Philippine reefs (fwd)
Coral Health and Monitoring Program
coral at aoml.noaa.gov
Fri Nov 22 12:14:24 EST 1996
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 12:15:06 -0500
From: Don McAllister <mcall at superaje.com>
To: Coral Health and Monitoring Program <coral at aoml.noaa.gov>
Cc: mcall at superaje.com
Subject: Re: Philippine reefs (fwd)
Doug Fenner responded:
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 10:49:38 +0800
> From: CEMRINO <cemrino at klink.com.ph>
> Subject: Coralist: Philippine reefs
>
> Coralist Subscribers,
> The recent message entitled "PHILIPPINES: CORAL REEFS RAVAGED BY
> IMPOVERISHED FISHERS" presents a popular, and somewhat oversimplified
> picture of the problems with Philippine coral reefs. A similar article
> appeared in the June 3, 1996 Asian edition of TIME, entitled "Reef
> Killers" (p. 49). They state that "But in the Philippines, which has
> 33,000 sq km of reef, 90% of the coral is dead or deteriorated,..."
I think Doug has given a more holistic picture of the situation in the
Philippines. There is no doubt that coastal fishers contribute to the
unhappy condition of the reefs, but for the most part in the struggle to
live and through having few other options on so low an income to change.
But land-based marine sources of pollution, sedimentation,
eutrophication, and pollution from agriculture, deforestation,
industries and municipalities are primary and often chronic sources of
degradation.
Involvement, education and empowerment of citizens, giving them a bigger
voice in governance is one approach. Another is education of
industries, eco-labelling and giving citizens a choice in the
market-place, and providing a more pluralistic society where coops,
NGOs, churches and peoples organizations to offer a counterpoise to
strictly short-term profit oriented products.
But governance by the rich as opposed to democracy is not just a problem
in the Philippines. Here in Canada the tobacco industry lobby has just
managed to kill legislation that would have provided stronger regulation
of marketting tobacco, over the wishes of most citizens - corporatocracy
won over democracy.
don
don
Don McAllister,
Ocean Voice International
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