Conservationists push for Benham as protected area

A conservation group and its allies in the government and private sector are urgently pushing for the legal protection of Benham Rise (renamed recently as Philippine Rise) as a marine protected area.

Oceana Philippines also said that Benham Bank, the shallowest portion of Benham Rise, should be declared a “no-take zone”where human activity is not allowed.

In a recent dialogue organized by Oceana, director Mundita Lim of the Biodiversity Management Bureau said that Benham Rise was designated as an Ecologically and Biologically Significant Marine Area (EBSA) by 196 countries during the 13th Meeting of the Convention of Parties (COP) to the Convention of Biological Diversity in Mexico in December 2016.

EBSAs are said to be “geographically or oceanographically discrete areas that provide important services to one or more species or populations of an ecosystem or to the ecosystem as a whole, compared to other surrounding areas or areas of similar ecological characteristics, or otherwise meet the following scientific criteria: uniqueness or rarity, special importance for life history stages of species, importance for threatened, endangered or declining species and/ or habitats, vulnerability, fragility, sensitivity or slow recovery, biological productivity, biological diversity and naturalness.”

Benham Rise scored high in four of the seven criteria, a global recognition of its importance, and of being pristine and unique.

The COP decision described Benham Rise as “relatively pristine … of critical ecological importance, including for offshore mesophotic coral reef biodiversity and for the sustainability of fisheries.”

It added that “aside from being an important source of biodiversity and contributing to the resiliency of threatened ecosystems,” Benham Rise was also cited as “forming part of the only known spawning area of the Pacific blue fin tuna, Thunnus orientalis.”

Other world famous EBSAs include the famed Galapagos Islands in Ecuador and the Rajah Ampat Park in Indonesia.

“We need to conduct more research on Benham Rise to know exactly what there is to protect,” said Lim, whose bureau is an attached agency of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.