When a lake dies

Lakes are among nature’s most majestic creations—huge bodies of water that nurture and maintain the land and the living things around them. Civilization is made possible by these precious resources, and human settlements derive both identity and physical sustenance from them.

In these parts, Laguna Lake has long been the lifeblood of the people who live around it—a treasure trove immortalized in the local lore of Rizal, Laguna and Metro Manila, stretching out 911 square kilometers with 21 tributaries, and serving as the country’s main source of freshwater fish. But it is now fading: heavily silted, polluted, crowded by fish pens—and in clear danger of dying.

Last week at a Mass, Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales called attention to the dire state of the lake, warning that if nothing is done, “the time will come … when it will no longer serve life.” The lake “will die,” he said. “It will be killed.”

The lake did not fall into terrible shape overnight. Activist priest Fr. Robert Reyes, speaking at the same Mass, cited the famous mountain of garbage to illustrate how dirty the once vital body of water has become through the years: “Worse than a marshland, Laguna Lake will become a Smokey Mountain in the future because of the continuous flow of dirt and wastes.” He said both industrialists and owners of private corporations “are the real pests in our environment because [they] exploit and destroy nature just for money, without due regard for its protection and sustainability.”

In 2014, Inquirer columnist Peter Wallace wrote that Laguna Lake was “10 to 12 meters deep just 35 years ago; today it’s a mere 2.5 to 3 meters, you can almost walk across it.”

There have been many ambitious projects aimed at the lake’s revival, many involving the Laguna Lake Development Authority (LLDA). In view of the situation, it may be safe to conclude that these projects have fizzled out.

In 2005, LLDA executive director Edgardo Mande blamed the people living at the lake’s edge for its state: “There are too many squatters. Their waste just goes straight to the lake. Laguna de Bay is Metro Manila’s biggest septic tank.”

Another big problem is the fish pens, which now count among the priorities of Environment Secretary Gina Lopez based on President Duterte’s directive. “We lessen the fish pens because they’re too much, but in our [doing so], we shouldn’t jeopardize the poor fishermen,” said Lopez, who is no stranger to efforts to save the lake (as well as Manila Bay and Pasig River). “Now we’re going a step further: We’re going to convert the whole Laguna Lake area into a magnificent zone which will be special like no other.”

This is no easy task, as Wallace pointed out in that 2014 column: “So an immediate, costless action that could be taken is to reduce the fish pens to an environmentally manageable level. But the problem is: This is the Philippines and ‘influentials’ own the pens—so action doesn’t happen.”

It’s important to understand that there is no single solution to the problem. The same was intimated by environmentalist Ipat Luna last week in discussing a “multipronged” approach to saving Laguna Lake: “Local governments would need to set up sewage treatment plants… We have to democratize the fish pens and fishing industry so they benefit the local people and the poor more instead of the rich. We also have to ensure enforcement of all laws, especially the LLDA law that requires [fish pen operators] to get permits. We also have to look at all the reclamation that is happening, that is making the lake even shallower.”

The challenge looms large because various peoples of the world know what happens when a lake dies. The Mother Nature Network identified eight freshwater bodies close to being lost, including Lake Badwater in California, Lake Chad in the Aral Sea, and Owens Lake in Sierra Nevada. Lake Poopo in Bolivia, now dead, was once part of that list. “After surviving decades of water diversion and cyclical El Niño droughts in the Andes, Lake Poopo basically disappeared in December,” Nicholas Casey wrote in The New York Times. The “finishing blow” was dealt by global warming and climate change.

“The vanishing of Lake Poopo,” Casey wrote, “now threatens the very identity of the Uru-Murato people, the oldest indigenous group in the area. … Since the fish died off in 2014, scores have left to work in lead mines or salt flats up to 200 miles away; those who stayed behind scrape by as farmers or otherwise survive on what used to be the shore.”

A harrowing story and a grim warning.