The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) on Monday said it has declared Sabang Bay in Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro and Coron Bay in Palawan as water quality management areas (WQMA).
Environment Secretary Ramon J.P. Paje recently signed separate administrative orders, which placed the two water bodies under strict management regimes.
Puerto Galera and Coron are popular ecotourism destinations in Luzon. Both Sabang Bay and Coron Bay are world-class diving sites with great visibility and masses of underwater life, making them as among the favorite destinations for tourists and diving enthusiasts.
This brings the total number of WQMAs in the country to 25.
The DENR said the initiative will further boost efforts to protect the biodiversity within the two water bodies from the unwanted effects of tourism activities.
In a statement, Paje said the designation of the two water bodies as WQMA is “crucial” to safeguarding the areas’ ecosystem qualities against the rapid growth of ecotourism activities.
As diving tourism and the associated residential and commercial developments “exert a considerable pressure on the ecological fabric” of the two bay areas, Paje said there is a need to ensure that their water qualities comply with the standards prescribed under Republic Act 9275, or the Philippine Clean Water Act.
He added that heavy reliance on healthy and attractive coral reefs makes the tourism sector in Coron and Puerto Galera “particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.”
According to Paje, the WQMA designation would allow the DENR, local government units, communities and other stakeholders to identify the water quality problems, sources of pollution, and the beneficial use of Sabang Bay and Coron Bay.
It would also help stakeholders determine what control measures to institute to effectively achieve water- quality objectives or improvements.
The Coron Bay WQMA covers the bay itself and eight of the 23 barangays comprising the entire town of Coron.
An analysis of Coron’s water resources and its distribution showed that the rivers traversing the town drain into a drainage area of 5.5 hectares inside the eight coastal villages.
The aquatic views from the sunken World War II Japanese ships in Coron Bay are listed in Forbes Traveler Magazine’s top 10 best scuba diving sites in the world
Meanwhile, the Sabang Bay WQMA covers the bay itself, which is part of the world-famous Verde Island Passage, and the whole Barangay Sabang covering 449 hectares.
West of Sabang Bay, separated by the Batangas Channel, is the Muelle Bay, which is the only bay in the Philippines listed in the “Club of the Most Beautiful Bays of the World” by the Paris-based Club Des Plus Belles Baies Du Monde in 2005.
Despite its relatively small size, Barangay Sabang is critical to the bay’s overall water quality as 283 hectares, or 63 percent, of its land area serves as the drainage site for all the surface water from Puerto Galera’s 12 other barangays.