Description

The primary purpose of this pilot endeavour was to establish a quantifiable baseline for the coastal
marine resources at Toboso, Philippines. This was broadly divided into a holistic analysis of biodiversity inventory, and an ecological assessment of key coastal ecosystems. At present, the authors could find no published scientific
literature regarding marine resources for the Toboso region, and only a handful for the entirety of Negros
Occidental. Given the lack of baseline data to compare with and specific pressures faced by ecosystems at
Toboso, extrapolating data from other regions of Negros was deemed to be of little value. It should be noted
however that the nearby locations at which studies were conducted coincide with diverse coral reef
communities and areas with established MPAs, with studies carried out sporadically over the past decades,
with increasing frequency in recent years.
By Rahul Mehrotra, Sarocha Pakeenuya and Spencer Arnold