Protecting El Nido’s coral reefs

By Ellen T. Tordesillas

When God blessed the earth, he must have been standing near and facing Palawan because the province is so rich in natural resources and possesses spectacular sceneries – on the ground, underground, on the water, underwater.

In the northern part of Palawan is El Nido, a municipality of almost 40,000 in an area covering 92,326 hectares. The town is named after Swiflets (local name is Balinsasayaw) nests made from the bird’s saliva found in the crevices of the limestone’s cliffs in the area.

The mountain islands of El Nido are simply breathtaking. They are towers of stone so high they almost kiss the clouds.They come in all shapes and forms, depending on your imagination.

If your tour guide is Jayson R. Gonzales of El Bacuit Travel and Tours, he will show you a mountain island shaped like a helicopter, a feature shaped like a king with a crown with a horse nearby, or a stone jutting out of the cliff shaped like the chunky heel of a shoe.

Gonzales will also point out Cadlao (Visayan word for laughter) is the highest of El Nido’s mountain islands at 640 feet (as high as a 64-floor building). He said Cadlao is the locals’ weather barometer. “When the tip of the mountain is covered by clouds it means it will rain.”

Underwater, El Nido is also as awesome. It’s a coral reef paradise. According to El Nido Foundation Inc.(ENFI) they have identified 447 reef-building coral species in El Nido. There are 44 unconfirmed species.

ENFI, headed by former Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim as chairman of the board and lawyer businessman Charlie Yu as president, is an organization dedicated to the improvement of the quality of life in El Nido which includes sustainable utilization of the community’s natural resources.

ENFI is working closely with Green Fins,an initiative of the United Nations Environment Programme, for the protection of coral reefs in El Nido. They have just concluded an orientation of journalists on the progress of their efforts in El Nido.

Green Fins, which is coordinated internationally by Reef-World sets the standard for managing the protection of coral reefs. It provides guidance and support for business owners and national authorities to promote best practices in sustainable tourism – especially scuba diving which has become urgent in El Nido with the increase of tourist arrivals.

The importance of coral reefs cannot be overstated: Corals (which are actually animals , not plants or places ) play an essential role in everything from water filtration and fish reproduction to shore line protection and erosion prevention. It also acts as a barrier to storms and surge.

Experts said that if only there were a healthy population of coral reefs in Tacloban during supertyphoon Yolanda, the damage would not have been as calamitous as it was.

Lim, who has been going to Palawan since the early 1980’s and co-founded Ten Knots Deelopment Corporation (now owned by Ayala Land) is concerned on the effect of increased tourist arrivals in El Nido. In 1994, recorded tourist arrivals numberd only 10,00. In 2013, more than 63,000 came to El Nido) or a jump of about 600 percent.

The usual package offered by tour operators island hopping (El Nido has a lot to offer with it placid lagoons and awesome caves. ) which includes scuba diving and snorkeling.

Saying that tourism is both an opportunity and a threat, Irma Rose Marcelo, executive director of ENFI, said some of the tourism-related activities are injurious to coral reefs are anchor damage,snorkeler and diver damage,Boat strike,pollution – solid wastes, eutrophication in ground water from towns, villages and establishments,Sediment run-offs from land clearing, overfishing, and illegal fishing. Climate change, the change of ocean’s temperature is also wreaking havoc on the coral reefs.

Even the fun practice of fish feeding by tourists. Jayson Gonzales said until he trained with ENFI and Green Fins, he didn’t know it. “I even provided bread pieces to tourists to feed the fish so they would come, he said.

Now, at the beginning of the islands tour,“Don’t feed the fish” is one of the “Do’s and Don’ts “ that he gives.

Feeding fish disrupts the food cycle and causes serious damage on coral reefs. In the natural underwater food cycle, fish eats algae on the coral reefs. When humans feed the fishes, they no longer eat the algae, which overgrows and suffocates the coral reef to death.

Damaged coral reefs means decreased fish production which could lead to food crisis and malnutrition of the human population.

Marcelo said a 2009 assessment of coral reef condition in El Nido showed coral cover of living hard corals averaged 26 percent which is a fair condition while soft coral cover overall was lower, averaging 4 percent.

As it take hundreds of years for a coral reef to grow, so does rehabilitation of damaged coral reefs. EENFI, which is restoring dynamite-damaged Reefs in Tres Marias islands near the West Philippine Sea, says it’s a very slow process. It takes a year to heal and restore one centimeter of coral reef.

Green Fins believes that diving and snorkeling centers are uniquely positioned to act within their own communities and among customers to encourage positive and lasting change. It’s members are expected to adhere to a Code of Conduct such as No Touching of coral reefs and not anchoring on coral reefs .

Green Fins has also come up with icons on their guidelines so that it would be understood regardless of nationalities.

ENFI’s Charlie Yu recalls the early years when they had the whole island of Shimizu to themselves when they visited Palawan. He said the island now is a favorite picnic area of tourists.

He said being a father, he wants to bequeath to his children an El Nido that may not be as spectacular as he found it but still awesome. “We are doing this for the next generation,” he said. — Yahoo News Philippines

http://travelbacolodairport.wix.com/safe-travel-The Travel Bureau

Spend the night at Mount Manalmon

Text by Karen Quesada; photo by Marion Arnie Esguerra

Tired of the usual beach getaway? Or strolling the usual summer hotspots such as Baguio or Tagaytay? Then it’s time to try trekking and climbing a mountain, and one of the easiest and convenient places to start is at Mount Manalmon.

The mountain can be found in Barangay Sibul, Sitio Madlum, San Miguel Bulacan. This is an ideal mountain for beginners, as it is only 196 meters above sea level. At the jump-off point you can cross to the registration either by the monkey bridge or the balsa.

At the start of the trek, you will pass by the Madlum Cave and would have to cross Manalmon River. It would take only an hour or two to reach the peak, depending on your pacing and fitness, and of course how long you stop to take pictures.

After taking "buwis-buhay" selfies at the summit, your guide will direct you to the campsite by the Manalmon River, where you could swim, camp or try cliff diving.

You could opt for a day hike or camp overnight. Guides are required for either. I suggest that you spend the night in the mountain, though, as the place is so enchanting and one day is hardly enough to admire its beauty.


OTHER ACTIVITIES
Going to this place is not complete without trying the monkey bridge and cliff-diving. Time and energy permitting you could also climb the adjacent Mount Gola. You also might as well try spelunking the eight-cave system of the Bayukbok caves.

HOW TO GET THERE
It only takes about two hours to get to Camias, San Miguel Bulacan via buses going to Cabanatuan. From Camias, it takes another 45 mins to 1 hour for a tricycle ride to the jum-off point (Baranggay Sibul, Sitio Madlum).   

TRIVIA
The mountain was the location for the teleserye Mulawin and the late teen star Julie Vega’s last movie, Lovingly Yours, Helen. Some say enchanting mountain is also enchanted, but the guides are better sources for such stories. - Yahoo News

The Travel Bureau

Cobrador: Virgin island at the heart of the Philippines

It isn't clear how Cobrador island in Romblon province got its name but it certainly has nothing to do with gambling, though it sounds the same as kubrador, the Filipino word for bet collector. Gambling, in fact, is one of the prohibited activities on the island at the heart of the Philippine archipelago.

“I was only eight years old when people started calling this island Cobrador, The island used to be called Naguso,” said Cobrador village chief Raul Mortel, 47. Naguso is Romblon’s word for corals.

A stretch of wide-sand beaches

Cobrador, with a population of 983 people, is a little-known Island off the town of Romblon, the capital of Romblon province. The island, which is a village in itself, is 25-to-45-minute ride by motorboat from the capital town, depending on how calm or rough is the sea.

This 300-hectare island, surrounded by glass-clear seas, is home to a beautiful array of corals and abundant marine life. On one side, in Sitio Cabugaan, lies a stretch of white-sand beaches and walls of rock on the other side.

Cobrador  is a primary source of black marble slabs, a popular product of the province which has earned its monicker as the Marble Country.

The village chief said the people of Cobrador have been trying to develop and preserve the island as a key tourist spot.

Pristine waters amid walls of rocks

“Before, our beaches were dirty and you’d step on human feces when you walked around,” Mortel said in Filipino.Since 2007, environmental protection has become the village officials’ agenda. 

Garbage segregation and recycling are enforced and the majority of the households have their own toilets Cyanide fishing has been banned and the village keeps a hectare of marine sanctuary.

“It was hard at first to introduce regulations, like the curfews, but people eventually understood its purpose,” said Mortel who was elected village chief in 2007. 

Since his election, he said, the village’s annual  income has grown from P650,000 to P1.3 million, mainly due to the number of tourists visiting the island every summer since 2011.

Most of the tourists, though, are foreigners  married to Filipino women from other parts of Romblon.

The island, which had no electricity until six years ago, currently relies on power generators that run only eight hours a day. Water comes from wells or rain collectors, but drinking water is supplied from the mainland.

The village receives 300 to 500 tourists during summer. Although beach camping is allowed for free, the officials see the lack of accommodation facilities a drawback for tourism.

There are regular two-way  trips by motorboat on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The boat leaves Cobrador at 6 a.m. and returns from mainland at 12 noon. A one-way fare costs P25 per person. 

The provincial government  sees the island as a viable tourism spot  and is included  in the Department of Tourism’s promotional tour in Romblon this year.

Mortel said kababayans working outside the province are pitching in by creating Facebook fan pages to promote Cobrador.

Last May, the village started promoting Tinagong Dagat (Hidden Sea), a 1.5- to 2-meter-deep pool of saltwater separated from the ocean by large rocks on the eastern part of the island. It is also developing Ilaya Cave, diving and snorkeling spots, and fruit plantations to lure more tourists.

With island’s women displaying  racing skills on paddle boats and the men weaving native mats, a reversal of their traditional roles, Cobrador hopes to become an interesting place for tourists to visit.

Cobrador is a virgin island, Mortel said, perfect for city folks to take off from their fast-pacing lives. – The Travel Bureau

Antarctica: A dream destination for tourists

Tourists boarding an Antarctica-boound plane at Punta Arenas, Chile. — AFP

PRESIDENT FREI BASE, Antarctica, April 12, 2014 (AFP) — As the sun sets, the cloudy sky melds with the glaring white of the frozen terrain. Tourists trudging in single-file line marvel over blue glaciers in Antarctica, a hip new vacation destination.
The group paid a small fortune — $3,000 per head — for a quick five-hour visit to the frozen continent, arriving by plane.
"Coming to Antarctica was a dream for me and my wife," American John Reiss, 81, said as he stood beside his wife Sharon, 73.
"We signed up a couple years ago, but we couldn't get on it, so we went on a waiting list. This year we signed a year in advance and we made it."

The Villa Las Estrellas in Chile side of Antarctica. - AFP

The couple boarded a cruise ship in Florida, where they live, to head to Punta Arenas in the south of Chile, where they caught a two-hour flight to Antarctica.
The tourists visited the island of King George, in the South Shetlands archipelago and the neighboring Russian station of Bellingshausen with its out-of-place Orthodox church.
They also saw the small Chilean hamlet of Villa Las Estrellas home to just 64 people and colonies of penguins.
Another option is to tour Half Moon Island, a habitat of seals and penguins that is home to the Argentine base of Teniente Camara.
There they can sip a hot cup of coffee, send a postcard and get their passport stamped with a picture of a krill, a kind of small shrimp that is the symbol of the base.
"It was a fantastic experience. The first thing that makes this trip special is being able to visit such a well-preserved, untouched continent," said Canadian Maureen Malone, 69.

Brazil's Commandante Ferraz Staton

"The second is being able to see the penguins. Everybody loves the penguins. Also, I was able to see around the bases, see how the different countries are sharing the region."
Tourism is one of the few economic activities allowed by the Treaty of the Antarctic and the Madrid Protocol, which bans mineral extraction on the white continent.
The Antarctic draws more than 30,000 tourists per year, from November to March, when there is no problem landing on the frozen sea.
Most arrive on ships that cross Drake Passage in the Southern Ocean, which has some of the world's worst weather, setting off from Ushuaia in southern Argentina and from Punta Arenas.
"Ninety percent of the tourists from around the world who come to Antarctica leave from Ushuaia. The cruises last an average of 11 days. The cheapest ones cost $5,000. The most expensive, which last 15 days and go to the South Pole, cost $12,000," Brazilian Gunnar Hagelberg, owner of Antarctica Expeditions, told AFP.
More than 35,350 people will have visited Antarctica by the end of this year — 1,000 more than last season and 8,000 more than in 2011-2012, according to the International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators.

Penguins at the seaside of Chile's Presidente Eduardo Frei base

"We carry from 120 to 130 people per season. We have seen a 15 to 20 percent increase in the number of tourists who want to see the continent," said Nicolas Paulsen, deputy commercial director of the Chilean airline Dap, which offers logistical and tourist flights.
Paulsen said tourism in Antarctica is rising three percent more per year than tourism to Chile, which is up seven percent. Most visitors come from the United States, Australia, China, Russia and, more and more, from Brazil.
"Antarctica is vital for us. It affects the climate, the sea currents. Tourism is important because the more people get to know it, the more they will want to protect it," said Paulsen.



The Travel Bureau