COMMENTARY: A Country Deprived of the Ecosystem Services of the Forests
By Reynaldo D. Raluto, http://www.mindanews.com
January 10, 2012

Last of 2 parts: A nation with a devastated focal ecosystem

 CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (MindaNews/9 January) – Having crossed the sustainable limit of deforestation in the late 1940s, Filipinos gradually felt the deprivation of the original “ecosystem services” of the forests they used to enjoy. Indeed, due to severe deforestation, the present ecological state of the Philippine environment is helplessly vulnerable to various forms of natural disasters. We suffer from the bad ecological effects of deforestation. We are beginning to realize that the forest is a “focal ecosystem” whose destruction would necessarily affect all other ecosystems.

The “ecosystem services” of the forests are necessary for the maintenance of water, land, living species, and climate – among others. Let us try to account some ecologically destructive effects of the present state of degraded natural forests.

The crisis of fresh water. In its Philippines Profile 2002, the IBON Philippines reported that our country is naturally gifted with inland waters composed of over 421 river basins equivalent to 31,000 hectares, roughly 72 natural lakes equivalent to 200,000 hectares, and more than 106,328 hectares of freshwater swamplands. In terms of groundwater storage, it was estimated that the country enjoyed 261,775 million cubic meters. With these abundant water resources, the country is theoretically assured of enough water needs.

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