Caves naturally form very slowly ranging from hundreds of years to thousands. Each has its own characteristics, features and diversity of life and ecosystems. It has been man's earliest abode, its refuge from dangers and for some it was their holy grounds. Its dark, deep and calm environment never fails to mystify the outsiders.
Legally defined as any hollow naturally occurring void, cavity, recess or system of interconnected passages beneath the surface of the earth or within a cliff or ledge and which is large enough to permit an individual to enter whether or not the entrance located either in private or public land, is naturally formed or man-made.
Caves right now should be treated as a museum, a place of geological, historical and biodiversity significance, it should be taken cared of as a fragile and non renewal resource that is irreplaceble. It should be treated with respect along with the flora and fauna that survives in its natural pristine state that is quiet, damp and dark.
Not many are aware that we have a Philippine Caving Act, a republic act: CAVE ACT RA 9072 of 2002 which aims to manage and protect cave and cave resources. Implemented by DENR in coordination with Dept. of Tourism, National Museum, National Historical Institute and LGU units, this cave act provides guidelines along with its implementing rules and regulations IRR DAO 29 of 2003 for National Caves and Cave Resources Management and Protection Act with an excemption of the Palawan Undeground River that is under the jurisdiction of Palawan local government. Curretly since its inception only a few hundred caves were succesfully categorized and identified by our government under the DENR- EMB and through the management of PAWB - Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau.
But what is the current state of caves in the Philippines? At least from what I've seen being a regular caver who had explored about 3 dozens of caves in less than 2 years?
From my stand point, the Caving Act is somewhat human-centered. Its governing rules centers on how humans and citizens can benefit on the use of caves, as it is being marketed more for tourism than for its proper conservation resulting in uncontrolled "ecotourists", bastardized cave spleotherms and environment, receeding fauna life on the cave, dying flora and eventually its depreciation.
I've seen this on most caves that I've been through, how the private land owners by which the cave is located had overly altered the cave systems putting up cemented ladders and rails (for an unnamed cave in quezon), how the the Hoyop-hoyopan cave in Albay with all its dozens of incandescent lights and its wires littering the cave denying it, its right to darkness with the cemented dance floor on its largest chamber, the cave in Calinawan in Rizal that can be described as dead as the land 'owner' sold it day to day for teleserye productions without any conditions to protect the cave from the production set-up, the producers and creative artists covering the stalactites with glue and splashing it with glitters, put dozens of nails on them, cement and painted portions of it, all of the sake of a renting fee of P 20-50 thousand pesos per day of tv shooting.
I contrrolled myself not to cry as one of the owner's tells me proudly that their cave has been used by numerous teleseryes on TV like Dyesebel, Encantadia, name a fantaserye and sure it was shot at the Calinawan cave and even used by the movie Yamashita treasure, as one portion of the cave was blasted for the movie's finale.
Then there's Sumaging Cave management that has no control in permitting visitors inside, who uses gas lamps inside the chambers damaging the cave atmosphere and the formations and who allows visitors to enter without any protective gears putting them at risk.
All of this happened while the Caving Act is in effect. So what happened? This became, because simply, people do not have respect for the caves and for the environment in general. I believe that poor implementation is just one aspect as no one can police and fully guard the environment BUT people, do we need to abuse nature just because no one will catch us as no one's watching?
I don't personally want to lock it up and fully preserve all the caves. Preservation is different from conservation in a sense that in conserving, people are still allowed to use and make use of it. Preservation does not and besides, how can one appreciate such nature if no one see's it? but I definitely agree on it for caves and ecosystems which are very fragile.I just wish that the use of it and the appreciation will be harmonized and implemented with proper management, responsible caving and vigilant nature guarding.
Caves need serious protection. They are very good potential source of information that can be used for scientific purposes especially on climate studies, they may have very unique species that may be endemic to us and if properly taken cared of and holistically managed, it can provide high ecotourism returns from generation of jobs from local people, taxes contribution and live commerce to the area on where the cave is located. Many countries now are very pro-active in developing cave management guidelines in order to protect their caves as surge of tourist from around the world spelunk from one cave to another.
With this, I plea to all of you, for this year, to have an advocacy that helps conserve the environment be it a forest, mountain, cave, river, seas or ocean, be it for biodiversity conservation of animals, birds or those found in the water.
Please dont be a free loader in this world, letting such organizations and small group of people push for change on how humans should behave with nature, on how to protect it and conserve it for you and your future generations. Please take out even a small attention you give to yoursef and share some of your time to help improve the situation of our nature, you may even do this by changing and sacrificing a little comfort from your lifestyle, reducing consumerism, reusing things, choosing products that's not harmful to the environment or animals, conserving water and electricity and most of all, not supporting or patronizing environment-destructing teleseryes and movies, skylanterns, fireworks and modern architecture with no green resposibilty.
Please let this be part of your new year's resolution, as a friend, I will forever be indebted to you.
Jenny
:)
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