By Izah Morales
INQUIRER.net

MANILA, Philippines–Colored tags attached to tuna species like the “tangi” or “tambakul” can earn fishermen or consumers money rewards, an official of the Department of Agriculture said Monday.

“This tuna tagging project carries a $10 reward for yellow tag, $50 for green tag and $250 for orange tag. The latter two have accompanying devices inserted in the body cavity of the fish (near the abdomen). The tag on the former is attached on the back of the fish near the second dorsal fin,” said Malcolm Sarmiento, director Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources in DA’s press statement.

“We are calling on our fishermen and the consuming public to surrender to BFAR or the LGUs, any tag found in fishes particularly big-eye, skipjack, or yellowfin tuna and other marine fishes, as these are part of scientific studies,” Sarmiento said.

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Izah Morales
INQUIRER.net

A NEW rodent species discovered in May 2006 in Mt. Hamiguitan in Davao Oriental needs a wider area of habitat, researchers said.

Currently, the Batomys hamiguitan or the Hamiguitan hairy-tailed rat lives in the Mt. Hamiguitan Range Wildlife Sanctuary, which is 6,834 hectares in total surface area. However, this sanctuary is adjacent to seven Mineral Production Sharing Agreements (MPSA) also in Mt. Hamiguitan which cover 17,572 hectares, which is half of the mountain’s cover.

Leonilo Rivera, DENR Protected Area and Wildlife Division Chief of Region XI, said that expanding the protected area will take some time.

However, Edwin Domingo, assistant director of DENR Mines and Geosciences Bureau, clarified that there is no mining activity yet in Mt. Hamiguitan.

“We don’t have any conflict with [the] protected area. Normally, pinag-aaway kami [they let us fight]. Any and all protected and critical areas proclaimed as watershed are closed to mining applications, so if by chance, nagsubmit ka sa amin ng [you submit an] application, and we find out when we double check that you’re encroaching in this, we have to tell you that you have to [take] that out,” said Domingo.

Domingo said the mining applications have already existed prior to the proposal to make the area a protected area.

“It is not up to us in the DENR to make that categorical statement because in the NIPAS [National Integrated Protected Areas System] law, there is a procedural guideline. There is a process for consultation. We are not in the position to say, yes or no,” said Domingo when asked on their action on the requested expansion of the protected area.

Republic Act 7586 or the National Integrated Protected Areas System NIPAS law protects “outstandingly remarkable areas and biologically important public lands that are habitats of rare and endangered species of plants and animals representative of bio-geographic zones and related ecosystems.”

Through Republic Act 9303, Mt. Hamiguitan was declared as a protected area under the category of wildlife sanctuary in July 2004.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List, Mt. Hamiguitan includes at least 11 endangered vertebrate species.

“We are requesting the Protected Area Management Board to consider expanding the current protected to cover the majority of the habitat of the rare and restricted Hamiguitan hairy-tailed rat,” said Jayson Ibañez, coordinator of the field research program of the Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF).

Researchers from the US-based Field Museum of Natural History discovered the Hamiguitan hairy-tailed rat during an expedition in the Davao region.

Researchers along with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the PEF collected specimens from Mt. Hamiguitan and conducted a biodiversity survey that led to the discovery of the new species.

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Agence France-Presse

SYDNEY — A sharp slowdown in coral growth on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef since 1990 is a warning sign that precipitous changes in the world’s oceans may be imminent, scientists said Friday.

Strong evidence points to the cause being a combination of warmer seas and higher acidity from increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, Australian Institute of Marine Science researchers reported.

“The data suggest that this severe and sudden decline in calcification is unprecedented in at least 400 years,” said Glenn De’ath, principal author of a paper published Friday in the international journal Science.

The research shows that corals on the reef have slowed their growth by more than 14 percent since the “tipping point” year of 1990 and on current trends the corals would stop growing altogether by 2050.

“It is cause for extreme concern that such changes are already evident, with the relatively modest climate changes observed to date, in the world’s best protected and managed coral reef ecosystem,” said co-author Janice Lough.

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By Izah Morales
INQUIRER.net

IF you’re tired of reading about the fertilizer fund scam issue, then maybe it’s time to turn the leaf and make your own organic fertilizer in the backyard.

During a walk at the La Mesa Ecopark, I noticed vermiculturist Rogelio Moreno mixing soil with worms, which they called Vermicompost, an organic fertilizer. The worms were digging holes and gliding in the soil. While some people would feel icky about worms, Moreno considers them as “angels of the Earth.”

“Ang kagandahan ng mga bulate, ang kanyang pupu, malaking katulungan sa mga farmers. Binubuhay nito ang lupa. [The worms’ feces are a big help to farmers because it enriches and enlivens the soil.],” says Moreno.

Moreno willingly taught me how to make vermicompost.

First, you should collect biodegradable garbage like dried leaves, fruit and vegetable peelings and animal feces. Then place them in an empty bed or container. Cover the garbage with dried leaves and straw. You can use all kinds of leaves except for mahogany, eucalyptus and nymph leaves, says Moreno.

To avoid the foul smell, add coco dust. Then water the bed everyday. Add the worms on top of the compost. After five days, you will notice that the worms have gone down. Cover it with a net. You will know that you have a fertilizer when the feces are fine. After two months, you can collect the fertilizer.

Moreno says a farmer can earn P 9,000 from one fertilizer bed.

Organic fertilizer will not only make your plants healthy but will make your pockets wealthy.

Agence France-Presse

PARIS — Men significantly outnumbered women in the “out-of-Africa” migration some 60,000 years ago that eventually populated the rest of the world, according to a new study.

Africa is known to be the cradle of human evolution, and recent studies show that the people inhabiting other continents originate from a relatively small band of Homo sapiens who moved through the Near East, into Europe and beyond some 50,000 and 70,000 years ago.

But until now no one had figured out a way to determine what the sex-ratio of this so-called founding population might have been.

A quartet of researchers led by Alon Keinan at the Harvard Medical School thought that the secret might be locked inside differences in genetic code across distinct geographic regions.

They knew that the percentage of X chromosomes in a given population varies depending on the proportion of men.

The “X” and “Y” chromosomes determine sex — men have one of each, while women have two X chromosomes. The other 22 chromosome pairings in the human genome are all the same.

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