Nearly all of coral reefs in Escoda Shoal ''already dead'': UP professor
"Almost 100 percent" of the coral reefs in Escoda Shoal, also known as Sabina Shoal, are already dead, a professor from the University of the Philippines said Friday.
In a press conference in Manila, Jonathan Anticamara from the UP Institute of Biology explained that the corals in Sabina shoal are in different stages of degradation.
"The largest stage is either the corals are white or covered by brown algae, or it already crumbles... When I analyze the observations, I think if we were given time I predict, a majority or almost all shallow water of Escoda Shoal are now dead, the corals 'no. There is no space where we see any live corals left," he said.
"For me my interpretation is, that's really an ecological disaster for Escoda. If that happens across the West Philippine Sea, if you could remember we also went to Pag-asa we saw a lot of degradation there, the number of dead corals there was also high. So it means the West Philippine Sea is now in a very alarming and severely degraded state," he added.
Anticamara stressed that the Filipinos should understand the significant effect of this degradation to marine resources.
"The fish that remain there are those that survive from eating algae which we call herbivores and the number of the fish that are dependent on corals, or the corallivore, has reduced significantly. We only saw around two to four," he said.
"So the whole system is dominated by the herbivore and by the one centimeters, three centimeters long fish which we called planktivores because they eat planktons so they are not dependent on corals," he added.
Following the extent of degradation observed from Sabina Shoal, Anticamara recommends the regular and wider monitoring of marine ecosystems in the West Philippine Sea.
"So it's a real struggle in the next few years for the corals to come back unless we do something to help the corals come back and actively support the corals. So we need monitoring, additional research on how we can help the corals recover even the challenges of the corals now, not just from the thermal stress and now the fact that the entire coral structure are crumbling down," he said
"For me, our recommendation to have regular and wider monitoring of the West Philippine Sea to really see the picture of what is happening is very important for us to be able to help on how we can manage the situation," he added. Robina Asido/DMS
