SAMAL, Bataan – An office exclusively for bakawan or mangrove trees? Why not? The Samahang Bayanihang Barangay (SABAYBA), one of the oldest civic groups in this municipality had proposed during a recent public hearing on the protection of bakawan trees that an office for “Bantay Bakawan” be put up in Samal.
Former Samal Vice Mayor Manny Cortez said that “if we are really that serious in preserving and protecting our bakawan trees,” an office for that purpose be set up. The said office should oversee, protect and preserve the mangrove trees in Samal being a coastal town, Cortez said.
Cortez who is the project manager of SABAYBA said mangrove trees had been beneficial to fishermen and the local residents living near the coastal area since the bakawan trees serve as protection against storm surge. During the onslaught of the last typhoon, he said, coastal villages could have been heavily flooded had it not been to mangrove trees lined up along the town’s coastal villages and nearby barangays.
“The decaying leaves of bakawan also serve as food to marine life in the area,” Cortez explained. The mangrove trees attract fish particularly those in the shorelines which has become their breeding ground.
Source Aticle: Greg Refraccion
