The Ligawasan Marsh which covers provinces of Cotabato, Maguindanao, and Maguindanao is having a hard time trying to grapple with the problem of hyacinth or water lily that clogs lakes and rivers, causing floods, and may have contributed to fish kills.
Water hyacinth absorbs oxygen needed by marine life and threaten the livelihood of poor fishermen, threatens places downstreams from flood, etc.
In
other countries or even withing Philippines like Naga City, water hyacinths posed
livelihood opportunity through processing it into charcoal. A charcoal
briqueting machine is needed in order to process the water hyacinth into
charcoal, of course, technical knowledge and skills, social marketing, and
allocation of fund by the government agencies and other NGOs is among the key
to turn the problem of water hyacinth into income generation.
Should this opportunity be shared to the rural communities and provide them pump priming capital, we could at last say that "MAY PERA PALA SA WATER HYACINTH".
