Last year, the Duterte administration earned a high mark and was hailed for the massive rehabilitation of Boracay, the country’s top tourist destination in Malay, Aklan.
Characterized by massive road-widening projects, dismantling of illegal structures that encroached on beachfront, forestlands and wetlands; and the stricter enforcement of environmental laws and tourism rules and regulations, the rehabilitation was lauded as a success by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
A year later, after six months of closing the island to tourists from April 26, 2018, to October 28, 2018, for the massive rehabilitation of Boracay, it’s no longer business as usual in Boracay.
Since its reopening last year, tens of thousands of tourists arrived to relax and enjoy the famous white-sand beaches and perhaps it’s cleaner and safer, crystal-clear waters, less the noisy and all-night-long partying it was known for. Drinking and smoking in public places were also banned and the beach is a lot cleaner nowadays.
Was the rehabilitation effort a resounding success? Not quite.
Bats under siege
The island’s rich biodiversity is under siege. Its unique ecosystems, from forests, wetlands, mangrove forests, seagrass beds, coral reefs in coastal and marine areas have suffered environmental degradation in the past.
Wildlife population, particularly bats, were on the decline because of unsustainable tourism practices, a reason Environment Secretary Roy A. Cimatu sent out a team of biodiversity experts in March last year to conduct a quick biodiversity assessment on Boracay Island.
Their mission was clear and well pronounced: Save Boracay’s threatened species—the marine turtles that nest on its beaches, the puka shell that makes Puka Shell Beach sands uniquely cool, the long-tailed macaque, the migratory birds, and Boracay’s other tourist attraction, such as the bats, the flying foxes or fruit bats, and their smaller cousins, the insect bats.
Incidentally, this year’s Earth Day celebrations carries the theme “Protect our Species” which highlights the need to protect and conserve the country’s unique species. Boracay has three known fruit bat species that roost on trees in the forest of Barangay Yapak. Beneath these limestone forests are caves, the home of Boracay’s insect bats.
Just last month, however, the dwindling population of bats, particularly flying foxes or the giant fruit bats, revealed that the island’s rich biodiversity is beleaguered.
Habitat loss, hunting
As early as January this year, the Friends of the Flying Foxes (FFF), a not-for-profit nongovernment organization formed to protect and conserve Boracay’s flying foxes, have sounded the alarm bells over the dwindling bat population on the island because of various threats—from massive habitat loss because of development projects targeting the fruit bats’ roosting sites to the unabated hunting for food by local communities on the island and in the mainland Malay town.
Through its president, Julia Lervik, FFF has written letters to authorities, including the DENR, the provincial government of Aklan and the local officials of the municipality of Malay, Aklan, to appeal the case of the vanishing flying foxes of Boracay.
In a letter to Nenette Aguirre-Graf, an honorary member of the Sangguniang Bayan of the municipality of Malay dated January 29, the group expressed concern over the huge drop in the number of bats from 2017 up to 2018.
During this period it was observed that destructive development projects and hunting for food continued on the island—even during the time when Boracay was supposed to be undergoing massive rehabilitation.
Shrinking bat population
The FFF started to conduct regular monthly monitoring of the bats’ population between 2017 and May 2018, when the roost site was bulldozed by Mabuhay Maritime Express Inc.
It was during the intense monitoring when the drastic reduction of the bats’ population was observed compared to previous years.
“On the 27th of May 2017, the largest number of bats counted on exit or fly out was estimated to about 2,425 individuals. Later that year, we conducted a roost count and revealed that at least an estimated total of 16 percent of the entire bat population counted were the globally endangered golden-crowned flying foxes and the rest of the percentage are shared mostly by the large flying foxes with that of the small-island flying foxes,” Lervik said in her letter.
In 2018, the largest number the group estimated was on February 21 with 1,608 individuals.
Since then, the group had ceased to get any information because the island was closed from April to October, when the group was denied access on the flying foxes’ roost counting area.
In another letter addressed to Commander Natividad Bernardino, Boracay Inter-Agency Rehabilitation Management Group, dated April 5, Lervik reiterated their appeal to look into the plight of Boracay’s flagship species.
When the group was able to resume monitor the bat population, the biggest number they got in the nine times in their exit count was only 347 bats.
The group learned from local people and by observing the roost sites of the bats that for last year, and especially during Boracay’s closure, the bats were hunted for food.
Also, the group said hunting on the mainland has also been recorded, supposedly by nets.
Destructive projects
FFF, however, claimed that hunting was not the only reason behind the dwindling population of the bats on the island.
The destruction of the beach forest in June 2017 through bulldozing “without any permit,” according to Lervik, had a negative impact on the bats.
Lervik said at the time of the destruction, the bats had already moved to their habagat roost site, thus, no immediate impact was observed in their numbers that year.
However, when the bats returned to mate in the puka shell roost site in April 2018, during the closure, their home, the trees, were gone resulting in what the group described as “disturbingly low counts” on April 5, 2019.
Moreover, Lervik added that in 2018, the property next to a big hotel owned by a politician was cleared of its forest cover, which has adversely impacted other wildlife, such as monkeys that have now moved near the roosting sites of the bats.
This, Lervik said, are causing a lot of disturbance to the fruit bats.
Tourist-stressed bats
While the bats have been observed last year to be constantly flying around their roost, indicating that they are being disturbed by other wildlife, other life forms also caused too much stress to the bats—the tourists.
In March and April this year, a large number of boats have been observed docking, with anchors, destroying the reefs and dropping off guests on Puka Shell Beach, Lervik said.
“When they signal their guests to return to the boat, the boat blows its horns repeatedly. Considering a large number of boats, and tourist arrivals and departures throughout the day, these generate a huge amount of noise that disturb the nocturnal bats,” Lervik lamented.
Last, extremely loud music played by the boats docking and driving around Boracay’s shores aggravate the problem.
“When the FFF visited the Balinghai Roost Site, multiple boats were observed docking [with tourists set] for snorkeling and playing loud music, which resulted in the bats flying around trees, instead of sleeping,” Lervik pointed out.
Critical habitat
Since many of Boracay’s known roosting sites are critical habitats, FFF appealed to concerned government agencies, including the Malay LGU, to work together to establish portions of the island, including coastal areas, a critical habitat.
In fact, the DENR’s Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB), then headed by Theresa Mundita S. Lim, recommended that portions of Boracay be declared as a critical habitat.
Recommended to be designated as critical habitat under Republic Act (RA) 9147, or the Wildlife Resources Protection and Conservation Act, or simply Wildlife Act, are all the remaining limestone forests on the island, the Puka Shell Beach, all bat-roosting sites and one of four existing wetlands on the island.
Various stakeholders, including owners of business establishments within the proposed 750-hectares Boracay Critical Habitat, have expressed their support behind the plan.
Cimatu has also vowed to sign an administrative order for the purpose of establishing Boracay Critical Habitat.
Besides establishing the Boracay Critical Habitat, FFF is also supporting the plan to declare vast coastal and marine areas around Boracay Island, especially those near roosting sites of the fruit bats, as marine protected area in order to put them under a strict management regime that will regulate tourist activities.
What happened?
One year after, however, the establishment of the Boracay Critical Habitat still hangs in the balance after the DENR required the Malay LGU, through the Sangguniang Bayan, to pass a resolution for the purpose.
The Malay LGUs inaction caused the delay, according to DENR-BMB Director Crisanta Marlene Rodriguez.
On April 23, the DENR’s top biodiversity official said in a BusinessMirror interview that the Malay LGU through its Sangguniang Bayan promised to tackle the proposed Boracay Critical Habitat.
“Today, we were told that they will call a meeting to discuss the proposal to establish the [Boracay] Critical Habitat,” Rodriguez said, adding that the DENR-BMB remains committed to the plan to establish the habitat plan.
If ever it will not push through, Rodriguez said they are looking at other conservation measures that may apply to Boracay. One is placing the island under strict management regime as a Water Quality Management Area (WQMA) under the Clean Water Act of 2004.
She said the DENR’s Policy Technical Working Group suggested to include areas covered by the proposed Boracay Critical Habitat in the proposed WQMA in Boracay since its coverage is the whole island.
According to Rodriguez, based on the proposal, the WQMA shall have the same governing board as the Boracay Critical Habitat.
Asked if the declaration of the entire Boracay Island as a WQMA will suffice to protect and conserve its rich biodiversity, including its endangered species, Rodriguez said: “That is our concern, too. We are currently reviewing the modified WQMA if the components of the Boracay Critical Habitat are there.”
A matter of concern
Lim, currently the executive director of Asean Centre for Biodiversity, said the decline of the number of fruit bats on Boracay should be a matter of concern as it can also be considered a “symptom” of an underlying more serious environmental problem.
“Aside from the direct result of losing the potential value of these flying foxes for ecotourism, more important, they are also natural seed dispersers and pollinators for native fruit trees and contributing to expanding forest cover, including for areas that are not easily accessible to human planting,” she pointed out.
Lim said the decline of the population of bats in the Philippines and other areas would easily impact on the capacity of forests to regenerate itself, translating to an irreversible reduction of water recharge from watersheds and reduced resiliency functions derived from healthy forest ecosystems.
“The impact of the bats’ disappearance on Boracay will not only be felt on the island, but will also have long-term implications to communities in the mainland where they feed and disperse forest seeds,” she said.
Reminding that the Earth Day 2019 theme is “Protect our Species,” Lim said: “This is very much linked to the role of the other living things that we, humans, share the Earth with. The theme brings attention to the alarming decline of plants and animal species because of man-made threats. Much like the situation with the bats in Boracay,” she said.