 What do you see in this picture first? Is it the sea? Is it the people? Or you see the sign, the buildings? And what about the plants here in the trees? In 2004, when tsunami hits Indonesia, and together with climate change inside the rising sea level, this has raised the consciousness of people on the value of the beach forest and in the mangroves. For the last 10 years, we have seen the major typhoons that hit the country. And from over the years, we see that the values of the damage caused by this typhoon is increasing. Again, if you look at the pictures here, what do you see in all the damage areas here? We see here that there is the absence of natural protective barriers, such as mangroves and beach forests. But together with the combination of changing environmental conditions in urban encroachment, makes the coastal dunes a globally endangered ecosystem. So I introduced to you the beach forest species, the forgotten and ignored resources. Why forgotten? If you look at the history, majority of our ancestors started to settle in coastal areas. And reverse, well, obviously for the reason that it is the mobility, it's the most available mode of transport was by water. And that's why we have people like Tagalog or Tagailo, or we also have Silutausu or Taosu, or people of the current. And because of this, vegetation along the coastal areas was first to disappear, followed by the mangroves and other forest types. This scene is seen everywhere, the absence of the beach forest. This is an aerial view of Ileila City. Even in the remotest islands, many of this are already devoid of their beach forests. In some areas, we see also extreme damage done to the coastal areas in terms of industrialization, as you can see here. Because of this, the early loss, the beach forests are not well-studied. As other types of forests, and therefore, not familiar to the average Filipino. And in fact, it is not even reported in the really Philippine forestry statistics. Now, but what is a beach? So, when you speak of the beach, technically, it's a zone of loose material that extends from the lowest water mark to the point where we have the start of the vegetation. So, that's technically the beach. Now, if you look at the beach, there are so many materials primarily that are made up of sand. In some islands, you normally apply the term sandy beach for these areas. But what are the other materials that we find that are found at the beach? This records your silt. We have clay, the pebbles, your sial fragments, cobbles, the boulders and some coral debris. So, the beach may be a combination of the cobbles and the pebbles, the sand in different composition. So, you can see again here, you have the cobbles and pebbles in some cases, this is the dominance of the boulders. Now, so we calculate the beach as a living system. What is the living system? So, a living system is a set of parts interacting to achieve a certain goal made up of the following elements. One, it has elements or components, both the living and the non-living. Secondly, it should be information-based relationships or interactions that eventually would lead to the function or the purpose. Now, when you speak of a system, so the beach system will now encompass that from the up to a depth of around 40 feet down to up to the vegetated area above the sandy portion and will extend even all the way up to the watershed. That is what we call the entire beach system. And in fact, we have this as an example also, but the beach is again as part of the bigger coastal ecosystem. Now, so the beach and the dune forest are in an area that is very dynamic. One of the dynamic landscapes with what we call shifting with winds, shifting with incoming waves and storm flights. And the sand here is formed as a result of the wave action that brings the sand all the way to the shoreline forming the sand dunes. So, this area acts as a buffer to winds and waves and at the same time, a shelter for communities in the hinterland. But today, most of this is gone. The area is also a very important habitat for animals and plants, including the nesting of the sea turtles. However, the sand dunes are considered to be stressful environments because of shifting sand that will raise the vegetation, the salt spray, the soil that is having extreme temperatures with low water holding capacity and poor nutrient, particularly nitrogen content. But yet, we see there is a proliferation of a special group of plants in this area. So now, what is a beach forest? So we define a beach forest as a mixed association of literal creepers, shrubs and trees above the high tide level and may merge with an agricultural land or upland forest. They illustrate that there is a mixed association of the literal creepers, the shrubs, the trees growing above the high tide level that may extend all the way to or integrate with agricultural or the water gene. So illustrated here that they may merge with an agricultural land and or upland forest. Now, the beach forest is also known before as the supra tidal species that have been referred to as the beach jungle by the early explorers of our islands. Basically, we can categorize the two major areas where we collected the different beach forest species. One is as a sandy shore, the other one is on rocky cliffs. Now, example would be this sandy shore, sandy rocky beach found in Carles. You see the dominance there of the cobbles. Then we have a wide sandy beach with creepers and as you can see, we have there the creepers that are growing on a wide sandy beach area. Then the other type are those that are narrow sandy beach with trees immediately. And some are those that are found in areas with sandy beach but no adjacent mangroves while others could be with sandy beach and joining a fringing mangroves in front. The rocky cliffs are those found on steep vegetation not reached by tidal waters. And these are usually some could be gently sloping and portions of the lower portions would be reached by tidal waters. So illustrated here would be the rocky cliffs while this one would be the gently sloping ones and the lower portion would be reached by tidal waters. Now, so here is a summary on the different sites where the beach forest species could be found. Bansin is in 1976 categorized two beach categories of the beach floria. Namely, one is the Pescaprae Formation and the second is the Beringdonia Formation. Now, in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands two formations of the strand vegetation are commonly associated with sandy beaches namely this Pescaprae Formation and Beringdonia Formation. Now, this is the Pescaprae Formation composed of low herbaceous plants comprising mostly of the creepers on acquitting beaches with gentle slopes. Examples would be the species of cannibalium maritima and then the other ipumeya, Pescaprae or also known as the goat's creeper. The other is the Beringdonia Formation where you have here the lower parts of the trees could be reached by tidal waters and extreme periods and dominated by large size trees also well. So included would be your Beringdonia also known as Bulubitun and you can see here on the picture would be a large Beringdonia tree in Kiamba in Sarangani and a much bigger tree in Barangay Iligiligan in Yapak and Boracay. Take note that these are large trees and are very, very old already. Now, Pachimens in 1976 classified the Bits for a species into five morphological groupings based on the sequential appearance from the lower portion to the bits of the upper portion. One is we have the herbaceous beets. We have the beets scrub, we have the beets woodland, the beets agoho and the mixed literal forest. This is the portion where we have the creepers and the creepers are very good in terms of holding the sand here that is why they are at the forefront and they're usually the finer species and they should never be removed from that portion of the beets. Second would be the beets scrub. The beets shrubs are the low shrubs and then low trees exemplified here would be your clero dendrum enermy also known as the sorcerer's bush. By the way, this has proven to be possessing some anti-peretic and anti-pain properties. The third group would be the beets woodland. This are composed of the wild crowned low trees exemplified here by your talisae also known as the sea almond or terminalia catapa. Then the other group here would be composed of the beets agoho. Oftentimes people mistake this to be a pine tree but this is not a pine tree because this is a flowering plant and this is the cassorina equicity folia and usually they could also be a common finer species. However, they are also allylopathic and they could ward off other plants from growing near them. Then the last group on the upper portion would be the mixed litteral forest. This is composed of climbers now, abundant pumps and small trees and examples would be your sorerang manhas or the sea mango then with premna soratifolia and the familiar perhaps lapandan. Now, because of the harsh conditions of the environment plants develop morphological adaptations to survive this area. And as mentioned earlier that the area is highly stressful but yet plants are growing and because over time they have evolved to develop these adaptations. Now, what are these morphological adaptations now of the beets forest species? One is that some species will have thick slender leaves like your tumbleweed. Unfortunately many of these are gone already again because of developments into residential, commercial and even resorts. Then some species will have a thickened cuticle. Thickened cuticle would be to reduce the loss of water from the insides of the plant. So exemplifying here would be your sea lily or the crinum asiaticum. Then we have Sephora tomintosa. This plants in fact your crining is now being used as an ornamental plant in many of our resorts particularly your resorts along the coastal areas. Then we have those species that have low growing habit. Well obviously because of the, they are the frontliners also they have to adjust to the wind direction that blows towards the land so that eventually they will have the low creeping habit to allow them to proliferate in a particular area of the beets. And by the way, example would be our cannibalium maritima and this particular species is now being used in agriculture in some parts of India. Unfortunately in the Philippines we have not reached or top this particular resource. Then we have those species that have small, neural or navy rough and twisted forms like your heliotropium for terianum. This one is found in the Karamoan Islands in Camarin and Sur and we also have this in Boracay. But these are very few species or number of this it's quite diminishing already in many of our coastal areas. There are those species also that have developed multiple stems exemplified by your tabige also known as the silo corpus trunfii or the center mangrove or the piega also. Now, interestingly the species of this group are some of them have possessed the characteristics of what we call the r-selected species. Characteristics which include they have wide dispersal by water and they are having early reproduction in the relatively smaller in size. And because of these characteristics they are quick to colonize these very unstable environments like those shifting beach fronts. The other group can fall under what we call the case-selected species having a long life expectancy and large size. So exemplified by your barringtonian species your talisae your terminalia katapa the betaog or the callophyllum inofilum and these are ideal species for low land representation because they have a wider altitudinal distribution. Now, so what right now the general functions of the beets forests we look at the beets forest as a system so we are talking now of its emergence function. So one of these includes a protection against storm surges or the bio shield function. So we have seen already the damage caused by the strong typhoons that hit the Philippines in the last 10 years and again the majority of the problems could be linked to the absence of these natural barriers like the mangroves in the beets forests such that if you look this pristine beets forest area compared with an area denuded or devoid of its beets forest protection. So during typhoon Frank typhoon Kenyedongpeping and typhoon General Mon in 2011 exposed the vulnerabilities of many of our coastal areas and again if there's a question of the urgency of restoring what we call our beets forest and the mangroves for coastal protection. G1 is one of the in fact the worst hit area when typhoon Yolanda landed in the Philippines. An area here shown in the picture is supposedly an area where you will have the mangroves and then the beets forest. But instead we have houses here mostly informal settlers so when Yolanda hit G1 it devastated the entire area simply swept everything along its path. Now that's why we have been calling for the restoration of the protective green bills even before Yolanda hit the Philippines by restoring these two important groups the mangroves, intertidal and what we call the supertidal beets forest. Now based on simulations and observations mangroves are known and reported to cost reduction and wind and swell weights by 13% to 66% per 100 meters. It could even go up to as high as 50% to 99% per 500 meters of reduction. So the presence of more the roots in here would be very important in attinuating the wave action. Now in addition mangroves are also reported and have been demonstrated to be effective in preventing and reducing storm surge height reduction from 5 to 50 centimeter per kilometer of mangrove. And that is why we need to have the restoration of the green bill. It's composed of the mangroves at the beets forest. So together they provide this with what we call the bio shield function protection against storm surges in other or even is the ordinary swell swells of waves during typhoon season. This is a picture showing you one of the surviving species of the beets forest in Islansha. And imagine if our coastal areas are lined with the species. It could have afforded the protection to the communities around the area. Now the second function would be prevention of coastal erosion because of the removal that we see now this familiar site in many of our coastal areas the continued erosion. Everywhere we see this problem. The other function is the aspect on the cultural and historical values. It's one in fact of the ecosystem services. Look at the flowers here. These are beautiful flowers that are just there and people must simply ignore them perhaps. In fact many of our cities and towns and villages in the Philippines are named after a beets forest species. And in fact numerous local names for many beets flora and again a reflection of the wide distribution of the species all over the archipelago. Example would be your barringtonia locally known as bulubitoon. So we have barangay bitoon haro in Ilu Ilu City bitoon in the Anbandayan and Cebu and Botong in Quezon. Then we have talisae terminalia katapa and we have talisae negros or accidental talisae in Cebu talisae in Buhol talisae in Camarines Norte and talisae in Batangas. Then we have your teleparity taliasium a common name which means Banago and so many. If you notice there's so many common names for this particular species again showing this widely abundant all over the Philippines and in fact we have many places named after this particular species. So you have Balabago haro Malibago in Southern Leyte Malibago on Cebu in Lapulapo Malibago in Batangas and another is the common name Kalambugahan in Kagayan Diora City. This is a relative of your familiar Guma Mela. We observe also that there is a reduction in the number of reported local names from older to the more recent publications. Again perhaps a reflection of the disappearance of this species over time. Like we also have a case for example of hispanization of local names. Vitex farbiflora is known as Tugas or Mulawun and later on is now known as Mulavi again perhaps the difficulty of the Spaniards to pronounce the name Mulawun and actually it's pronounced Mulawun. Now it's now more popularly known as Mulavi. The other extreme is what I call the bastardization of local names. Example would be your Kananga or Dorata locally called Kananga. Perhaps you're familiar with this. The other local name is Alangilan and again perhaps the Spaniards have difficulty pronouncing the name and Alangilan became Ilangilang. Now the other species have epithets that have been reflective of the site where the first species was collected like Exora, Philippine nensis Dilinia, Siboyan nensis or Rithia, Palawan nensis again suggesting of course that the first specimen or the type species could have been collected from these areas. Now on uses and utilization now the Beats Forest is the original butika ng barangay for the Philippines. A drug store, a hardware rolled into one where all the needs of the barangay folks and our ancestors were derived from. This is a caveat. Let's illustrate that some of these uses have been tested in the lab particularly on the reported folkloric uses and many are simply anecdotal. So traditional folkloric medicine is a long list from calf, fever, asthma, tooth ache all the way to even breast cancer. And many of these plants are being investigated now in the laboratory. Now another interesting plant is merinda citrifolia is considered to be a ghost medicine because they claim that it could ward off non-early beings but believe me even earthly beings can be ward off by this because of the awful smell but interestingly also this plant was the source of the very famous nonid use when it became a fad years ago. As food source for carbohydrates for daily meals when food stock for inter-island and oceanic villages a long time ago. Pure pandanus tiktorius fruit pure taka liyontiput na liyontopitaloides also known as tayubong. Locally in Iloilo in Panae we call this tayubong and tayubong was used as a starts for clothes but with the advent of the introduction of the corn starts. I'm happy that this was spared from total extinction from the wild and we still have this a very important resource. Then of course who doesn't know how to eat coconut coconut lucifera but maybe the seeds of sycas is another interesting food item and even the bucananya or what we call the passe the fruits can be eaten fresh or preserved as pickles and jam. Then the fruits of this virus can be eaten also as fresh or again preserved as pickles and jam. And one that interesting species is the sea purslane also known as cesuvium portulocastrum that could be served as green salad. If you have nothing to eat in the field you can eat this one. Then we have other species like your melisapinieta or the body in your sofura or tambalisa are used as fodder for livestock. Others are used for wrapping for fish that gives distinctive flavor for fish. Then to illustrate the uses of bubits forest in terms of their wood products this is only for historical documentation not recommended to harvest the remaining stands of the bubits forest that we have. In particular like your tispicia pupulnea look at the grains of the woodworks beautiful then of course the very familiar popular mulave from which many of our antique items were made from especially our antique santuses and they're very expensive today. Now we also have the nantimber like a sword for die like sisalpinia the sisalpinia or your we call that as our sibukau and the Japanese even before the war has already produced an array of colors from the die from the sap of this sibukau. Then we have also the oil that we get from the seeds of the very foul-smelling tree the striculia fitida and the fruits can also be used as decorations later then of course the leaves of coconut that's commonly used as a touching materials and we have also the grass curds although we don't have this in the Philippines but the grass curds are produced from the plant called flagillaria indica then we have the more modern industrial applications we have productions of biodegradable plastics from sagul sorts biofuels from milisapinyata or the money and basket care products from prem na odorata The other uses include interesting amulets they've been reported to be used as amulet well for the thornetwigs of the sysalpinia bulldog or again I don't know if some of you here have tried making this into the you know toys the leaves of coconut then we also have a fish source for fish poisons like a barringtonia commonly used again in coastal areas then we even have poisons from the cerbera canyos for suicide and homicide in fact this is also known as the suicide tree because the sady in kerala india show that more than 500 women who were dug up the cadavers were found common in their stomach the presence of the seeds of this plant so in other words they're just believe that their mother in law were poisoning those women okay then we have another source of poison abrus applicatorius I don't know if recall the movie Blue Lagoon a long time ago this was the berry that they used and then they ate that and then they died then we have other products sa bigot personalizing products toothbrush et cetera all the way to toilet paper you know how it is then we have perfumes or flavors like the flowers of pandan pandanos and the beautiful flowers of the sea let us also known as kivaula takada then garlands then we have again here as mentioned earlier the seeds of this stir kula silamika and even stir kula fitida it's being used for massage but the fruit itself the cover itself is also being made used into a decor but in the Philippines people would use them rather as a firewood and of course if you have nothing to make for Christmas you can make some of this into your Christmas decoration but we don't recommend that then some again the same species can be used for as a source for gun powder earlier I mentioned about the beets area as a very inhospitable stressful and one of the important characteristics is that the soil is very much low in nitrogen now if you look at the composition of the families based on our research of the many families found in the beets forest the family of the fabasi e has the highest number of representatives the members of the family fabasi e are nitrogen fixtures and they have the ability to fix free nitrogen and because of the presence of the nitrogen fixing bacteria such that they're able to thrive in abundance in this harsh environment that's why the fabasi e has the highest number of species among the many species found in this area now, to show some other examples of the beets forest we have Alstonia macrophila or known as the batino or itang-itang you also have the Alstonia scolaris also known as the devil's tree then we have your antidisma gamebicilia this is by the way the fruits are edible also known as iniam or blackcurrant in English the beautiful flowers of erdicia cease your erdicia paang hazard tagpo then we have the familiar maybe a breadfruit arto carpos blancoy this again, of course, edible the sisalpina bondo the nicker nut also known as the lugdog then the calufilum inufilum these are huge trees large sized diameter the beautiful flowers common name is palumaria and we call here tier in panay as dangkalan or in English it's called laurel wood then we have this caparis microchanta this one is edible has a promise to become useful in our coastal areas and maybe can be propagated again, this is your pink isle sorbara the same angle then the other type is the yellow isle sorbara also known as the swiss isle tree and if you compare the two species can be compared easily or quickly by the press or the difference in the color of the center one has red the other one is yellow that's an easier way to distinguish the two species now another interesting species is comersonia bartramia also known as the scrub christmas and we notice that they actually grow or bear flowers towards christmas time in the coastal areas then we have another beautiful flowers of the cordia subcordata this is already known as the sea trumpet or the banalo or aguton then we have our you can also call this our native sakura kratiba religiosa or balaylamo or salingubo then we have kratoxilin for musum this one is known as the singapore sakura ulingon or salingugon then another the kratoxilum somatranum another beautiful flowers then the dilinia sibuianensis katmun sibuian then if you want to know more about the beach forest species in the philippines feel free to get a copy of the two books that we published one was released in 2012 then revised and updated with additional species released in 2017 thank you very much for listening