Tuesday, June 8, 2010

News update Stronger law enforcement pushed for Palawan, Tawi-Tawi seas

An environmental group urged the government to fully implement an action plan that would beef up conservation efforts in the Turtle Islands and Balabac Strait in the southern Philippines following the arrest of Chinese poachers in the area recently.

"The rich biodiversity of Tawi-Tawit is already subjected to a multitude of internal threats like coral reef destruction, cyanide fishing, mangrove debarking and cutting, and wildlife trade," said Romeo Trono, country executive director of Conservation International (CI).

"Allowing the perpetuation of poaching operations, which capture marine species like turtles at massive commercial scales, will further decimate the marine resources upon which millions of people depend on," he added.

These Chinese fishers were arrested last May 27 for illegally catching sea turtles in Palawan. Edward Lorenzo Coast Guard and Bureau of Fisheries personnel arrested nine Chinese fishermen last May 27 after chasing their boat in the waters off Balabac municipality in southern Palawan, a major habitat and migratory passage of fish, sea turtles, and marine mammals.

The poachers are facing criminal charges for violating the Philippine Wildlife Conservation and Protection Act and the Fisheries Code, according to lawyer Adel Villena of the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development (PCSD).

"They were seen throwing the animals overboard and the arresting officers saw evidence inside the boat of animal slaughter," she told GMANews.TV in a telephone interview.

The PCSD and CI-Philippines are among several agencies that have crafted an action plan "addressing illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing" in the Balabac Strait and the Turtle Islands in Tawi-Tawi.

Other agencies involved are the Philippine National Police-Maritime Group, Philippine Navy, Philippine Coast Guard, Maritime Industry Authority, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and Department of Justice.

"The number of agencies involved, in itself, indicates the need for a mechanism to facilitate greater cooperation to ensure that conservation impacts are achieved," said Trono.

The alliance has appealed to the national government to issue an executive order that would formalize the adoption of the action plan and establish a lead agency for marine conservation efforts in the area.

"We’re pleased that the Action Plan is slowly being implemented and is yielding results such as this arrest, but we are also calling on the government for more high-level efforts to address this issue," Trono said.

The vessel of the Chinese poachers caught in the Balabac Strait in southern Palawan. Edward Lorenzo An interpreter for the Chinese poachers said they were part of a bigger group in five boats that had entered Philippine waters, Villena said. “I tend to believe them because we recovered 18 ID cards and they gave us all the names and ages of the others who were left behind," she added.

Majority of the illegal fishers that have been caught in Palawan since 1995, when the PCSD started keeping records of arrests, came from China, Villena said. An estimated 900 Chinese fishers have been arrested so far, she added.

Balabac is home to green and hawksbill turtles, while the Turtle Islands support the greatest number of nesting green sea turtles in Southeast Asia. The carapace of sea turtles is highly prized in other countries as material for fashion jewelry, combs, and brushes.

A marine turtle or “pawikan" crawls on the sandy shores of Baguan in the Turtle Islands in Tawi-tawi. CI-Philippines Aside from Balabac, another hotspot for sea turtle poaching is El Nido in northern Palawan. From 2000 to 2008 alone, over a thousand foreigners, mostly Chinese, have been arrested for illegal fishing in the waters of Palawan, according to the environmental group WWF-Philippines. – with a report from Yasmin Arquiza