(Refer to Map 8 of Appendix for MPA sites and other relevant areas)

6.1 Coastal and Marine Ecosystems
The Philippines is an archipelago consisting of over 7,100 islands. It is located entirely in the tropics in the western Pacific Ocean, near the centre of diversity for many marine organisms such as molluscs and corals. Most types of tropical coastal ecosystems such as coral reefs, seagrass beds and mangrove forests are found in the country. Coral reefs are widespread, and may be found around almost the entire archipelago except perhaps in some portions of north and south central Mindanao and east of northern Luzon. It has an estimated total area of 25,000 km2, which is almost 10% of the total land area (Gomez et al. 1994). Well-developed reefs are found in the Visayan Islands, around Palawan, on shoals in the Sulu Sea and the South China Sea. In addition, more mangroves may be found in west Visayas and west of southern Luzon (WCMC, undated). The few primary stands of mangroves left are mostly found in Palawan, Samar (west Visayas) and Mindanao (Spalding et al. 1997).

6.2 Species of Significance
The Philippines is one of the megadiversity countries (Roberts et al. 2002) but is also one of the most highly threatened. The country is at the junction of three bio-geographic zones: I (west), III (south and central) and IV (east). The nation includes three sub-zones of zone III: III-16, III-17 and III-X (central Visayas). Sixteen out of the 20 seagrass species in the East Asian region have been found here (Fortes 1994). The country is part of the world’s centre of marine biodiversity—the coral triangle—with at least 410 coral and 1030 coral reef fish species (Jacinto et al. 2000). After Indonesia, it has the most coral reefs in the region.

Five species of turtles: Green, Hawksbill, Olive Ridley, Loggerhead and Leatherback, have been recorded, with the Green and Hawksbill being the most common. A total of 22 species of marine mammals has been recorded (Jacinto et al. 2000). It is believed that dugongs used to be found throughout the archipelago but excessive hunting and destruction of seagrass beds have reduced their range. At present, Palawan and Sarangani are the only provinces where regular sightings of dugongs occur. The Tanon Strait between Negros and Cebu Islands, and the Bohol sea are considered the most important cetacean sites in the country although dolphins and whales can be found in other areas in Central Visayas, Palawan and Northern Mindanao. Important species being hunted are whale sharks, manta rays, giant clams and all turtle species.

6.3 Legislation and Management Framework
The Philippines has a long history in marine environment management. In addition to traditional tribal customs dating hundreds of years back, as early as the 1870s, fishing was regulated in milkfish-fry collection areas. The first marine park in Southeast Asia is believed to be the Hundred Islands National Park on the west coast of Luzon Island, established in 1940 (White 1988). In addition to National Parks, a loose system of Municipal Marine Parks has been growing since the late 1970s (Castañeda and Miclat 1981, Gomez et al. 1984), and new parks are in the planning stage (McManus et al. 1992). Since 1980, a large number of many different types of MPAs have been declared in the Philippines.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the Department of Agriculture’s Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (DA-BFAR) are the two government agencies mainly responsible for the national planning, policies and evaluation of the Philippine marine environment. In particular, the DENR’s Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau (PAWB) is responsible for marine protected areas and wildlife; the DENR’s Coastal Environment Project, for coastal monitoring and evaluation, and the DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau, for pollution management. However, much of the actual management authority and implementation has been decentralized to the local government units (especially the Municipal level) after the ratification of the Local Government Code of 1991. In 1992, Republic Act 7586 provided for the establishment and management of a National Integrated Protected Areas System (NIPAS). The Fisheries Code of 1998 (Republic Act 8550) mandates in Section 80 the setting aside of 15% of municipal waters for fish sanctuaries and allows 25-40% of fishing grounds beyond municipal waters for fish sanctuaries or mangrove reserves.

The three major DENR marine protected area/coastal management projects - PAWB’s Conservation of Priority Protected Areas Project (CPPAP), National Integrated Protected Areas Programme (NIPAP) and the Coastal Resources Management Project (DENR/USAID), co-funded by the World Bank-Global Environment Facility, the European Union and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) respectively - are all winding down. It remains to be seen if the DENR will be able to sustain the momentum of these largely foreign-funded initiatives. Currently, the Fisheries Resource Management Program (FRMP), which is the second phase of the Fisheries Sector Program (FSP), is the major DA-BFAR initiative. FRMP aims to help manage the fisheries resources in 18 of the country’s bays/gulfs. In the FSP, the various components of its strategy in each bay/gulf were sub-contracted to several parties whose activities were not necessarily always well coordinated or integrated. It remains to be seen if FRMP would suffer the same flaw. The Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act (AFMA) also has initiatives aimed to advance the nation’s fisheries management, specifically projects on marine fishery reserves, fisheries and oceanography, and upgrading of the national fisheries monitoring and evaluation database.

The activities of local non-government organisations (NGOs) have risen in the country especially since the late-Marcos and early-Aquino periods. Established local NGOs with a history of working on coastal issues include the Haribon Foundation for the Conservation of Nature, the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement, Tambuyog Development Center, Centre for Empowerment and Resource Development, Environmental Legal Action Center, World Wide Fund for Nature-Philippines (a.k.a. Kabang Kalikasan ng Pilipinas) and some of the various members of PHILDHRRA in the Visayas and Mindanao.

The passage of the NIPAS Act and the Local Government Code, the formation of the PAWB, and the Adoption of the Strategic Environmental Plan for Palawan (1992), are examples of a stronger PA management system (Baling 1995). The NIPAS will be applied
to “outstanding remarkable areas and biologically important public lands that are habitats of rare and endangered species of plants and animals, bio-geographic zones and related ecosystems, whether terrestrial, wetland or marine, all of which shall be designated as protected areas” and can only be effectively administrated “through cooperation among national government, local government and concerned private organizations” (DENR 1992). The ten priority sites of the Integrated Protected Areas System (IPAS) Project administrated by DENR, include four marine sites: Batanes Islands (N.Luzon), Apo Reef (Mindoro), Turtle Islands (Sulu Sea) and Siargao Island (N. Mindanao). Including these IPAS priority sites, there are 12 different types of MPAs in the country (Table 6.2). A detailed description of the legal framework, jurisdiction, implementing agency and objectives of each type is beyond the scope of this Review.

Among the Southeast Asian countries, the Philippines has the most number of marine protected areas: over 500 as of last count (Aliño et al. 2000). Its environmental legislation (Table 6.1) is also probably one of the most advanced in the region (Tan 2000, Jacinto et al. 2000).

The country has also ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity, the ASEAN Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and MARPOL. World Heritage or UNESCO Man and Biosphere siteshave also been established.

6.4 Extent of Existing Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) System
Due to overlapping jurisdictions among management agencies, the total number of MPAs designated in the Philippines can only be estimated. Table 6.3 shows an increase in the number of MPAs from 1995 to 2000. A non-exhaustive compilation by Kelleher et al. (1995) listed a total of 252 coastal and marine protected areas. This compilation includes protected areas that are not strictly marine, such as the 83 Mangrove Swamp Forest Reserves (MSFR) and 65 Tourist Zone Marine Reserves (TZMR). It should also be noted that some of the sites belong to more than one category such as Sumilon Island, which has been designated as FS, NMR, MCRP and CEP (Baling 1995). The coverage of the MPA system is skewed in favour of the Visayas (see also Aliño et al. 2000). MPAs have been designated in 37 of the 54 coastal provinces of the country (Table 6.3). Two thirds (69%) of these MPAs are found in the central and eastern Philippines (Visayas region) and less than a quarter (22%) in the south and southeast (Mindanao region). There are relatively few MPAs in the west and southwest Philippines (Palawan and Sulu Sea region) or in the far north (only five on the west coast and four on the east coast of Luzon). Note, however, that despite the large number of MPAs in the Visayas region, about half is mangrove sites (MSFR) or tourist zones (TZMR), which receive relatively little protection. Although there are relatively few MPAs in Palawan, the entire province has been designated as an MSFR. The feasibility of managing such a large area in the framework of the Strategic Environment Plan for Palawan will be tested by the rapid population growth there. (Refer to Table 6.5 and Map 8 for a condensed list of the100 most significant MPAs - in terms of prominence, size and provincial representation.)

6.5 Evaluation of MPAs - Status, Threats and Management
Conditions: Due to the leadership of the University of the Philippines-Marine Science Institute (MSI), the Silliman University Marine Laboratory and the Coral Reef Division of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, the Philippines has the strongest coral reef research programme in Asia. This has resulted in most sections of the country being well surveyed, some repeatedly and in great detail although many study sites were not within protected areas. Most marine survey work in the Philippines have concentrated on coral reef resources, but, considerable attention has been given to seagrass, mangrove communities as well as particular organisms of interest such as dugongs, sea snakes and algae. Extensive surveys of coral cover in 735 coral reef sites between 1987 and 1994 showed that 30.5% of the sites had live coral cover greater than 50%, the rest <50% (Gomez et al. 1994; Wilkinson et al. 1994). Fish populations were reported to be low at all sites. Based on the results, it was concluded that many Philippine reefs were in “critical” condition. However, Gomez et al. (1994) pointed out that live coral cover is not the sole indication of the healthiness of coral reefs as the cover can be affected by physical factors such as substrate types and exposure to waves and typhoons.

Threats: About two-thirds of the Philippines’ 70M population live in the coastal area (Chua 1997); this translates to around 174 persons/km2 (Bryant et al. 1998). Over 10 million people live in the National Capital Region (Manila and the surrounding area). Philippine coral reefs are mainly threatened by fishing (overfishing and destructive fishing), sedimentation and pollution (domestic, agricultural and industrial [including mining]). Pollution is most intense in the centres of coastal development: Metro Manila and Cebu and nearby major Visayan cities; however, coastal development threat is moderate in all areas except E Luzon and W Mindanao. Coastal overfishing and sedimentation threats are high nationwide, except in northern Palawan and far western Mindanao where overfishing is moderate and sedimentation is low. However, destructive fishing is also most prevalent in northern Palawan, far western Mindanao and central Visayas (WRI 2002). The loss of mangroves has mainly been due to their conversion to fishponds.

Threats to the successful implementation of MPAs in the Philippines are rapid population growth, high demand for marine products, lack of employment other than marine resource extraction, law enforcement constraints, and poverty (McManus 1988). The Philippines has the highest per capita seafood consumption rate in Southeast Asia (33.8 kg/year) and a high ratio of people to coastline (3,000/km2) (Wilkinson et al. 1994). The number of coastal inhabitants dependent on coral reef resources may reach several tens of thousands per square kilometer of coral reef. This situation places intense pressure on the remaining resources.

Anthropogenic impacts on coral reefs in the Philippines cover the full range from direct exploitation to indirect damage (Hodgson 1992). The most serious anthropogenic threat to coral reefs in the Philippines is believed to be siltation from poorly managed land uses (Hodgson and Dixon 1988; Hodgson and Dixon 1992). Other serious impacts are caused by pollution, mining, and destructive and unsustainable fishing methods (Gomez et al. 1994).

Nationwide, sedimentation due to poorly controlled land use is one of the major threats to MPAs as it threatens the coral reefs themselves (Gomez et al, 1994; Hodgson, pers.com). Poorly planned tourism development is another major threat to MPAs in the Philippines. The specific effects are building of piers and bunds that block water flow on the reef flat, discharging of untreated sewage, and providing reef access to large numbers of tourists without giving proper training on how to avoid damaging the reef. Still another threat to MPAs is pollution, primarily due to domestic sewage, which sometimes leads to toxic algal bloom. Industrial pollution in the form of mine tailings, is often compounded with excessive sedimentation after dredging operations; e.g. in Calancan Bay (Gomez et al. 1994). On the fisheries side, the major threat is overfishing due to high local and international demand. Although the curio trade causes exploitation of a wide variety of invertebrate and vertebrate species, it is not clear if the level of extraction is above a sustainable rate in or outside MPAs. Mangrove forests are under heavy pressure due to timber extraction for rough lumber, for charcoal making and to make way for fishponds. The first two threats are most important with respect to MPAs. Within MPAs, the major threats to seagrass beds are dredging of the seabed to create navigation channels (Figure 6.1).

The problem of destructive fisheries is strongly emphasised. Some of the tourismrelated impacts are exemplified as siltation, pollution and environmental destruction caused by development, and hence there is no peak in the tourism bar of the histogram. Notably, the impacts of human-induced threats are often compounded with natural to “semi-natural” events such as episodic storms, floods and crown-of-thorn starfish infestation. Marine scientists at the University of the Philippines-Marine Science Institute (UPMSI) and other institutions have been investigating and comparing the impacts of storms on shallow reefs at a large number of sites, and hold a database on site-specific coral reef stresses but are not presented here.

Management: The Philippines, like many other countries, has a problem with “paper parks”; i.e. those that have been legally designated on paper, but for which insufficient resources have been allocated to implement the protected area management strategy (Hodgson 1992). The problems can range from a lack of funds to buy gasoline for patrol boats, to a complete lack of any resource to carry out any action. As in developed countries (McNeill 1994), the management of Philippine MPAs and achievement of conservation goals suffer to some extent from legislative and administrative instability, overlapping responsibilities among a large number of government agencies and NGOs with varying objectives and priorities.

An example of the successful cooperation of NGOs and government agencies in managing an MPA is the El Nido Marine Reserve in northern Palawan (Hodgson and Dixon 1988). In the early 1980s, tourist resorts established in El Nido have worked together with NGOs to plan and manage tourist activities in Bacuit Bay. The resort owners recognized that any damage to the marine life in the bay would be detrimental to their business. When threatened by illegal trawling and dynamite fishing inside the bay, the resorts provided logistic support (primarily food, gasoline and boats) to the enforcement agencies to enable them to carry out their enforcement roles.

Perhaps one of the nations’ strongest points has been its history of developing community-based coastal resources management. In two well-documented cases - Sumilon Island (Cebu) and Apo Island (Negros) in the Visayas - MPAs have been successful in achieving management objectives (Russ and Alcala 1999; White 1989). In both these cases, however, the MPAs were geographically isolated. It has proven difficult to replicate these MPA models in other areas of the Philippines without natural barriers to exploitation by outsiders. Brief reviews of the status of MPAs in the Philippines have been given by White, (1988), Gomez et al. (1982), UNEP/IUCN (1988), and Aliño et al.
(2000).

The UP-MSI, the Silliman University, the UP-Visayas (Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanology and College of Arts and Sciences), the University of San Carlos Marine Biology Section and the Mindanao State University-Naawan are among major academic institutions involved in Coastal environment research; some even have MPA monitoring programmes. The DENR’s Coastal Environment Project, the Earthwatch Institute (c/o Alan T. White) and the DENR/US-AID’s Coastal Resource Management Project are other organisations with MPA monitoring programmes. (Refer to Uychiaoco et al. (2002) for an updated assessment of Philippine MPAs, and Ong (2002) and Ong et al. (2002) for the results of the National Biodiversity Priority Setting Workshop.

6.6 Proposed Marine Protected Areas (MPAs)
From a marine bio-geographical perspective, there are three major regions in the Philippines: the East Coast, the central islands, and the West Coast including Palawan and the Spratly Islands (Hodgson, pers.comm). This division is overlain by a north-south latitudinal gradient with cooler water and fewer species in the far north than in the south. The IPAS project distinguished six bio-geographic divisions (Aliño et al. 1992) while Gomez et al. (1994) developed a more detailed bio-geographic classification of the country. Although the exact locations of many MPAs are not clear, all the bio-geographic divisions, whichever classification system is used, contain gazetted MPAs in widely varying numbers. However, there are three obvious gaps where few or no MPAs have been established: the East Coast of the Philippines, the Celebes Sea, and the reefs and islands of the Spratly Islands under Philippine claim. Due to difficult access and/or rebel activity and/or political instability, these areas are poorly studied except for parts of the Spratly Islands where Filipino, Vietnamese, Russian and Chinese scientists have conducted surveys.

6.7 Gaps in the Marine Protected Area System
The national parks system needs strengthening through application of the communitybased approaches, which have mostly been successfully applied but only on very small scales.

6.8 Priority Sites
Priority MPAs have been selected (Table 6.2) from a preliminary list of 30 priority sites of Aliño and Uychiaoco (Table 6.3), including two of regional priority. Tubbataha Reef warrants global priority as it has been accepted as a World Heritage Site since 1993 due to its extensive coral reefs and active community and government support. The Turtle Islands (composed of nine islands), which harbour 80% of the country’s population of nesting Green Turtles, can contribute substantially to turtle conservation if joint management plans are effectively implemented with the three neighbouring turtle islands of Sabah, Malaysia.

A number of the priority MPAs selected are very small and in close proximity to each other. These may be grouped as a bigger priority site to strengthen their priority and integrity. For example, Apo Island, Sumilon Island, Panglao-Balicasag and Pamilacan Islands in the C. Visayas could form one priority network that is managed as a unit.

Putting aside political criteria, the Sulu and Tawi-tawi area at the southernmost end of the Philippines may be rated as regional priority as well. This large area is extremely difficult to manage however, due to the insurgency problems that can effectively place them out of government control. At a minimum, special educational efforts will be needed to reach the disparate cultural groups inhabiting these areas if any support for government plans is to be gained. It is not sure if there is any existing MPA among these islands. If better information could be obtained, conservation efforts could be concentrated on specific islands chosen in the area. Conflicting territorial disputes have made it difficult to declare the Spratlys as an MPA despite the area’s importance in sustaining fisheries in the Asian Seas region (McManus 1994). If political stability can be reached, however, such declaration jointly agreed and managed by the countries of interest will greatly benefit fishermen as well as regional marine biodiversity.

Few priority sites have been selected from areas of the country that are poorly known such as NE Luzon and SE Philippines and where few MPAs exist. More surveys are needed to gather baseline information to assess the conservation potential and priorities of these little-known areas. Also, few MPAs have been established in the northeastern part of the Philippines, specifically the coast facing the Pacific Ocean, and in the South China Sea region.

6.9 Priority Actions
The following recommendations are listed in order of priority.

Aliño et al. (2000) has also proposed the following 5-point agenda to serve as guidelines for future direction in MPA initiatives.