This week, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo went to Indonesia to attend a South East Asian conference in the conservation of the coral reef of the region. Those who attended were the heads of most South East Asian countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, which owns the Solomon Islands. They all low within the marine, Indo Pacific Region.
The purpose of th4 conference is how to protect the coral reefs of the region. Coral reefs are is a natural resource that we had taken for granted. Not only that they have been victims of illegal fishing practices but also prey to man's neglect. Previously, the natives were living in harmony with nature. They took only what they want from the environment in order to exist. They made no permanent structures; they farmed only enough for food.
The coming of the white man changed all that. They built churches and other buildings, they cleared land haciendas, they cut down forests for timber, all in all they took much from the environment that Mother Nature was not given enough time to recover before fresh demands were again made. Coral blocks were made into bricks to make churches, fortifications and other buildings. Over the years, they introduced animals that overgrazed grass cover, used fertilizers, pesticides and other chemicals used in modern farming.
Then erosion set in. with no vegetation to hold them back tropical; rains washed out loosened soil and chemicals out to sea. Along the shores, salinity .fluctuated wildly and not only did the silt covered the coral strands, chemical poisoned them as well. With the dying of corals plus population pressure, valuable shellfish had disappeared. Marine bio diversity was threatened.
For nations heavily dependent on marine resources for food, the situation is serious. The coral reefs are not only breeding grounds for organisms, which are among the first in marine life, they also act as fortresses for fish larvae and small fishes when threatened by predators. Not only that. They are also home for valuable shellfish. They are either utilized as food or are sold as collectors' items.
The coral reefs around Bohol had been source of some valuable shells. Somewhere in the northern flats where sand islands appear only during low tides, lie the most precious cowries in the world. Long time ago this spot was visited by Evaristo Zambo, a University of the Philippines graduate from Mandaue City and Dr Paul Zhal Ph D, a Senior Natural scientist. Zambo asked Dr. Zahl not to reveal the location for the cowries found there, if shipped in numbers to collectors in Europe would drastically lower the price.
Before 1817 only half a dozen of the Glory of the Seas cone, the deadly conus gloriamaris were known to exist. In that year, the famous British collector Hugh Cuming visiting a reef near Jagna turned over a small rock and found two side by side he recalled that he "nearly fainted with delight". When the reef vanished under an earthquake the world believed that the habitat of the gloriamaris disappeared. So famous were those shells that a writer Fanny Steele made a novel of these shells. They still value hundreds of dollars now. Another valuable shellfish that could be found in Bohol coral flats is the Leucodon cowry, the cypraea leucodon. This was found inside the stomach of a fish.
We have to protect our corals from chemical poisoning dynamite, and muro ami fishing and also from extraction of corals. Not only that. National and local laws must be passed to regulate the collection of shell fish. Today there are still fishermen who use crawl nets to haul up those specimens.
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