17/01/2022
Story of “For the love of Moalboal”
This movement was started by a big number of concerned residents and local businesspeople, after typhoon Odette hit our beautiful town pretty badly, especially at the Panagsama beach area, which clearly needs some heavy cleanup to clear the beach from broken pontons, seawalls and other man-made structures, with authorization of their owners.
While consulting experienced people of the eco-battle on how to handle this task at best, we also learned the following:
- How beautiful the Panagsama beach was, 30/40 years ago, with much less man-made structures than now, below the high tide line.
- These structures are without a doubt the main reason of the disappearing of most of the beach sand, by disturbing its natural travel/migration.
- When you recreate the same conditions as then, and let mother nature take over, there is a big chance the sand and beach will be back, in time.
- The beach and shallows in front of the reef are an important part of the whole marine eco-system. And thus, important for the recovery of the Moalboal’s beautiful reef and dive spots after the damages caused by the typhoon.
Our goal then naturally shifted to something greater: Get as much as possible of the “old” Panagsama beach back. Which is a “now or never” situation as many of these structures are badly damaged, so we hope that, for the love of Moalboal, many will accept to let us help them to remove the leftovers, rather than rebuild. Some have already led by example, for which we are very grateful.
Recognizing at the same time, that the set goal will require nothing less than a little miracle, considering our limited means. But our spirits and motivation remain high, especially after the Municipality jumped in with a backhoe and a truck, which accelerated the job tremendously. Also, the DENR came to check the on-going works, and their positive reaction made us hopeful that they will jump on the wagon as well.
In time we hope that the movement will gain sufficient momentum to gain the interest of organizations that have the knowledge, authority, and means, to help with the speeding up of the “under water” recovery, like planting corals and seagrass, (for the sea turtles) and improving breeding grounds. etc.
We will gratefully accept the help of anybody or any organization that is willing to help our cause, for the love of Moalboal. In the spirit of, we help mother nature and mother nature will help us!
Disclaimer: We are a positive action movement, not a debate group, are non-political, and have no hidden agendas. Negative and useless comments will be taken off.
Salamat
P.S.: The pictures are from Panagsama beach in the 80S, courtesy of Alain Amrein.