It is with pleasure to share another ADR Institute’s Special Study entitled “Ebb and Flow: Synergies on Marine Biodiversity Conservation in the Philippines,” authored by Dr. Mary Kristerie A. Baleva, ESQ, Associate Professor at the De La Salle University-Manila.

The importance of marine ecosystems and their contribution to humanity and the planet cannot be overemphasized. Coral reefs alone serve as buffers against severe climatic events, erosion and sedimentation, and contribute to ensuring food security, tourism development, and economic security among others. The Philippines, being the “center of the center of marine shore fish biodiversity,” is home to a myriad of marine life known to science. Despite the vast array of aquatic resources that the Philippines owns, the contribution of ocean-based industries to the GDP remains below 5%, fisherfolk remain the poorest sectors in the society, and risk of depletion remains large due to anthropogenic activities such as overexploitation, destructive fishing practices, illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, habitat loss, and pollution.

Assessing the risk and extent of loss resulting from the use (and abuse) of nature is crucial to formulate informed, evidence-based policies. It necessitates, however, the proper assessment and measurement of the value of nature—an objective the Philippines aims to achieve through the passage and implementation of the Philippine Ecosystem and Natural Capital Accounting System Act. The Philippines has also casted its net wide with numerous multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs). These aim to optimize the gains from the various values of biodiversity, while ensuring its protection. Notably, MEAs have the potential to promote regional stability and security. For instance, the Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement), if ratified by a critical mass of States, has the potential to enhance necessary synergies that could help ease growing geopolitical tensions in the West Philippine Sea in pursuit of its main objective of protecting marine life that after all, knows no borders.

Given the manifold environmental challenges facing the Philippines and the rest of the world, alongside a rapidly evolving geopolitical landscape, synergies among regional and international agreements, and more importantly, efforts to implement them, are crucial now more than ever.