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