The Lake Is Speaking, And We Keep Scrolling

What Anchovies in a Philippine Lake Say About Climate Collapse and Cultural Amnesia

Lake Mainit, nestled between Surigao del Norte and Agusan del Norte in Mindanao, is a biological treasure. But last week, it became something else: a warning.

Local fisherfolk of Lake Mainit gather around an unexpected anchovy catch, something they’ve never seen in freshwater before.

A strange phenomenon occurred: anchovies, a species we expect in salty seas, surfaced in freshwaters along their shores.

Locals were amazed. My Facebook post documenting this anomaly went viral. But while the internet was sharing and reacting, the lake was doing something else. It was screaming.

Freshwater Anchovies Shouldn’t Exist. So Why Are They Here?

As a Fisheries Technologist, I know this isn’t just an “ooh cool!” moment. Freshwater anchovies appearing in an inland lake is not normal. It could mean salinity shifts. Ecological imbalance. Or worse, an invisible collapse, creeping in because no one’s paying attention.

Inspecting the catch: Technicians and locals analyze the sudden appearance of marine species in a freshwater lake.

And isn’t that the story everywhere? Communities closest to nature see the signs, feel the change, but their warnings get drowned in noise.

Complacency Is the Real Crisis

Lake Mainit is the fourth-largest lake in the Philippines. It feeds thousands of lives through fishing, agriculture, and sacred memory. And yet, it lacks proper ecological monitoring, minimal government protection, and a steadily eroding shoreline.

What does it say about us that it took anchovies to make us notice?

What does it say about leadership when viral posts generate more reaction than DENR field reports?

Global South, Local Collapse

This story isn’t just about fish. It’s about the global narrative of environmental disposability.

Lakes like Mainit, forests like Sierra Madre, and rivers like Pasig have been sacrificed at the altar of unchecked growth, weak governance, and foreign profit. The Global North debates carbon credits while our waters die silently.

Here in the Philippines, lakes don’t just provide food. They hold ancestral truths. They are keepers of our memory, identity, and survival.

And yet, where is the outrage when they begin to rot?

A pile of anchovies, some barely the size of a coin, is proof of changing water conditions and biodiversity shift.

Lake Mainit Is a Mirror

The anchovies are not the phenomenon. Our silence is.

The real crisis is not their appearance, it’s our delayed response.

Maybe it’s time we admit it: nature is adapting faster than our systems are reacting.

And if we continue to ignore the signs, be it fish in a lake or a flood in a city, we are complicit in the erasure of our futures.