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National Committee on Marine Sciences (NCMS)

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  • Saving biodiversity at Verde Island Passage
    Cinco, Maricar (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2018-10-20)
    Casting a fishing line with a coral sinker and a plastic-bottle reel, children as young as 8 years old catch their next meal from the pebbled shore of Barangay San Andres here. Most of the women are at home, raising hogs or weaving “buli” (palm) mats, while the men are out at sea to fish for food or collect aquarium fish to sell in Metro Manila. Their houses dot a hillslope, built to withstand the frequent storms. Drinking water comes from deep wells while electricity is supplied by several solar panels. Life is simple and slow in San Andres, a small, poor community on Verde Island along the Verde Island Passage (VIP), a marine and terrestrial zone of rich biological diversity spanning almost 2 hectares and more than 100 kilometers south of Manila. Biologists have discovered a thriving marine ecosystem (1.14 million ha) along the passage in what most people called the “richest place on earth.”
  • What lies beneath: exploring Benham Rise's unknown treasures
    Cinco, Maricar (Philippine Daily Inquirer, Inc., 2017-03-18)
    Benham Rise, the underwater landmass northeast of Luzon that the United Nations declared part of the Philippines’ continental shelf, has been grabbing headlines because of the presence of Chinese ships that may or may not have been given permission to do research in the area, according to conflicting claims by President Duterte, Defense chief Delfin Lorenzana, as well as Foreign Affairs officials. What remains undisputed, however, are the possible trove of mineral and gas deposits about 3,000 meters below the water’s surface that have yet to be discovered. Sometimes referred to as the Benham Plateau, the landmass, described to have a craggy or rough surface, is bigger than Luzon or almost half the size of the Philippine’s total land area. It extends eastward off the provinces of Aurora and Isabel, and the Bicol region, but has always been connected to Luzon’s landmass through the Bicol and Palanan saddles.