The Manila Bay, world-famous for its beautiful sunset, has been in the news in the past days over the so-called white-sand beach-nourishment project.
However, amid the controversial project is the relatively quiet initiative, the “Nilad para sa Maynila,” for a five-year mangrove-reforestation project worth P3 million to bring back the iconic nilad mangrove in the tidal creeks of Manila.
It is part of regreening Manila Bay, as well as to make the place climate-change resilient.
To be implemented by the Ecosystems Research and Development Bureau (ERDB), the research and development arm of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the project is in partnership with the local government of the country’s capital city, Manila, in support of the Manila Bay Rehabilitation Program.
It is the “greening” part of the engineering interventions in Manila Bay, which has gained economic importance with its massive growth and development over the last half century.
However, along with development came the destruction of coastal and marine ecosystems, including the decimation of mangroves in many parts of the Manila Bay region.
What is nilad?
Scientifically called Scyphiphora hydrophyllacea, nilad is one of the 40 known mangrove species found in the Philippines.
Like all mangroves, it is a natural filter and a barrier to wave action, and helps in the removal and sequestration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Published botanical literature in the Philippines claimed that Manila got its name from nilad—”Maynila” to mean “dominated by nilad” or “there is nilad”—as the iconic mangrove species once thrived in Manila Bay, according to the Project Brief of the Nilad for Maynila.
Sadly, however, despite the many ecosystem goods and services the species provides, its population along the coast of Manila has been practically decimated.
Enhancing resiliency
The project aims to bring back nilad in the tidal creeks and river mouths in Manila, where they once thrived, and to enhance the city’s resilience to the worse impacts of climate change.
The plan involves the planting of young nilad trees grown from areas, such as Pagbilao, Quezon, through earth-balling.
The target launching would be in November as the ERDB is “still preparing the earth-balled planting materials to increase survival,” ERDB Director Henry Adornado told the BusinessMirror in a telephone interview on September 10.
As part of the project, Adornado said they conducted a survey of potential sites in Manila for nilad field planting and identified four potential project sites.
The sites are near Baseco in Tondo; a vacant lot adjacent to a floating restaurant near Hotel H2O in Intramuros; the back of new Sewage Treatment Plant building adjacent to the Manila Yacht Club; and the island or plant boxes along Baywalk on Roxas Boulevard.
Important ecosystems function
Like all mangroves, nilad, which is “endemic to Manila Bay,” plays very important ecosystems function, Assistant Secretary Ricardo Calderon said.
A forestry expert, Calderon, the concurrent director of the Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB), said bringing back nilad to Manila Bay will help nourish and revive life in the coastal and marine ecosystems.
Sought for reaction, Calderon told the BusinessMirror in a telephone interview on September 11 that mangroves are breeding ground of fish and mollusks—including crabs, shrimps and shellfish—hence, making mangrove forest a natural food-production area.
“In our mangrove reforestation project in Cebu, fishermen no longer need to go further out of the sea to fish. They just fish in the mangrove area,” Calderon said.
Green and grey intervention
Calling “Nilad for Maynila” a laudable “green” intervention in Manila Bay, he said there are areas in the bay that are naturally inhabited by mangroves, such as nilad.
One of the areas is the Las Piñas-Parañaque Wetland Park, also known as the Las Piñas-Parañaque Critical Habitat and Ecotourism Area, which was declared a Ramsar Site because it has been identified as a migratory bird site as it is visited by tens of thousands of birds every year.
A Ramsar Site is a wetland of international importance under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, an intergovernmental environmental treaty established in 1971 by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It came into force in 1975 in Ramsar, Iran.
“There are certain areas where mangroves can survive, especially those with brackish water. It is their preferred habitat. They usually grow in mouths of rivers,” he said.
He said the ERDB has identified areas that are suited for mangrove reforestation during previous studies conducted with DENR-BMB experts.
Regreening Manila Bay, Calderon said, is needed the same way as the “grey” intervention or hard engineering, such as the construction of a breakwater that will cushion the impact of a tsunami or storm surge during strong typhoons as mangroves do not survive in some coastal areas.
Mangroves-rich Pagbilao
According to Adornado a project site of the ERDB in the Pagbilao mangrove swamp, he said, has wildlings and saplings of nilad enough to bring patches of green to Manila Bay.
“Careful consideration will be made not to injure the root system during the extraction of the planting materials,” the ERDB Project Brief of the Nilad for Maynila said.
To diversify the species composition, not only nilad will be earth-balled and used for out-planting and regreening. It will also use the species that live closely with nilad, such as the endangered gapas-gapas and tawalis, the project brief added.
It said the earth-balled materials will be reared in the Pagbilao mangrove nursery for two months for recovery and conditioning. After which, they will be transported to Manila.
Beyond Manila
According to Adornado, while the project is initially set only for Manila, they are eyeing to cover other areas around Manila Bay, such as Parañaque and Cavite, and beyond.
“The City of Manila is just a pilot area for the project. When perfected, we will replicate it in other areas, and encourage other concerned offices to revert back mangrove trees around Manila Bay,” he said.
Adornado underscored the importance of regreening Manila Bay, taking note that mangrove that naturally protects coastal communities have been decimated by destructive human activities over the years.
Nilad, for one, is important because it naturally occurs in the Manila Bay region.
“The entire Manila Bay, spanning from Cavite to Bataan, has about 994 hectare covered by mangroves. We don’t know yet how much of this 994 ha is covered by nilad. But in the coast of Manila City alone, this species is practically not visible despite its historic role in having Manila’s name [taken from it],” Adornado said.
A welcome development but…
Asked for comments, environmental groups welcomed the project but chided the measly budget allotted for what they described as the “right path” to Manila Bay rehabilitation.
Atty. Gloria Estenzo Ramos, vice president of Oceana Philippines, a nongovernment oceans conservation advocacy group, said bringing back nilad where Manila got its name is “good.”
“That’s good but they [project proponents] are supposed to plant them [nilad] in their natural habitat,” said Ramos, who lamented the fact that many mangrove areas are being threatened by destructive development projects in Manila Bay.
Leon Dulce, national coordinator of Kalikasan-People’s Network for the Environment, said the DENR leadership should fully support the ERDB initiative to restore mangroves in Manila Bay.
He pointed out that more budget should go to mangrove reforestation.
“Imagine the ecosystem restoration that is possible if ERDB’s P3-million budget is bolstered by the P389-million fund allocation wasted on the Manila Bay white sands. It would benefit the Filipino people in terms of food security, pollution and erosion control, eco-tourism, and natural beautification,” he told the BusinessMirror via Messenger on September 15.
Meanwhile, citing a study by Primavera and Esteban in 2008, Fernando Hicap, national chairman of the fisherfolk organization Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya), said mangrove planting costs at least $607.7 or P28,881.6 per hectare.
This means, he said, that the P3-million budget for the project could only plant at least 104 hectares of mangroves compared to the thousands of hectares already destroyed by reclamation projects over the past decades.
“We question the measly budget for mangroves when there is almost a whopping P400 million for a comparatively useless beach nourishment project through dolomite filling,” Hicap said via Messenger on September 14.
“The DENR’s mangrove-patches project reeks of a cover-up of its dolomite white-sand fiasco,” the Pamalakaya leader added.
Such “measly” budget, he lamented, would do little to nothing in the rehabilitation of Manila Bay because reclamation projects that wipeout remaining mangroves are pushing through.
“If the DENR is really sincere in its mangrove reforestation, it must thoroughly study, along with the communities and the science sector, which critical areas should be rehabilitated and the appropriate types of mangroves to be installed. Otherwise, it would be another waste of public funds,” Hicap said.
“Moreover, they should scrap all the environmental compliance certificates issued to big-ticket reclamation projects in Manila Bay,” he said.
Image credits: DENR/SCIS