Interest in mangroves rekindled in Visayas
Cabucgayan is a fifth-class municipality on the southeastern coast of Biliran. Most of its population of about 21,000 are fisherfolk, and the town had long relied on the sea for food and livelihood.
But things are slowly changing in Cabucgayan. And much of the change is fuelled by a renewed interest in the mangrove.
A shrub or small tree that grows where saline or brackish water laps at the shoreline, the mangrove had been providing the coastal towns like Cabucgayan with a steady of source of firewood and the material for fashioning tool handles, fences and furniture.
Its traditional uses have long been recognized, but it is only now that the true versatility of the mangrove is beginning to be appreciated.
The role of mangroves as a natural buffer that protects vulnerable coastlines from the ravages of a storm surge gained prominence after Super Typhoon Yolanda in 2013. Government officials doing a post-mortem on the effects of the tempest found that growths of mangrove helped minimize the damage unleashed by the monster waves that battered coastal communities in Leyte. That’s because the mangrove’s tangle of roots has the ability to hold the soil together and prevent erosion.
That sparked intense interest in adopting mangrove as a natural defense against an angry sea. That initiative is fast gaining momentum.
The PH Haiyan Advocacy Cooperative, a nongovernment group campaigning for protection of the environment in Yolanda’s aftermath, is already on the ground in Tacloban City, laying the foundation for a mangrove-based program that includes rebuilding damaged coastal mangroves and starting a nursery that will supply saplings to build more mangrove forests in Eastern Visayas.
PH Haiyan’s target is to plant 383,318 mangrove trees in a 46-hectare area in Tacloban. Last year, it concentrated on rehabilitating 12 hectares of mangrove areas in Tacloban’s Barangay Tagpuro.
Mangroves also are the natural choice to protect inland areas during storms. And mangrove forests provide homes for several species of plants and animals.