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10 years after Haiyan, are mangroves protecting Philippine coastal areas? | Climate Crisis News<\/p>\n
Tacloban, The Philippines<\/strong> \u2013 Twice a month for the last 10 years, pig farmer Alejandro Sumayang has planted mangrove plants along the shoreline a few metres from his home.<\/p>\n Pushing a stick into the muddy ground, he creates a hole for the seedling, tying it to a piece of bamboo to prevent the tide from washing it away.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is what shields me,\u201d he said, crouching to inspect a recently planted row of plants.<\/p>\n The back of Sumayang\u2019s makeshift house faces the Pacific Ocean in the Philippines\u2019s central Leyte province. Ten years ago, on November 8, 2013, tsunami-like waves whipped up by Super Typhoon Haiyan crashed into his home in Silago, leaving only broken wooden beams standing amid the wreckage.<\/p>\n Haiyan was one of the strongest typhoons ever to make landfall. More than 6,300 people were killed as the storm swept across the island of Leyte, flattening homes and causing a storm surge that swamped entire neighbourhoods. The government said at least 13 million people were affected.<\/p>\n Leyte was struck again by a typhoon in December 2021. Typhoon Rai rivalled Haiyan\u2019s intensity.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d have lost my house again if we hadn\u2019t planted anything. From afar we could see the waves losing their momentum, breaking apart before they reached the shore,\u201d Sumayang told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n About 20 typhoons a year enter Philippine territory. For the last 12 years, the Southeast Asian archipelago has kept the top spot for the most vulnerable and at-risk country for natural disasters in the World Risk Index produced by Germany\u2019s Ruhr University Bochum.<\/p>\n In Haiyan\u2019s wake, several coastal communities began mangrove reforestation efforts, arguing nature was the most effective way to deal with the effects of climate change.<\/p>\n Four villages in Silago were among the first to start, working with NGOs and village officials to begin planting a year after the disaster. The characteristic bulbous roots and flat leaves of the varying types of mangrove now line 215sq km (83 sq miles) of the town\u2019s coastal area.<\/p>\n The Leyte Center for Development (LCDE), a humanitarian organisation which supported the planting in Silago, believes the plants helped save 2,000 coastal residents from Rai\u2019s onslaught.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is a testament to the effectiveness of an eco-systems-based approach and it cost the people practically nothing,\u201d said the LCDE\u2019s director Minet Aguisanda-Jerusalem.<\/p>\n There has been little support from any officials at the municipal level or above, however.<\/p>\n The government has instead backed man-made interventions including a vast concrete sea wall in Tacloban City, Leyte\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n Construction on the 16.9 billion Philippine peso ($304.5m) Storm Surge Protection Project (SSPP) began in 2016.<\/p>\n The 44.48km (27.6 miles) long concrete seawall was supposed to have been finished by 2020 but only 58 percent of the work has been done.<\/p>\n Delays have been caused by \u201cRight-Of-Way Acquisitions, fluctuating prices of materials [and] request of additional features in the tide embankment\u201d, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) regional office told Al Jazeera in an email.<\/p>\n Along some sections of the SSPP, the wall has already started to crack and crumble, exposing the steel rebars inside to the elements.<\/p>\n But the DPWH is standing by the project. In a report it shared with Al Jazeera, it advised engineering offices on the island \u201cto adopt the SSPP standards in protecting their shores all over the region\u201d.<\/p>\n Professor William Holden, an environmental geographer from the University of Calgary who is studying the situation in Tacloban, says that even when the wall is finished, it will probably not be enough to protect the city.<\/p>\n \u201cClimate change means warmer air holding more water and thus heavier rainfall events. So there\u2019s no way engineers can predict how big of a seawall to build. Future typhoons will eventually dwarf Haiyan,\u201d said Holden, who suspects the maintenance of the SSPP will also prove costly.<\/p>\n Jon Bonifacio, the national coordinator for the environmental advocacy group Kalikasan, worries the wall could even exacerbate the effects of climate change, because it risks trapping any water that enters the city during a storm and causing prolonged flooding.<\/p>\n He is also critical of the social cost of the project, which required thousands of coastal residents to leave their homes, separating them from their livelihoods. He faults the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr for continuing the state\u2019s \u201cobsession with grey infrastructure\u201d as it \u201cends up displacing impacts rather than eliminating climate change impacts\u201d.<\/p>\n The Philippines is home to 46 of the world\u2019s 70 species of mangrove trees and shrubs, which thrive in the tidal saltwater shallows where the land meets the sea.<\/p>\n While research has shown the plants help reduce coastal communities\u2019 vulnerability to tsunamis and storm surges, they are also under threat.<\/p>\n The Philippines is estimated to have lost about 49 percent of its mangrove forests since 1920.<\/p>\n Professor Eduardo Mangaoang, the founder of the Regional Climate Change R&D Center at Visayas State University in Leyte, urged authorities to heed the beneficial science behind mangroves.<\/p>\n \u201cThe stems and bodies are a natural breakwater system against strong waves. It stabilises and holds shoreline soil together and is a nursery for fish,\u201d Mangaoang explained to Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n In 2014, Jecel Espina-Pedel, a 14-year-old from Silago and a self-described \u201cnature lover\u201d, joined the hundreds of others in a coordinated mangrove planting effort.<\/p>\n Gazing out of her window, she remembers seeing the first leaves sprout in just six months. Within a few years, the surrounding soil was totally transformed.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ground went from rocky to muddy. We could see small holes which were new habitats. We looked under rocks and saw fish we\u2019d never seen here before,\u201d she explained, still thrilled by what happened.<\/p>\n Pedel comes from a family of fisherfolk. Before long, they were often eating shellfish for dinner and selling the rest of their catch by the roadside.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has multiple co-benefits: food sources, science-based, and it creates a carbon sink. It\u2019s internationally recognised. But locally, there isn\u2019t a comprehensive plan for this,\u201d Gerry Arances, the director of the Center for Energy, Ecology and Development in Manila, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n For mangroves to survive, the correct varieties of seedlings must be chosen and placed properly along the shore.<\/p>\n In 2015, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) drew flak for using improper methods in a 1 billion Philippine peso ($18m) mangrove reforestation project. In 2023, advocates again criticised the department for repeating the mistake in Bohol and Negros Occidental.<\/p>\n Mangaoang attributes the success in areas like Silago to the attention of local residents who continue planting while keeping the mangroves free of barnacles and other parasites.<\/p>\n The academic travels all over the region promoting mangroves. In his town of Baybay, Leyte, he finally convinced Mayor Jose Carlos Cari to support a community mangrove plan for next year, a first for the region.<\/p>\n Overall, Mangaoang says, community-coordinated mangrove planting is \u201cstill at the early stages. Coastal communities have a lot of local practices that need support. They themselves are scientists, they just don\u2019t know it.\u201d<\/p>\n The government, however, continues to expand its engineering interventions in Leyte.<\/p>\n In February of this year, construction began on the Tacloban City Causeway. According to the DPWH, the 4.5 billion Philippine peso ($81.1m) 2.5km (1.5 miles) road will reduce city travel time and \u201cprotect the life and property of the residents\/constituents in the area from erosive tidal actions\u201d.<\/p>\n The road embankment will be built on reclaimed land.<\/p>\n That entails bulldozing the mangroves along Cancabato Bay, classified as a protected area by the city for its biodiversity. The bay is a popular fishing ground and its mangrove density was increased by the local fishing community after Haiyan.<\/p>\n \u201cThere needs to be proper planning around these issues,\u201d said Ian Fry, the United Nations special rapporteur on the protection of human rights in the context of climate change, after visiting Tacloban during the 10th-year commemoration of Haiyan. He called the potential loss of mangroves a \u201cserious concern\u201d.<\/p>\n Roque Regis, a bay area community leader, estimates their own efforts have added an extra 30 percent to the bay\u2019s mangroves since Haiyan. He called the government \u201cdeaf\u201d for ignoring its own protections over the bay and residents\u2019 pleas to halt construction.<\/p>\n After the typhoon, \u201cthey displaced everyone living near the coast\u201d, Regis told Al Jazeera. \u201cNow they\u2019re set to do the same in Cancabato Bay. They want to \u2018clean up\u2019 the area for tourists. But they\u2019re taking down our homes and our fishing grounds.\u201d<\/p>\n With the Philippine government\u2019s response to climate disaster unfinished, affected communities remain convinced that the solution to future problems remains with nature.<\/p>\n They plan to persist in their defence of the trees that they believe both save and nurture them.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were doubters when we started planting, saying the mangroves would be home to snakes, or that they wouldn\u2019t work. But look at us here, we are protected. This is a gift to the people,\u201d said Sumayang.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u0627\u0644\u0645\u0635\u062f\u0631<\/a>Infrastructure \u2018obsession\u2019<\/h2>\n
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