Siargao Island in the Philippine Sea became known to the world for its surfing sites but in the aftermath of Supertyphoon Odette (also known as Typhoon Rai), another feature of the island is getting attention: its mangroves, which have been credited with helping protect adjacent communities from the severest impact of the storm in December 2021.
According to reports from those who survived the destruction that Odette brought to the Visayas and Mindanao regions several days before Christmas, Siargao’s mangrove forests protected residents from a storm surge headed toward Del Carmen, one of the nine municipalities on the island.
The municipality boasts the largest mangrove forest in the Philippines, covering 4,871ha. Siargao is also the country’s largest protected area under the National Integrated Protected Area System Act due to its 8,620ha mangrove forest.
Extreme storms like Odette and Yolanda highlight the need for building what Mindanao marine scientist Jurgenne Primavera calls “coastal greenbelts”. Primavera, recognised by Time magazine as a “Hero of the Environment” in 2008 for her work on mangrove ecosystem conservation, has called for legislation that would create a belt of mangrove forests across the Philip-pines to protect coastal communities from severe disasters.
This undertaking is even more urgent since – as the World Economic Forum warned in 2019 – over a third of the world’s mangroves have disappeared, and they are being cleared faster than tropical rainforests due to land reclamation for agriculture, industrial development and infrastructure projects.
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https://www.thestar.com.my/news/focus/2022/01/16/filipino-environmental-defender-calls-for-more-coastal-greenbelts