Project to study South China Sea pollution launched

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http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?section=SCIENCE & oid=52202

 

Tuesday, June 1, 2004 12:30 AM

 

Project to study South China Sea pollution launched

 

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna - Heavy loads of livestock waste

continue to be dumped into the South China Sea,

continuously degrading the quality of its waters.

 

More than half of the world’s population of hogs and

more than one-third of poultry are raised in East

Asia. Lamentably, most of these wastes end up in the

South China Sea.

 

The United Nations Environment Program and Global

Environmental Facility (GEF) note that agricultural

waste rank the second largest land-based source of

marine pollution.

 

In East and Southeast Asia, a major part of these

waste come from livestock production, particularly

swine and poultry.

 

Thus, the question on how to best manage waste

pollution in this part of Asia has been raised in

recent years.

 

To address this problem, the World Bank, GEF, and the

United Nations Food and Agriculture

Organization-Livestock, Environment and Development

Initiative (UN FAO-LEAD) have launched a project

titled “Livestock Waste Management in East Asia.”

 

The five-year project covers Thailand, Vietnam and the

Chinese province of Guangdong.

 

The Los Baños-based Southeast Asian Regional Center

for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture

(Searca), headed by director Arsenio Balisacan,

coordinates the environmental baseline study on the

migration of nutrients, particularly nitrogen and

phosphorous, from livestock waste to the South China

Sea.

 

Hosted by the Philippine government at the UP Los

Baños (UPLB) campus, Searca is one of the 14 “centers

of excellence” of the Southeast Asian Ministers of

Education Organization (Seameo), an intergovernment

body founded in 1965 to foster cooperation among

Southeast Asian nations in the fields of education,

science and culture.

 

Once results of the study are gathered, the Searca

team headed by Dr. Rodrigo Badayes and Prof. Moises

Dorado, UPLB faculty members and Searca consultants,

in coordination with those of the three countries

covered, will come up with the criteria for the

selection of farms and production villages for the

proposed project interventions in the three countries.

 

 

Badayos, a pedologist (soil scientist), will look into

the migration of nutrients through the soil. Dorado, a

hydrologist (water scientists), will estimate the

relative share of agriculture waste (e.g., manure) in

total sources of nutrient.

 

Both experts will closely work with the consultant

teams of Thailand, Vietnam and China, as well as with

the FAO/lead consultants.

 

Badayos and Dorado recently attended a workshop in

Vietnam and met with FAO’s international consultants

regarding the conduct of the baseline study.

 

Based on the study’s results, recommendations for the

design of an environmental mitigation and monitoring

plan will be submitted to FAO/lead.

 

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