A Simmering Tomb
PICTURESQUE. COOL. A magnificent beauty that hides a seething temper, guilefully. Taal Volcano easily bags all the above superlatives and more.
In the eyes of a regular backpacker or that of a family on an out-of-town drive, Taal is a quick getaway from the urban routine, a chance to breathe cool air and take a stab at simple pleasures like an exotic meal of crisp-fried tawilis with lato and grilled maliputo, often leaving the tongue — or more precisely, one’s conscience — with an aftertaste of guilt for having indulged at the expense of two seriously threatened aquatic species.
Taal Volcano, the world’s smallest active volcano, and the lake that surrounds it, the third largest lake in the Philippines, were declared a Protected Landscape in 1996 under the National Integrated Protected Areas System or NIPAS. Located in the province of Batangas and the city of Tagaytay, Taal Volcano is a popular landmark with remarkably unique features comparable to the world’s best.
Taal Lake encompasses 24,356 hectares, with a circumference of 120 kilometers and a maximum depth of 198 meters. On its center lies the 23.8 square kilometer Volcano Island with its own crater lake, which has come to be known as the “lake within the lake.”
More than its tourism potential and economic significance, Taal Lake is an important ecosystem because it is home to at least three endemic fish species, among them the aforementioned delectable maliputo, the duhol, and one of only three freshwater sea snakes in the world, plus a diverse array of migratory fauna that move from coast to lake as larvae swimming through the Pansipit river and then back to sea to spawn.
In a global biodiversity context, however, Taal Lake assumes its greatest significance as the only body of water where the world’s only commercial freshwater sardine, tawilis, is found.
Tawilis is believed to have migrated from Balayan Bay to Taal Lake when the latter was formed by volcanic eruptions several centuries ago. To date, it is the most commercially dominant fish catch in Taal Lake.
In 1984, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources recorded the highest production of tawilis at 29,000 metric tons. The quantity, however, dipped to 8,798 metric tons in 1988, to 744 metric tons in 1996 and to only 294 metric tons in 2000 – a steady slide that experts consider as a sure sign of its eventual extinction, besides being the most telling sign of the sorry state of the Taal Volcano Protected-but-untended Landscape.
Taal’s relative proximity to urban centers as well as to suburban commercial and industrial hubs is perhaps more of a bane than a boost to its biodiversity and endemism. A booming aquaculture industry has encroached on the lake over the last 20 years, displacing the endemic species with exotic ones that scientists fear may have been preying on the former.
Tilapia fish farms within the lake supply 68 percent of the annual production of the Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon or CALABARZON region. Other than the obstruction caused by thousands of cages, fish farm operators tend to overstock and overfeed, thereby increasing the chemical load from feeds that seep into the lake.
The resulting dismal scenario is all too familiar: heavy pollution, poor water quality, low production and fish kills. Protected Area Superintendent Laudemir Salac also lists the proliferation of illegal structures along Pansipit River, improper disposal of domestic waste, and construction of permanent structures along the shorelines of the lake as major concerns of Taal, in addition to the unregulated aquaculture industry.
As of March 2008, there were about 9,223 fish cages in Taal Lake, way more than the 6,000 limit set by the Taal Volcano Protected Area Management Board. A November 2007 inventory on Pansipit River also listed a total of 164 aquaculture structures.
To curb the destructive trends emanating from these illegal structures, the Board issued unified rules and regulations covering fishery activities on Taal Lake, for adoption by all municipalities and cities within the protected area.
It also authorized the provincial government of Batangas to create an inter-agency task force that would enforce environment laws within the protected area – a request that was readily acted upon by Governor Vilma Santos in 2008 when she issued two executive orders, one creating the proposed task force, and another imposing a moratorium on the construction of any more structures within the lake.
The move by the Batangas provincial government somehow served as a turning point for Taal Volcano Protected Landscape or TVPL and is deemed as the best practice so far implemented in the protected area. Thus began the dismantling of fish pens and other structures within Pansipit River on Independence Day 2008. Within 45 days, the river was cleared of all structures: 164 fish pens, a number of small aquaculture structures and bamboo poles. To date, over 5,000 aquaculture structures have been dismantled.
The Task Force sought to reinforce its initial move by conducting a series of talks with fish-cage operators in San Nicolas, Tanauan City, Agoncillo, Laurel, and Talisay – the towns where most of the dismantled fish cages were concentrated.
Cleanup operations and de-clogging of the lake’s outlets continue, along with efforts to provide livelihood to displaced fisherfolk.
A 10-year Management Plan for TVPL is in place and consultations with stakeholders are regularly being undertaken. It aims to impose a total regulation on the construction of fish cages and aquaculture structures.
It seeks to be more decisive in enforcing environment laws. It vows to strictly regulate the issuance of permits for livelihood projects such as piggery and poultry within the protected area. It will see through the strict implementation of the Ecological Solid Waste Management Act, the Clean Water Act, and Clean Air Act.
The plan will look into sustainable tourism projects that would help generate income for the protected area and the communities around it.
The roadmap is clear and the prospects for Taal’s ecosystem seem bright, at least on paper. Someone somewhere said that motivational discipline delivers far better results than punitive discipline.
Following this line of thought, managing the threats to a protected area has a greater chance of success if effective local governance and law enforcement are matched, if not exceeded by, strong community involvement and commitment, as can be gleaned from the success stories of community-managed protected landscapes, seascapes, and parks.
Until this crucial component is strengthened at the Taal Volcano Protected Landscape, it remains a magnificent beauty seething underneath, waiting to exact reparation for damage caused by human excesses that are slowly, but surely, turning its lake into a water tomb. – PCIJ, December 2010
I wrote this article for the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism for publication into a monograph on Protected Areas in cooperation with Tanggol Kalikasan. It was subsequently published in the December 28 edition of the national broadsheet, Malaya. (Link to online edition below)
Human Excesses Turning Taal into a Simmering Tomb | Malaya | December 28. 2010
