BY: HAZEL F. GLORIA
CEBU CITY, May 31(PIA) ---The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR-7) led the deployment of one unit of an autonomous reef monitoring structure (ARMS) in brgy. Alegria, Cordova, Lapulapu City in Mactan Island, Cebu recently to mark the culmination of the 'Ocean Month' celebration.
DENR-7 regional executive director Dr. Isabelo Montejo said, Mactan Island is one of the four areas chosen for ARMS including Corregidor Island in Cavite, Snake Island in Palawan, and Camiguin in Misamis Oriental.
He said the island, is one of the richest reefs in the country. It has been selected because there could be certain species there waiting to be discovered.
“There are other marine organisms that are not usually visible to the human eye and could not be detected through line or point intercepts, photo-transect, fish visual census and reef check,” he added.
The ARMS unit was lowered at depth of 10 to 15 meters within a marine protected area in barangay Alegria in Cordova. It aims to understand more the coral reef biodiversity and how it varies with focus on the cryptobiont communities or those understudied species including invertebrates, algae and microbes, Montejo added.
Biodiversity Management Bureau (BMB) director Theresa Mundita Lim said that the ARMS is a device made up mostly of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) material secured to coral reefs with metal weights that can mimic coral reefs and, over time, attracts or collects small reef animals referred to as cryptic reef biodiversity.
“A group of ARMS installed in a specific area could provide a systematic and consistent method of monitoring marine life forms. They also provide data on how climate change impacts such as ocean warming and acidification affects them, or how marine ecosystems develop and maintain their resilience to these impacts,” Lim explained.
Montejo spearheaded the deployment of the ARMS inbarangay Alegria, Cordova, Cebu with Lim and Protected Area, Wildlife and Coastal Zone Management Services regional technical director Dr. Al Orolfo and about four scuba divers from the Philippine Coast Guard.
They added ARMS that provides a tool for systematic and consistent observation of spatial patterns and temporal changes of coral reef invertebrate diversity.
Lim clarified that the ARMS will be used initially for educational purposes. The units will be left underwater and retrieved a year later, after which all organisms found on or within the unit will then be extracted and analyzed by biologists.
“These will be presented to the community to give them an idea about the marine life in the vicinity which will hopefully encourage them to help in the conservation and protection of our marine ecosystems,” she said.
After the retrieval, the ARMS will be redeployed for further studies. The BMB also plans to increase the number of ARMS units in specific sites to provide additional data for research purposes, Montejo added.
With the immense magnitude of natural resources which the Philippines earned the title as the “World’s Center of Marine Shorefish Biodiversity”, Montejo urged everyone to understand the critical roles of the marine biodiversity in providing ecosystem goods and services while protecting, conserving and managing them in a sustainable manner. (mbcn/hfg/PIA7 with reports from Ed Llamedo/DENR-7)