A freelance German media person visited San Pablo City on January 2, 2015 to interview stakeholders about the seven lakes in the City. Her name is Katharina Nickoleit. She came with her husband, Chris, who is a photographer and their son, Tim. They have been travelling around the Philippines for two weeks to gather feature stories for German radio.

Katharina interviewed Bobby Azores, my dad who is also the Chairman of the Friends of the Seven Lakes Foundation. They talked about the fishcages on Sampaloc Lake. My dad was explaining about the law that there should only be structures like fishcages on 10% of the suitable surface area of the lake. But this law is not being enforced. In past years, the structures would go up to more than 50% of the lake area. Well, he said that a study way back said that our lakes would be in peril (or threatened) if the structures would reach 20%. Right now, there are less structures because of the natural calamities like typhoons which destroy the fishcages. But it doesn?t take long for the fisherfolk to rebuild their fishcages.

Fishcages is one of the reasons that the lakes are polluted. The reason is that there is unconsumed fishfeeds which sink to the bottom and in right conditions lead to turnover phenomenon. But this is not the only reason. There are also illegal dwellers along the shoreline who have built their houses right on the lake. These homes do not have septic tanks, so the domestic wastes go right into the lake.

Another topic that was discussed with HS teacher Ms. Claudine Villanueva and her students was the Sachet Recovery Project.  This is how youth groups are collecting softaflextic wrappers or sachets of shampoos, conditioners, detergents, etc which are commonly used by families and end up in the landfill.  In coordination with Unilever Philippines, the Society for Conservation of Philippine Wetlands has been organizing collection of the sachets. These are brought to the Materials Recovery Facility and recycled into ecobricks.

We brought the German family to visit with Ka Pando Espallardo, a fisherfolk in Palakpakin Lake. He gave his thoughts on the problems of the lakes and how fisherfolk can do their part to protect  them. From there, we showed them another lake, Mojicap Lake where they saw large fishes of different species.  From here, the family of Katharina will proceed to Subic Bay to speak to someone about the problem of streetchildren.