Joint operatives of Coast Guard Station Northeastern Palawan (CGSNEP) and the Palawan Council for Sustainable Development Staff Wildlife Enforcement Unit (PCSDS WEU) recovered an abandoned stack of crushed corals in Purok 2, Barangay Tagumpay, Coron, on Monday, February 19.
A collaborative effort by the Coast Guard Intelligence Group Palawan (CGIG-PAL), CGSNEP, and PCSDS-WEU led to the discovery of 119 sacks of undocumented crushed coral, totaling two tons.
PCSDS spokesperson Jovic Fabello said Thursday that they were discovered on February 19 in Purok 2, Barangay Tagumpay, Coron, by their personnel from the Wildlife Enforcement Unit (WEU), with help from members of the Coast Guard Station Northeastern Palawan (CGSNEP).
Their enforcement team, he said, was engaged in a biodiversity assessment in Tagumpay, during which they uncovered environmental violations, including the discovery of crushed corals.
Actually, this is a part of the intelligence gathering that our office does. Our intel teams are circulating because, right now, we are conducting biodiversity assessments in the Busuanga area, so we included these types of assessments simultaneously. Along with this, we also have intelligence gathering on environmental violations, and that’s how we found this, leading us to conduct joint operations with the PCG,” Fabello said.
He added that inquiries are ongoing to find the source of these corals, which dishonest people illegally harvested.
The goal is to locate these offenders so they can be prosecuted and held accountable for their environmental violations.
“They have damaged the coral reef ecosystem, leaving no habitat for the fish where they destroyed the corals. Secondly, it’s difficult to assign a value or conduct a valuation because it’s all mixed up. We don’t know if endangered corals are mixed in with non-endangered corals. There are corals that have value in the black market, like black coral. So, we can’t value them now because they’re crushed and mixed up,” he stated.
It is known that these are used in the aquarium industry, where they serve as a bed for aquariums instead of just sand. Fabello said, sometimes, the sand is mixed with small coral formations, which is why they are crushed.
Since the corals are crushed, the PCSD is unable to determine which of them belong to endangered species.
The PCSD District Management Office in Coron will hold them in custody while they elevate the administrative case to the PCSD Adjudication Board for decision-making.
