TAGBILARAN CITY, Bohol - To mitigate the effects of climate change on the environment, authorities here are calling on every Boholano to join hands and plant mangroves.
The Provincial Environment and Natural Resources Office (PENRO) and the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (Cenro) in Bohol have formed mangrove planting teams for a massive mangrove planting activity in Tagbilaran, Dauis, and Panglao last June 10 and in Clarin town this coming June 21. The overall objective of both these mangrove planting activities is to mitigate the effects of climate change in the province.
Aside from mangroves' effectivity in easing soil erosion and serving as spawning areas for a myriad of marine resources, mangrove ecosystems is also an efficient sieve that screens off garbage and preventing these from being washed out to pollute seawaters, explains PENRO Officer Nestor Canda. Mangroves also slow down tidal water to a point where its sediments are deposited as the tide comes in, leaving all except fine particles when the tide ebbs, building their own environment, said Canda.
Bohol hosts two mangrove forests, the Banacon Island Mangrove Forest in Getafe, which is now an eco-tourist destination with an approximate area of 425 hectares, and the Candijay Mangrove Forest, which is one of the most diverse in the country and boasts of at least 36 mangrove species.
One such species, referred to as bakauan in the dialect, live in inter-tidal areas which are inundated daily by the tides, adapting to brackish water conditions and are salt-tolerant. These trees grow tall, with their roots holding them up in soft mud, helping them to breathe. The trees look physically attractive, with their roots emerging from their branches.
Mangroves are the biggest and most productive sources of food for coastal communities but studies in the past decade reveal that some estimated 150,000 hectares (370,050 acres) of mangroves per year or about 1% per annum of mangrove forests are lost, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization
