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Leyte
Governor Carlos Jericho Petilla (left) together with
Presidential Assistant for Central Visayas Felix Guanzon,
Bohol Governor Erico Aumentado and a representative
for the province of Southern Leyte recently signed in
Bohol the Memorandum of Agreement adopting the Cebu,
Leyte, Bohol, Southern Leyte (CeLeBoSoLe) Growth Quadrangle
focusing on the coastal resource management of the Danajon
Bank which boundaries overlap that of the four provinces.
The MOA also adopts the Danajon EcoFIRM Project that
aims to rehabilitate, conserve, protect and manage the
Danajon Growth Quadrangle and integrates population
management with it. (PMRC) |
Visayas
govs move to jointly protect
the only double barrier reef in RP, Southeast Asia
In
order to protect, preserve and manage the Danajon Double Barrier
Reef, the only documented double barrier reef in the Philippines
and in the whole of Southeast Asia, four Visayas Governors
signed a memorandum of agreement on April 18 in Tagbilaran
City, Bohol.
This
was learned from Leyte Governor Carlos Jericho Petilla who
said that the 272-square meter Danajon Bank which is located
off northern Bohol and surrounded by the provinces of Cebu,
Leyte and Southern Leyte, is teeming with rich and diverse
marine flora and fauna, having Southeast Asia’s largest
man-made mangrove forest located at the Banacon Island off
the coast of Getafe town in Bohol.
Danajon
Bank cuts across 16 municipalities and two cities in the four
provinces in the Visayas which is within the bastions of the
so-called “Millionaire’s Club,” in terms
of population, eight in Bohol, two in Cebu, four in Leyte
and one in Southern Leyte.
These
municipalities are Tubigon, Clarin, Inabanga, Buenavista,
Getafe, Bien Unido, Trinidad, Ubay, Pres. Carlos P. Garcia
and Talibon in Bohol; Lapulapu City and Cordova in Cebu; Matalom,
Bato, Hilongos and Hindang in Leyte; and Maasin in Southern
Leyte.
Danajon
Bank is a very rare geological formation because it comprises
two sets of large coral reefs that formed offshore on a submarine
ridge due to a combination of favorable tidal currents and
coral growth in the area. It is believed that the reefs were
formed over the last 6,000 years.
Danajon’s
double barrier reef is a larger and better-defined structure
than other known double barrier reefs in the world. The outer
reef lies 11 km offshore, and is composed of several units
up to 23 km long each. The inner barrier is 2 km wide and
separated from the littoral by an inshore channel 26 m deep
at most.
Over
the years, the Governors of the four provinces observed, that
the condition of Danajon Bank has been in an alarming state
due to the extremely high fishing pressure, rapid population
growth in the coastal towns surrounding it, and the inefficient
and inefficient coastal resource management programs and policies.
Thus,
during the CeLeBoSoLe Growth Quadrangle Convention on Poverty,
Population and Environment held in Tagbilaran City, Governors
Gwendolyn Garcia of Cebu, Carlos Jericho Petilla of Leyte,
Erico Aumentado of Bohol and Damian Mercado of Southern Leyte
signed a Memorandum of Agreement which automatically created
the CeLeBoSoLe Council and Technical Working Group, which
are inter-regional, multi-province, and multi-agency body.
The
MOA aims to address the issues and concerns affecting food
security, poverty reduction over population, maintenance of
the biodiversity at the Danajon Bank Barrier Reef, and the
enforcement of fishery laws though a participatory convergence
approach of the various stakeholders of said rare natural
bountry.
The
joint and borderless Danajon Bank Double Barrier Reef undertaking
is an unprecedented move that is expected to contribute tremendously
to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals specifically
on the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, the promotion
of gender equality and empowerment of women and ensuring sustainability
of environmental and natural resources. (PIA 8)
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