The oarfish washed in Antique, Panay Island Philippines Photo by Nickson Calawag
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I am writing about what my fellow
Ilonggo Rock Drilon has posted on facebook about a deep water sea fish called
Oarfish washed the second time in nearby province of Antique which is beside my hometown
Iloilo. It is a rarity, even in many parts of the world, oarfishes are washed on shoreline.
Why this oarfish surfaced on the
beach, I have some probable reasons why.
1. The quality
of land will affect the quality of the sea especially the ocean floor—the bed
rock of our garbage and pollutants. Human
recklessness to nature invades the unseen. Contaminants can harm any living
creature.
Plastic mistaken as food, suffocates them and they die |
The so called Great Pacific Garbage Patch -an accummulation of non-biodagradable plastics from all over the world can kill all the animals on the ocean floor with irreversible effects. |
MATERIAL GREEDINESS. What if all of us citizens of the world sort our garbage than these kids will do the job for us? |
2.
The ocean floor is the barometer of our geological conditions including
tremors and earthquakes. Nature
itself can tell what is next to happen, like frogs croaking for the rain to
come. Oarfishes in Japan indicate there will be a forthcoming earthquake.
3, Climate
change. It has been a fact that because of global warming, sea creatures are
confused in which some fishes find themselves alienated to the ocean conditions
and migrate to where it is not their geographical abode. , ex. Tropical Lion
fishes living only in Indo-Pacific Ocean have migrated to the Western Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of
Mexico. It is something a mystery to scientists until today.
Scientists may have to trace where the Antique oarfish came from, ex., from which sea? Japan? South China Sea?
Possible causes this fish was
washed to the shore:
(1) The
Simirara Island mining in Antique may have its chemical pollutants in the ocean
floor as well and it affected it. It has its huge problems in environmental
compliances in many years as news reported it.
The ocean floor is like our hands we can see from the outside but what is really happening inside we may not know. |
(2) This fish
was most likely trapped in a strong broken
fish net in the ocean floor ( as they are deep sea creatures) and or ate
plastic garbage, it died, and washed away. (SEE MY COMPILED PICTURES).
Broken fishnet traps the animal forever
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(3) Old age (
perhaps battered by ocean floor movements ex, tetonic plates, so it died).Ex,
we had recent earthquakes and tremors in the country and abroad.
(4) Seeking for
food that is no longer there in the ocean. Oarfishes actually just eat small
crustaceans. So when we deplete them, or any other fishes, with their food it is because we abuse the
food cycle of marine creatures by over fishing what could have been food for
them.
If men were to eat plastic as well? |
It is a principle in environmental
science that WHAT WE SEE IS ONLY ON
LAND, BUT WE DO NOT SEE IS UNDERNEATH THE OCEAN. This is the most dangerous
lesson man should learn from our abuses
on land, that our ocean bed is the catch basin of all of pollutants and plastic
garbage.
Ergo, all cities in the Philippines
being a coastal country, including Iloilo City which has mounds of unsorted
garbage including plastics should create awareness and implement zero dangerous wastes
dumped on land and may eventually end up to the ocean.
If one visit the areas near Sooc, Arevalo it
is full of plastic scattered all over the place and rice fields. Sooc connects
to Iloilo River and up until the Iloilo Straight (between Guimaras and Panay
Islands) on to the sea and on to the ocean. Nature is not confined. It is an eco-system like our human body. Got a tootache? Your entire body can not function as well.
I work as a volunteer in Sooc and
created a project there called Project Zero to upcycle used tarps and plastics
in the city. Yet the entire Iloilo City and others in Panay except Boracay
Island do not segregate its garbage yet. Let us not wait until the super cities
in the old Iloilo airport rises to fill up our garbage bins with yet unsorted
garbage.
Our solid waste management is not
in place as I saw a facebook complaint about the methane gas emitted in Calajunan
dumpsite in Iloilo City. Our landfills have pernicious smell and full of
hazardous elements as we do not segregate our daily wastes at all. All
batteries, corrosive materials and plastics are mixed up with biogradable
garbage which could be recycled, ex, backyard garden fertilizers, and need not be collected by trucks which will
reduce Iloilo City its costs of hauling solid wastes to the dumpsites. There are easy solutions. It starts from our own homes. We dispose our garbage properly remembering we do not, our friends in the ocean will just all die.
I once wrote in facebook, the
litters at the Iloilo City port which may be thrown by the locals and the
tourists. And by its sheer promixity to the ocean, will all settle in the ocean
floor. I suggested then in that post that the City should already impose an anti-littering bill, having been successful
with its anti-smoking bill. A tooth for a tooth because others are so stubborn. Of course, I personally will be happy, if the city
stops all its fondness for tarpaulin billboards placing them just at any possible empty spaces
including our plazas. I recently posted in my facebook this concern.
In Boracay, no one will collect our
garbage if they are not segregated at all. I can attest to that becuase I am a
business owner, member of Boracay Foundation and resident there for years. We commissioned the UP Visayas College of Fisheries
and Ocean Sciences to study the marine eco-system of Boracay . The scientists
gave it a very good grade for its ocean floor which is very clean. Its corral
reefs and sea grasses are very healthy. But on the ocean floor, they collected garbage
specimen of “Chippy”, “Boy Bawang”, “ Stork”, “ Snow Bear” plastic wrappers and
department store plastic shopping bags---
all of them are of close affinities to locals who throw these on land and
washed to the sea. Of course, these can be mistaken as food by sea creatures.
In Hawaii, not a single plastic is allowed. In Makati, there is a stiff penalty
for stores using plastic bags except on wet food items.
Man's material greediness eaten by animals
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I was commissioned by the Metro
Manila Development Authority and the Manila Mayors Spouses Association with CITEM to create livelihood through Crafts
Ecology in all Metro Manila districts by upcycling garbage to useable
utilities. It is also teaching citizens the importance of how our ocean will suffer with our garbage on
land.
As member of the Society for
Sustainable Tourism and Development Inc (SSTDI) with pilot project in Coron,
Palawan teaching all to attain excellence in sustainable development, environmental conservation and stewardship to help mitigate climate change by implimenting green solutions. it starts from people being educated on this concern and this becomes an everday habit, not really imposing archaic rules which usually become co-terminus with public office.
I share with you all some of my
lecture slides related to the symbiotic relationship of land and sea which I
presented to the organic rice farmers of Zarraga Integrated Diversified Organic
Farmers Association in Iloilo last week. It taught them the value of sustainability
being not confined to any specific territory rather as a matter of global
concern with each dot connected to one another.The farmers appreciated how they
need to stop horrendous amounts of chemicals and pesticides for decades which certainly
can be washed off shore and will affect the quality of water in our ocean, too,
to an irreversible effects to all
animals in the sea. I shared with them the principle that "Anything thrown on Earth, will stay on Earth, they will not be thrown to the Moon or planet Mars". They will remain with us.
If not balanced well, it will collapse. |
To some, the oarfish washing in
Antique can be an ominous sign-giving the impression that somthing bad is going to happen. We will
lose nothing if we are warned ahead of time.
PJ Aranador is a graduate of
Biological Sciences from the University of the Philippines. He was the past
consultant of Go Green Philippines with projects on upland and marine
conservations in Cebu City. He is one of the current consultants to the United
States Agency for International Development Advancing Philippine
Competitiveness (COMPETE)on key industries (Tourism, Agribusiness, Manufacturing) Component. He was the design
consultant on sustainable and green manufacturing for MSMES for the Iloilo
Provincial Government projects on Northern Iloilo Local Economic Development
(LED) with DTI-Iloilo. His advocacy for
green and sustainable design for better life in communities by helping his own
people made him return in residency in Iloilo City.
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