evaluate their effects  on the fisherfolk and their families, the community and our vastly threatened ecosystems.

The resurgence of the scandal-ridden Balili property issue arising from yet another questionable reclamation of the coast is reflective of the widespread lack of public participation, planning  and coordination of programs and projects, bereft of respect for processes and the law and the nonchalant attitude by political authorities  towards our ecosystems, our people and the welfare of the future generations, at this most challenging period in our history.

Let us unite and join the Network in calling for the following action, among others:

• Impose a 10-year moratorium on reclamation projects and a thorough review of the national policy  on reclamation and  a rigorous, participatory, transparent, independent scientific and legal assessment of the ecological, climate change, health, and socio-economic impacts of reclamation projects;

• Institutionalize a no-nonsense transparent and graft-free implementation of environmental laws, including anti-pollution laws that uphold people’s rights, strengthening of environmental impact statement system, mainstream environmental and social accounting and exact accountability for those who approved existing projects and those who violated national laws and policies.