Funding Pours in for Marine Biodiversity Research Program

Southern Leyte State University's (SLSU) biggest research undertaking of the year is the Marine Biodiversity Management in Sogod Bay research program, which got eight million in funding from the Commission on Higher Education (CHED). The research program is to be accomplished from August 2014 to February 2016, and focuses on the towns of Padre Burgos, Malitbog, San Francisco, Pintuyan and Limasawa.

By making a case for the strategic location of the Sogod, Cabalian, and Silago Bays, and the San Ricardo coast along the resource rich southeastern part of the Philippines, SLSU submitted a proposal for marine biodiversity management which budged CHED’s attention. The two parties signed the contract on June 10, 2014.

"Our concept is to assess the marine biodiversity within Sogod Bay which includes corals, seagrass, seaweeds, mangroves and other marine resources such as reef fishes. We also include the study of the different control measures of COTS population outbreak including their spawning season and genetic population connectivity along Surigao and Bohol seas. All of these aspects are important input in the conservation and protection of the marine habitats such as coral reefs in Sogod Bay which attract tourists around the world. Saving this habitat and biodiversity can also be enhanced through the establishment and maintenance of marine protected area networks, coupled with coral farming to restore damaged reef”, said Homer Hermes de Dios, one of the project leaders of the program, who wrote the proposal with help from former SLSU President Gloria M. Reyes and new SLSU President Prose Ivy Yepes.

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) expert Alejandro Tongco, who was in SLSU in May as a Balik Scientist of the Department of Science and Technology Balik Scientist Program, has also been tapped as a consultant, especially for the bathymetric modeling study.

“I hope that the results of this study will be used by LGUs to help inform policy and decisions,” said Gloria Reyes who is the program coordinator of the program.

A meeting on August 8, 2014 of project and study leaders with GIS expert Alejandro Tongco.

Stakeholders meeting with Sogod Bay municipalities on September 4, 2014.

Homer Hermes de Dios presents the program before Governor Roger Mercado and provincial officials at Maasin City on September 11, 2014, to get support from local government units. Photo courtesy of Homer de Dios.

The program’s team of divers and research assistants in the municipality of Pintuyan, one of the study’s southernmost locations. Photo courtesy of Homer de Dios.

Coral reefs in the municipality of Malitbog, Southern Leyte.

Clown fish (Amphiprion percula) in a reef in Lungsodaan, Padre Burgos.

THE NAME IS LOCATION. The five municipalities of the Marine Biodiversity Management in Sogod Bay research program. Image courtesy of Homer de Dios.