Harmonizing population and coastal resources in the Philippines.

• Author: De Souza, Roger-Mark

With half of the human population now living on or near the world's coasts, maintaining a healthy interdependence between coastal ecosystems and human communities is critical to the stability of both. In the Philippines, progressive communities have begun to show how that interdependence can best work.

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Just a 15-minute boat ride off the coast of the Philippines province of Iloilo is the island of Guimaras, famous for its beautiful unspoiled beaches and the Philippines' sweetest mangoes. Tourist companies tout the bountiful seas here, "teeming with fresh fish, shellfish, and lobsters. White-sand beaches, falls, springs, off-shore islets, coves, and caves--gateway to some of the best diving sites." However, the casual visitor smitten by the natural beauty might miss one of the best-kept secrets of the world.

Guimaras and Iloilo, paradoxically, are among the 20 poorest provinces in the country. Both host important marine resources, a growing population, and increasing poverty. But a quiet revolution is taking place here: People have started taking matters into their own hands, testing never-before-seen approaches to staving off poverty, sustaining nature's bounty, and minimizing a growing population's demands on resources. These are ordinary rural folk, hardly within the ambit of modern technology, not even electricity. These are women with limited access, if any, to economic opportunities; men who toil on the land and seas in earnest; and children who trek three kilometers of dirt road to school every day.

The children are observant: they notice that their fathers have been catching less fish. The town has also been losing some of its mangroves and seagrasses, which provide breeding and feeding grounds for fish and economic opportunities for the townsfolk. But over the last three years, the children have been learning about ways to protect the environment, secure their families' wellbeing, and delay sexual initiation and childbearing.

Coasts and Wellbeing

This realization is critical. In the world today, more than 3 billion people live along a coastline or within 200 kilometers (125 miles) of one, and the coastal population may double by 2025. This concentration of people in coastal regions has many economic benefits: more transportation links, industrial and urban development, revenue from tourism, and food products. The combined effects of booming population growth and economic and technological developments, however, are threatening the ecosystems that provide these economic benefits.

Fourteen of the world's 17 megacities--those with populations of at least 10 million people--are located on coasts, as are two-fifths of smaller cities (populations of 1 million to 10 million). The urbanization of coasts has increased coastal pollution (80 percent of marine pollution comes from land-based sources). Worldwide, sewage...