Mangrove Swamp – Responsibilities Of Fishers & Responsibilities Of Media
(Bohol mangrove forest bottom image[1] from
Boholphilippines.com)
I have had firsthand experiences with mangroves and
appreciate their natural wealth that people can enjoy, varieties of sea foods
and recreation. I was Editor In Chief of the Forest Research Institute (FORI)
from 1975 to 1981; for the 3 FORI publications – monthly newsletter Canopy, quarterly technical journal Sylvatrop, and quarterly color magazine Habitat – I had to travel with my staff
to Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao to cover and/or check the progress of research
and/or developments in forest ecosystems. So we saw and took photographs of,
among other sites, mangroves.
If you didn’t know, among other things, says the US National
Ocean Servic
Mangrove forests
stabilize the coastline, reducing erosion from storm surges, currents, waves,
and tides. The intricate root system of mangroves also makes these forests
attractive to fish and other organisms…
And many of those fish and organisms are food for us humans.
Oh, I love the giant crabs! (inset crab image[3] from
The Fish Site)
Now then, considering mangroves, under Manila Bulletin’s Environment And Nature, Specials section, on 14 July 2021 appears
this article: “NGCP’s Mangrove Project Now A Protected Area And Ecotourism
Site” – a very welcome piece of news if you ask me. Written by ANN (Author Not Named), all
397 words of it, published with 3 huge pictures (the first one seen uppermost),
that piece of news is very heartening for me who visited several mangrove areas
in the late 1970s as I worked for FORI. When fishermen exploit the fisheries
resources of a mangrove with careful attention to conservation, avoiding
overfishing, the mangrove swamp with its natural wealth will outlast all those
fishermen!
Unlike in the topmost photograph, where you see the little
family is planting some seedlings, that’s all. It’s all water up to the trees
in the background. There is a lot of work to do – and plenty of years to wait
for the mangrove trees to grow and encourage fishes, crustaceans etc to live
there and multiply.
Where
the photograph comes from, the title of the feature story is this: “NGCP’s
Mangrove Project Now A Protected Area And Ecotourism Site.” 3 huge photographs
are included, none of them showing any mangrove visitor – none showing mangrove
trees either!
The article says members of a fishers’ association were
engaged to plant initially 50,000 mangrove seedlings for the reforestation
project in 2018.
After three years of
continuous management and monitoring, the site is now home to more than 46,000
mangroves of three different species.
Do you see a mangrove swamp in this picture? Neither do I!
And there is no mention of mangrove denizens like crabs and
crustaceans having come back – this is “an ecotourism site”?
The
last part of this essay is a lesson for journalists as well as feature editors
of media: If you don’t show what you’re talking about, what are you talking
about?!@517
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