Mangrove Revegetation Potentials of Brackish-Water Pond Areas in the Philippines - Aquaculture and the Environment: A Shared Destiny - page 38

PRESSURE
•

Absence of an efficient and
effective national program
on mangrove and brackish-
water pond management

RESPONSE
•

Mapping and
inventory of mangrove
and brackish-water
pond areas

DRIVING FORCE
•

Aquaculture production

•

Continued exploitation for
wood products

•

Coastal developments

•

Human settlements

•

Reclassification of
mangrove areas under
A and D

•

Ineffective enforcement

•

Conduct of bio-
economic assessment
of present mangrove
and brackish-water
pond areas

STATE
•

> 50% denuded
mangrove areas

•

Drafting of national
mangrove and
brackish-water
management plan
with institutionalized
monitoring and
incentive system

•

93,785 ha of
mangrove still
categorized as
alienable and
disposable

IMPACT
•

•

Afforested mudflat
and seagrass beds

Loss of mangroves
ecological and economic
goods and services

•

Climate-smart
reforestation activities

•

Idle and
underutilized
brackish-water
ponds

•

Low production from
aquaculture ponds

•

Optimize fish yield
and reduce pond size
to as small as possible

•

Titled and
undocumented
ponds

•

Aquasilviculture

34

Fig. 4. DPSIR model on the state of mangrove forests and brackish-water ponds in the
Philippines.

2. Mangrove-pond ratio of selected aquaculture production centers in the
Philippines

As presented in the previous section, brackish-water ponds now occupy a large part of the
natural mangrove areas in the Philippines. In the provinces with the largest area of brackish-
water ponds in the Philippines, mangrove loss is more than 75% of the natural forest. The
mangrove-pond ratio in these areas ranges from 1:2 to 1:1,586 ( Table 4 ). However 44 to 99%
percent of these brackish-water pond areas are not covered by FLA ( Table 5). Figure 5
presents the potential mangrove extent and hectarage of brackish-water pond area, with or
without FLA in selected sites of the country. On the average, around 50% of the historical
mangrove areas in these selected sites were converted to brackish-water ponds with Iloilo
City having the highest percentage of converted area (90%). However, as in the situation in
many provinces around the country, not all of the brackish-water ponds have FLAs, on the
average only 40% are under the 25-years lease agreement with the government ( Table 6 ).
Worse, only 60% of these FLAs are still active. What could have happened to the other
mangrove areas that were converted to brackish-water ponds? One possible answer to this
is that the other areas have land titles or undocumented as in the case of the 72 has (92%) of
ponds in Lian, Batangas.