The international convention advocating for the conservation of wetlands revealed that 64 percent of the world’s wetlands have disappeared since 1900.
The International Convention on Wetlandsalso known as Ramsar Conventionreported that the degree of degradation is most severe in Asia, where mangrove forests and intertidal flats are threatened by pollution, human settlement, reclamation and development of mariculture sites, among others.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) found that the degradation of wetlands and mangrove forests has resulted in the decline of migratory water bird populations.
These are among the realities that peoples around the globe face when they celebrate World Wetlands Day tomorrow.
The wetlands of Olango Island off Mactan is a Ramsar site because it is part of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF), the route that migratory water birds take every year from the Arctic circle to east and southeast of Asia. The birds stop by Olango’s wetlands to feed.
A 2011 IUCN study reveal that fisheries are collapsing as coastal and marine ecosystems become more degraded. The population of migratory water bird species is also declining rapidly, it said.
Human survival
All these have implications on the survival of humans.
Coastal and marine ecosystems provide food and livelihood to many families, so a collapse in fisheries is a food security issue.
The disappearance of intertidal flats and mangrove forests, on the other hand, do not only affect food. Intertidal flats and mangrove forests serve as protection for coastal communities during storm surges and tsunamis. This issue is of great
importance to the Philippines, where typhoons and earthquakes occur regularly.
Intertidal flats also prevent silt and sediments from reaching and smothering coral reefs. The degradation of coral reefs also further threaten fisheries.
The IUCN report reveals that water birds that depend on the Asian intertidal habitats of the EAAF during their non-breeding season are the world’s most threatened migratory birds, apart from albatrosses and petrels.
Extinction
At least 24 such species are heading towards extinction, with many others facing exceptionally rapid losses of 5 to 9 percent per year. With declines of 26 percent per year the Spoon-billed Sandpiper could be extinct within a decade. These rates of species population decline are among the highest of any ecological system on the planet, the report reads.
Bird populations, according to IUCN researchers, are often used as indication of the state of the environment.
The declines in waterbird populations are signals of wider deterioration in the quality of intertidal ecosystems. Healthy tidal flats provide many services of direct economic benefit to the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in local communities and beyond, the IUCN report reads.
There is cause for significant concern over the status of the intertidal zone along the EAAF. Fisheries and vital ecological services are collapsing and ecological disasters increasing, with concomitant implications for human livelihoods, it said.
The IUCN said the birds and habitats of the EAAF are the shared natural heritage of 22 countries.
At present, each country’s economic and environmental sustainability is being damaged by the actions of its neighbors. International cooperation is required to secure the region’s tidal ecosystem resources in the long term, it said.
It stressed that a healthy environment is essential for sustainable development. This means that rapid economic growth must build in effective environmental safeguards. Otherwise, economic gains may be short-lived, it added.
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