Dead whales sign of eco-negligence

Sperm whale mothers suckle each young for 13 years and live to 70. Grey whales make the longest migrations of any mammal, swimming 21,000 km from Mexico to the Arctic then back, at about 145 km a day. Right whales have the smallest brain-to-body size ratio among cetaceans, the longest penis in the animal kingdom (2.3m), and testes weighing a ton.

Fascinating facts from Elin Kelsey’s book Watching Giants, huh. But what’s it to us Third World Filipinos? Plenty, if we are to plan our food and environment security. Nineteen of the 26 whale species worldwide, plus dolphins and other marine mammals populate Philippine waters. Add to that big and small fish, and countless life forms. On how we care for sea fauna and flora depend the price and supply of food. How have we fared?

Last Dec. a whale carcass was found floating beside a passenger ship moored at Manila’s busy pier. Close to ten meters long and weighing three tons, the whale was thought to be a Minke or a Bryde’s. Such sight is uncommon, but may not be isolated, says Lory Tan, World Wildlife Fund-Philippines vice chairman. And it forebodes blight. In 2007 a similar dead baleen whale was spotted decomposing at Manila Bay. Since whales unlike fish do not have swim bladders, most fatalities sink undetected to the sea bottom. RP not only could be losing its whales, but also deranging its ecosystem. Eco-balance assures food supply for all, including landlubbers. Imbalance could lead to prey — say, krill and plankton for baleen types, squid and fish for most whales — growing too plenty and devouring other marine life, setting a chain reaction that lessens man’s harvest from the sea.

Statistics rank net entanglement and ship strike as the two main man-induced killers of the sea giants. Pollution is third. A Longman’s beaked whale stranded and died on a Davao beach; on necropsy, scientists found in its stomach plastic bags from six countries. (Two colossal clots of plastic bags, each larger than the US mainland, are floating in the Pacific.) On rare occasions Filipinos spear or dynamite whales for food. They risk jail terms and village scorn, though, in an ever-growing eco-conscious archipelago. More and more fishermen are training to save whales and dolphins from accidental wounding and beaching. Still, Tan says, “Whales and humans both make an impact on the marine ecosystem we depend on for food and life. More than just saving whales or dolphins, we should be thinking about the life and productivity of our oceans and coasts.”

Earth is a water planet. The sea is man’s natural social security, giving not only fish and veggie but also the salt to make it tasty. But he’s not doing enough to keep eco-sanity. The dead whale in Manila Bay is nature’s way of telling Filipinos so. Over-fishing already forces fisher folk to sail farther and farther out sea to catch anything. Those without the means to do so strike even small fry in shallow waters. If game anglers now equip themselves with electronic fish finders and global positioning systems to track and record good fishing grounds, then more so commercial catchers. Blasting, poisoning, and seine netting destroy corals and seabed where fish spawn, live and eat. Fisheries experts can count with one hand the few remaining reefs that are not white from dynamite and cyanide scars. One of every two Filipinos feels poor, and one in four goes hungry, according to this week’s news. The sea no longer provides free food, and the government has not caught up with the slide.

RP ecosystem negligence could starve the world. Scientists have pinpointed the Philippine-Indonesian triangle as the world’s center of marine biodiversity, and the channel between Mindoro and Batangas as the center of the center. That Verde Island Passage is now also RP’s busiest shipping lane. Vessels from the Visayas and Mindanao expel trash in the waters just before entering Manila Bay to avoid expensive waste disposal. The area is always at risk of oil spills and sinking of ships laden with toxic chemicals or industrial waste. A little south in Tubbataha Reefs of the Sulu Sea tuna spawn, and from there travel to the Celebes Sea onto the South Pacific. Local shell gatherers illegally scour the 99,000-hectare UN world heritage site. Chinese and Vietnamese regularly poach, knowing that RP has only a dozen rangers and two boats patrolling the no-fishing marine park.

Environmentalists slowly have gained some ground. After a decade-long legal battle, Atty. Tony Oposa got the Supreme Court to compel the government to clean up Manila Bay. Depending on how fast environment and metropolitan officials comply, Filipinos may yet learn what bounties the waters held when Legaspi conquered old Maynilad in 1569.

But it may also be too late. Oposa cites studies showing ocean levels to be rising from ice melt and thermal expansion due to global warming. The most affected are waters near the equator. Oposa says the sea level east of RP has risen two to three feet in the past 15 years, and will rise by the same in another 15. Coastal towns will be inundated, pushing Filipinos uphill where forests also have been over-logged.

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