Unresolved conflicts about Spratlys haunt the region
Unresolved conflicts about Spratlys haunt the region
By Sylvia L. Mayuga
MANILA: As President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo refocuses the
Philippines's relationship with our ASEAN neighbors, one wonders
whether she has already taken notice of a vital input from the
environmental community -- the concept of a trans-boundary
biosphere reserve in the Spratlys.
If not, a well thought-out paper presented by Dr. Mike Fortes
of the UP Marine Science Institute at a Unesco conference in
Pamplona, Spain three years ago is well worth revisiting.
There can be no debate with Fortes' argument for regional
security and stability as pre-conditions to overcoming severe
economic crisis in our region.
His recommendation -- a new view of the South China Sea other
than as an arena of nation-state rivalries among the Philippines,
China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam and Brunei -- can however expect
rougher sailing from landlocked political cultures.
Regional tension over the Spratlys is a symptom of a serious
lack of both deep memory of a shared past and vision for a future
rooted in nature's parameters -- in this case, human dependence
on regional waters that, like air, can only be divided by
national considerations at everyone's expense.
A creeping degradation of our shared seas has already begun,
warns Fortes, while marine reality continues to receive minimal
attention from governments reorienting national economies from
agriculture to export industrialization.
Having listened to economists, politicians and the military
getting nowhere on the Spratlys, here, for a change, is a marine
scientist's version of true value: "The South China Sea is at the
crossroads of the most biologically diverse region on earth --
the Indo-Pacific. Its reefs and islets protect pristine
associations of Indo-Pacific flora and fauna -- seagrasses,
seaweeds, mangroves, corals, mollusks, fish, seabirds and
turtles, including rare and endangered species.
"Moreover, tuna, mackerel, scads and coral reef fish stocks as
well as stocks of shrimp around the region are replenished from
the Spratlys. It is estimated that their loss would reduce total
catches of these fish in bordering countries by up to 25 percent.
These spawning grounds are particularly important where coastal
populations of adult fish are declining, as appears to be the
case in the Philippines.
"In the vastness of the South China Sea, the islets are
particularly important for the migration of birds, fish and
mammals and for the breeding and nesting of endangered species of
sea turtles.
"For example, larvae may pass from the Spratlys to the Paracel
Islands in one generation, to Vietnam and the Natuna Islands in
the next, and back to the Spratlys in the third generation.
Disruption of this larval exchange system could seriously impair
the adaptability of some species to future environmental
changes..."
A man-sized challenge is Fortes' recommendation for a multi-
use, regionally managed system for the Spratlys based on
scientific research.
Some areas could be exclusively protected for posterity and
scientific investigation while others would be accessible to
tourists, he suggests.
Still others could be opened for jointly managed exploitation
of maritime resources encompassing energy sources and raw
materials for new industries.
That all this is however more easily said than done is putting
it mildly.
Not only are there ethnic, religious, cultural and historical
differences on top of varying levels of development to overcome.
There, too is the over-layer of a colonial past to which seeds of
old territorial disputes (like the Philippines' anachronistic
claim to Sabah) can be traced.
Neo-colonialism is yet another source of conflict vis-a-vis
present-day trade and security aspects of our regional sea lanes
and maritime resources.
But dreaming a new dream and saying "Why not?", Fortes points
to the fact that seven biosphere reserves already exist in three
countries bordering the South China Sea -- Can Gio in Vietnam,
Puerto Galera and Palawan in the Philippines, Nanji Islands,
Wuyishan, Dinghushan and Shankou Mangrove of China.
He also mentions a forthcoming Unesco conference dealing with
the Spratlys with marine scientists from countries like China,
Vietnam and the Philippines.
That the area they are defining to be rich beyond imagining
happens to fall within the prehistorical maritime and cultural
exchange network anthropologists like William G. Solheim II have
been studying fruitfully may help.
Dialogue among natural scientists could well lead to an even
more fascinating dialogue between natural and cultural scientists
on both the depths and surfaces of our ancient region.
With the public listening in, who knows that such efforts may
not be another journey of a thousand miles beginning with a
single sailboat such as our common regional forefathers have
already known?
-- Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network