The Davao City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Office (CDRRMO) will be embarking on planting more mangrove trees on coastal areas of the city to act as natural barriers against tsunami.
CDRRMO training officer Lyndon Leovic Ancajas said they will be following one of Indonesia’s risk reduction practices, which is integrating mangroves into coastal defense strategy.
“During Indonesia’s 2006 tsunami, there were only lesser damage because of the mangrove,” Ancajas told reporters during the i-Speak media forum on Thursday,
Ancajas said they are studying where they can mangrove since the city’s coastal areas already have informal settlers.
In Indonesia, about 3 million hectares of mangrove forest grow along its 95,000 kilometer coastline that can reach up to 50 meters in height based on 2007 data of the Center for International Forestry Research.
In the neighboring localities, the town Carmen and cities of Panabo and Tagum, all in Davao del Norte, have mangrove forest. Mati City in Davao Oriental also has mangrove forest.
The CDRRMO is also eyeing on adopting strategies of Japan, which have already proven their resiliency to disasters over the years. One is the building of seawalls “but of course we have to conduct further studies because we can’t put walls to areas with existing houses.”
The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) has already warned Davao Region for a possible magnitude of eight or higher once the Mati Fault Segment move. Not only that, strong earthquake also awaits for Davao City as it lies on top of Central Davao Fault System.
