Land in the Philippines has at least an 18% slope which with the expanding depletion of its forests makes it vulnerable to soil erosion. Rapid population growth also contributes to a decline in available nutrient rich land for cultivation thereby decreasing rice yields. In an attempt to increase food production beginning in the 1960s the Philippines government supported high yielding varieties of rice along with their concomitant need for increased fertilizers and pesticides which further depleted the soil of its nutrients as well as polluted the soil and waterways. Further its export oriented development strategy advances the exploitation of natural resources. For example the government encourages rapid depletion of the forests by allocating concessions on the basis of political influence and the political elite receives a share of logging profits. In the past it also gave concessions to giant copper mining companies which dumped toxic mine tailings into waterways thereby threatening marine life. This elite centered political system and ecologically and socially flawed development strategy also caused decreases in fish catches. Some examples of these unsound practices include overfishing the destruction of mangrove forests and coral reefs and the dumping and/or runoff of organic and chemical wastes. Those with political influence and capital have gained the best access to fisheries resources and the municipal fishermen suffer. In order to prevent further deterioration of the environment the Aquino government must reduce the foreign debt burden incorporate maximum incentives for preserving the natural resource base support grass roots organizations efforts to restore degraded lands and protect resources invest more resources in reversing the trend and develop and institute a population policy to reduce the population growth rate.
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Hawes et al. (1989) studied this question.