The Taal fishkill: Realizations and recommendations

(First of two parts)

In the past few weeks we have been bombarded with news on fishkills that have affected the aquaculture industry in Lake Taal. News reports say that up to 1,800 metric tons of milkfish and tilapia have died due to yet unclear and unverified reasons. It also turns out that even fish cage-free areas were also affected. In the town of Balete, a fishkill has been observed by the locals who blamed it on the huge amount of piggery effluents being dumped in the nearby Palsara River. These fishkills have led to the loss of livelihood for many of the lakeshore inhabitants and have even caused a health scare due to reports of “botchang” bangus being sold in public markets. The disposal of all the dead and rotting fish is also a public health and sanitation concern. In spite of all the media attention, what people want to know is why the fishkills happened in the first place. Before the fishkill what we had been seeing in the news is the increased volcanic activity in Taal as well as the effort by the local governments to reduce the number of fish cages based on the Taal Volcano Protected Landscape Management Plan (TVPLMP). Could it therefore be the volcanic activity that had caused the fishkill? Or could it be the piggery effluents from the Palsara River? Could it be the stocking density in the remaining fish cages? Or is it the overfeeding of the fish in cages in spite of recommendations on the ideal amount of feeds to be given? Unfortunately, the real reasons behind this cannot be easily determined due to so many factors that arise from the current political realities and the lack of priority given to scientific knowledge (and science in general) in our country.

Let me enumerate some of the reasons why I think real progress cannot be made on the proper utilization and conservation of Lake Taal:

Lack of proper enforcement of the TVPL — Lake Taal and its watershed are part of what is known as the Taal Volcano Protected Landscape (TVPL). A management plan has been created by scientists, environmental planners, and lawyers from both private and public research institutions, NGOs and the academe. This plan enumerated the different laws and regulations that have to be implemented regarding many aspects of the lake’s use: aquaculture, open water fisheries, land use, etc. It is a comprehensive plan created by people who know what they are talking about. Unfortunately it was left mostly to the provincial government to do the dismantling of fish cages. They were able to bring down the number of fish cages from 14,000 to 7,000 in a span of two years. This was hailed by many as an important preliminary step in arresting the decline of the lake. However, full implementation has not proceeded and may take some time because full support from concerned parties is lacking. If only many of the provisions on the management plan are put to good use, it would have been easy to prevent such a catastrophe from taking place. The management plan may not be an all-encompassing solution, as people from different backgrounds may disagree with some of its provisions. However, since it is the only available document which can be used as a guide, local law enforcers and policy-makers should put it to good use.

Scientific advice is usually ignored — There have been at least two large-scale funded projects in Lake Taal that have dealt with mitigating the effects of aquaculture. The EU-funded FISHSTRAT project and the government-commissioned Akvaplan-Niva project. These projects include foreign and local scientists who have studied water quality, primary and secondary productivity, lake carrying capacity, fisheries, etc. They had published their results as books or articles in peer-reviewed journals. Akvaplan-niva has even gone so far as donating scientific equipment which may be used for water quality analysis (e.g. CTD profiler). Their findings include recommendations on several aspects that can potentially prevent fishkills from taking place. It is rather unfortunate that these recommendations are not followed, or implemented by concerned agencies. This is the result of two paralyzing problems besetting our government scientists: lack of funds to continue with the type of monitoring employed routinely by foreign institutions, and lack of trained personnel to handle advanced techniques in analysis. These two can be solved by increased political will which should lead to an increased appreciation for the job scientists perform for national welfare. The lack of a routine monitoring program for water quality in Lake Taal cannot be blamed on the government scientists alone, for they can only do so much given their budgetary limitations. 

(To be concluded)

* * *

Dr. Rey Donne Papa (assistant professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Santo Tomas) is a limnologist who specializes in freshwater zooplankton ecology and systematics. He has conducted many researches in Lake Taal and has published in both national and international peer-reviewed journals. He was a recipient of the Tonolli Fund Postgraduate Fellowship in Limnology (International Society of Limnology) and was a DAAD Research Fellow at the Limnological Institute of the University of Konstanz, Germany. He finished his B.S., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Santo Tomas. He can be reached at [email protected].