he year 2007 may
be considered a Year of the Reef if the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI) is given
recognition as a genuine attempt to conserve coral reefs. On December 7, 2007,
the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon
Islands and Timor-Leste adopted the CTI, a multilateral partnership initiated
earlier at the APEC Summit in September 2007. It is yet another attempt by the
six governments in the Indo-West Pacific to focus on coral reefs as source of
fisheries for food security reasons.
The theoretical basis and assumptions of the CTI, as spelled
out in the documents available to me, needs improvement. It will be recalled
that the term "coral triangle" is an incomplete description of the triangular
area of land and sea formed by the Philippines, Malay Peninsula and Indonesia,
and New Guinea. The area hosts the world's center of biodiversity both marine
and terrestrial. This notion had already been known by the early 1970s. The
reason for the high diversity and high productivity of coral reefs is the
synergy with associated ecosystems or communities primarily mangroves and
seagrasses. The integrated ecosystem approach is thus called for.
The CTI is not a new initiative of its kind. In fact, much
earlier, in 1995, representatives of developing and developed nations launched
the International Coral Reef Initiative in Silliman University, Dumaguete City.
ICRI has a broader set of objectives than CTI, being concerned with both
scientific research and management of coral reef resources and publishes its
proceedings for wide dissemination. Developed and developing nations take turns
in hosting it. The Philippines hosted it twice, in 1995 and 2003.
From my point of view, the CTI is not a very useful
initiative as far as the Philippines is concerned. It duplicates the ICRI and
several current development initiatives and is probably wasteful of resources
including financial resources. The Philippines, for example, should be
supporting the ICRI and other efforts at coral reef conservation and management
such as the successor of the Coastal Environment Program, which was established
in 1993 during my term as Secretary at the DENR. But the DENR has not really
supported the ICRI and its support of coral reef conservation initiatives has
not been substantial. It remains to be seen if it is really serious in
supporting (including provision of a budget) the CTI, which I already said is a
needless duplication.
It appears that Indonesia is the prime mover of the CTI. This
is logical because, next to Australia, Indonesia owns the largest coral reef
area in the world (ca 80,000 square kilometers). But the track record of
Indonesia in coral reef conservation and management leaves much to be desired.
Based on published records, the Philippines has a better track record than
Indonesia in terms of percentage of reef area actually being protected.
It was my privilege to actively participate in the consultative workshop for
the preparation of the Philippines' plan of action for the CTI held at Cebu
Grand Hotel 6-7 March 2008 at the invitation of Dr. Uwe F. Scholz, Program
Adviser of the Coastal Fisheries Resources Management of the GTZ, a co-sponsor
of the workshop, and I can see signs that the CTI will not be any different from
past government efforts at protection and management of coral reefs.
