PH marine scientists offer a different kind of ‘diplomacy’ in WPS row

MANILA, Philippines — When generals and diplomats don’t always see eye to eye, how do you protect a highly contested and threatened marine ecosystem that has become a flashpoint of geopolitical tensions?

Perhaps it is up to scientists to look beyond the hostility and find common ground.

For some of the country’s leading marine experts who study the Western Philippine Sea (WPS), this means transcending political boundaries and pushing for a more concerted, cross-regional effort to protect this area and its rich biodiversity.

For example, it could mean establishing marine protected areas (MPAs) that could be jointly managed by members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that have overlapping maritime claims. It could also mean greater scientific collaboration among scientists who are also monitoring the area.

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But one thing is certain: Isolating China from larger efforts to preserve and protect the WPS is “not an option,” Filipino marine scientists said at a recent forum on “science diplomacy” at the University of the Philippines (UP) Center for Integrative and Development Studies.

Deo Onda, Wilfredo Licuanan and Charina Amedo-Repollo agreed that it would be counterproductive to simply point fingers at those responsible for the documented destruction of coral reefs in the WPS, “when we ourselves are not doing a good job.”

China and the Philippines have recently been playing a blame game over who has caused the worst or most widespread destruction in the larger South China Sea, of which the WPS is a part, a waterway almost entirely claimed by Beijing.

Strategy needs data first

China continues to ignore the landmark 2016 arbitration ruling, which invalidated China’s sweeping claims and upheld the Philippines’ sovereign rights over the WPS (the area designated by Manila as an exclusive economic zone).

According to Repollo, the WPS, a traditional fishing area for the Philippines, accounts for about a third of the country’s total fisheries production.

Repollo and Licuanan said that while it is true that China’s construction of artificial islands has destroyed vast swaths of coral reef, the lack of long-term, comprehensive monitoring and centralized databases on coral reefs and marine life in the WPS and other areas in the Philippines has not helped either.

This, Onda said, has hampered the country’s ability to “come up with management strategies (or) mitigation and management frameworks, because we don’t know what the (marine) resources are.”

While hundreds of studies have been conducted on coral cover in the area, many led by the UP Marine Science Institute since the 1980s, Licuanan said, “We are not collecting enough other important information … and even if there is a need and interest to collect that data, the resources are not being used as they should be.”

“Coral reef management in the Philippines is falling through the cracks,” said Licuanan, a biologist and associate professor at De La Salle University. “How can we claim to be managing our reefs if we’re not even monitoring them, or if the data isn’t being stored in a central repository?”

The experts also noted that there is no broader discussion about the WPS, with the focus mainly on safety rather than its value as one of the most biodiverse and productive fishing areas in the world.

In a report he authored and released in 2019, Onda estimated that the Philippines has been losing about P33.1 billion annually since 2012 due to damage to reef ecosystems, particularly at Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal and the Spratly Islands, largely as a result of China’s land reclamation activities and illegal fishing. The amount represented lost “benefits” in terms of fisheries, habitat health and climate regulation, among other things.

Possibilities

However, there are opportunities to close the gap in marine conservation in the WPS, said Repollo, who is currently part of a team assisting the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) in designating marine protected areas in the Kalayaan Group of Islands (KIC).

There are about 300 government-designated MPAs scattered throughout the West Philippine Sea, but none near the KIC, an area under the jurisdiction of Palawan province, partly because of overlapping territorial claims, Repollo said.

“But it is possible to establish MPAs there,” she said. “It was a late attempt (by the DENR), maybe because we were not aware that the WPS contribution to our economy was really that big.”

However, she acknowledges that securing this potential MPA in the Kalayaan group using civilian forces such as the Bantay Dagat patrols is a challenge.

“And if China now goes against that, then that will be a problem,” Repollo said. “That’s why we need to sit together now, especially now that they are also supposedly pushing for environmental protection.”

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