Requiem to a Dying Seashore.

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog

Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

Closeup of huts-on-rafts in Matabungcay Beach, Batangas. The ecosystem is dead. Turtles do not come anymore to lay eggs in the sand. Ghost crabs have been decimated, Corals and their symbionts - algae, have been permanently destroyed. Mangroves have been cut down. Pollution is heavy. Diseases lurk in the water. What then do tourists find here?

Houses have intruded into the sea. From the sea the sight of the land is not pleasant at all. Squatting along shorelines should not be allowed. Domestic wastes are directly emptied to the sea. Siltation is heavy killing corals and many marine organisms. Note how vulnerable this community is tidal wave and tsunami.
This is a new kind of squatting. The floating huts have no provision for garbage disposal, comfort room, and safety and emergency equipment. Who issues permit to construct and operate these huts-on-raft?This is a resort. No trespassing, even only to have a glance of the sea. You have to pay - entrance fee, fixed rate for tables, huts-on-raft. But whose income does your money go?
People in the place know that the island at the background is owned by a weathy person. The original settlers moved out of the island under special arrangement to give way to its conversion into a private resort. How many of the 7,100 islands remain a property of the Filipino people? Note balcony of a hotel (foreground) virtually hanging on the edge of the sea.

Tragedy of the Commons. It's free for all fishing in this estuary. Anyone can fish with any method. Fishpens bar the route of boats. Fish cages are marked by their owners. Shellfish like tahong and oysters are getting smaller. Juvenile fishes are caught. This is a dying part of the sea and river called estuary. Tragedy of the commons also applies on communal pasture, on coral reefs, a lake, or the sea itself. There is less and less catch everyday. Soon people have no more livelihood. Soon they have no more food to eat. Has Nature failed? 

No, it' is man's failure. It is Paradise Lost - Part 2. ~