The Upper Marikina Watershed has been facing issues for a long time—the 26,126 hectare basin was officially declared a protected area way back in 2001, but a newly formed coalition is arguing that the river basin is still the victim of mining, logging, and land-grabbing, and that we need to defend it.
On April 21, the large group of advocates, environmental experts, and politicians that make up the Upper Marikina Watershed Coalition (UMWC) gathered together on a Facebook live stream.
UMWC’s first course of action is a petition directed to President Rodrigo Duterte to ban quarrying in the Upper Marikina Watershed. Sixty-five organizations, from the private and public sector, co-signed the petition.
During the stream, Leo Edmund Rico, executive director at the Center for Conservation Innovations, shared some research findings that highlighted how much has been lost over the years.
“We have seen that from 2003 to 2010, it shows that there's a lot of forest loss [in the Upper Marikina Watershed]. And it’s measuring about 2,247 hectares, over a course of seven to eight years. The continuous increase of the population in protected areas inversely coincides with the forest cover loss.”
The coalition itself was created just after the destruction left in the wake of Typhoon Ulysses. The watershed was unable to sustain the heavy rainfall, due to the damages caused by mining and logging. Soon after, Marikina and other municipalities faced one of the worst floods in recent history.
Dr. Rex Victor Cruz, professor at the College of Forestry and Natural Resources at UP Los Baños, said that deforestation was a complex issue that needed to be dissected.
“Problems and concerns in a watershed are interconnected,” Dr. Rex said. “If we want to truly address the problem of deforestation and its impacts, we need to understand how these are interconnected with one another… It doesn’t end on looking at deforestation as a problem to be solved in relation to soil and land degradation. We need to look into the very root cause of this.”
The 26,126 hectare basin is located in northeast Rizal, and covers its municipalities Rodriguez, San Mateo, and Antipolo City, as well as parts of Metro Manila. The UMRBPL protects about 20 million Filipinos from floods and landslides.
It also is home to various flora and fauna. Narra and Molave trees, the Philippine-Hawk eagle, Philippine deer, Philippine monkey, Northern Luzon Cloud Rat and many more are all housed within the protected area. While the watershed falls within the borders of the Rizal province, the UMWC stresses that this a concern of all 100 million Filipinos.
Interested organizations can sign the petition here, while individuals can sign up to volunteer here.
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