Spanning 521,018 hectares between Cebu and Negros, the Tañon Strait is richer in marine diversity and about five times larger than the more famous Tubbataha Reef in the Western Philippine Sea.
And now, for the first time, community leaders of Visayan coastal fishing towns have finally met to address overfishing issues and to protect the country’s largest marine protected area (MPA).
A general management plan was passed recently in hopes of harmonizing efforts to protect the reserve as underscored in Presidential Proclamation 1234 signed in 1998. The framework will help municipals and barangays along the reserve to draft five year-plans of action for the sustainable use of the reserve.
Over the last 17 years, the lack of a coordinated and clear policy within the reserve has caused weak law enforcement against overfishing and other illegal commercial activities, leading to declining fish catch. Today, a local fisher can bring home two kilos of fish after a day of fishing, down from an easy catch of five kilos in the 1970s.
Management plan, fishing studies needed
One of the leading marine scientists on Tañon Strait, Dr. Lemmuel Aragones, associate professor at the Institute of Environment Science and Meteorology at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, pushed for the reserve’s immediate protection and the creation of baseline studies therefor.
“The general management plan is a first step. The challenge is to ensure there are mechanisms for long-term commitment, continuous awareness program, and sustained action,” noted Dr. Aragones, one of the leading experts on Tañon Strait biodiversity since 1990.
For the program to work, Aragones urged community leaders to use science and help build better information about the area for sound policies under the general management plan.
For one, there is a lack of data on the volume of local fish catch in Tañon Strait. The latest data is about a decade old, from research published (http://oneocean.org/download/db_files/cv_fish_profile.pdf) by the team of Stuart Green, he noted.
“The lack of updated data is a setback. To develop and establish an effective management plan, it should be based on sound science or it will tend to fail like most Philippine plans on managing natural resources,” noted Dr. Aragones.
Some 43,000 registered community fisherfolk from Negros and Cebu in 298 coastal villages depend on Tañon Strait for food and livelihood.
Miseducated, misenformed government leaders
While it is an open secret that there are Filipino commercial fishing activities in the area, law enforcement is difficult due to “overlapping and conflicting local policies, sometimes including vested interests,” explained lawyer Rose-Liza Osorio, Foundation for the Philippine Environment chairman.
During the three-day conference, the two-term mayor Nelson Garcia of Dumanjug, a town in Cebu, aired his dissent on the management plan’s provision to prohibit commercial fishing in the protected area.
People, not whale sharks or dolphins, should benefit first from the sea including the means of commercial fishing, according to Garcia, younger brother of former Cebu governor Gwen Garcia.
“In my area, when there is a whale and they catch it, I will let them kill it. They are parasites, competing for the food of the people,” said Garcia, who mentioned that they eat at least 2 tons of fish while citing the Internet and a TV show as his source of information.
During the summit’s open forum, Garcia admitted that majority of his constituents work under commercial fishers that operate payaw or fish aggregating devices in Dumanjug’s municipal waters.
Osorio noted that Garcia's pronouncement strongly underscores the need to educate local leaders about the country’s environmental laws, especially for devolved functions.
Under a democratic process, Garcia has a right to air his voice, which “could be representative of other conference participants but are not interested to speak up,” noted Osorio.
Amending the law
Under the Fisheries Code of 1998, the first ten kilometers of coastal waters from the shoreline are reserved exclusively for municipal fishers, Meanwhile, the area from 10 to 15 km has a “use conflict” between municipal and commercial fishing activity due to some flexibilities under the law.
Bills to amend the Fisheries Code have been filed at the Senate and House of Representatives. A salient provision is increased penalties for commercial fishing violations to comply with international convention and avoid the European ban on marine products in case the Philippines fails to improve its “red card” standing before the Dec. 19 deadline.
Dr. Aragones reiterated the need to establish quality research to illustrate with evidence the declining fish production due to overfishing within Tañon Strait.
Involving local communities
He added that involving the local communities to help gather this data by proposing commercial fishing moratoriums in the medium term of five to ten years to help gather a baseline data on the change and behavior of fishing populations, including whale sharks and dolphins, apex predators that help keep the balance of species populations in the sea.
If funding is made available, a good study under the general management plan can also help quantify and qualify the impact of these top predators in terms of fish production, Dr. Aragones added.
In another interview, Oceana chief scientist Dr. Mike Hirschfield concurred and noted that strictly limiting the use of municipal waters to community fishers is key to the sustainability of Tañon Strait.
“A piece of the solution to overfishing is to separate small-scale fisherfolk from commercial fishermen but it only works if you can enforce that separation so that you can apprehend violators. Mayors in the area raised the challenge of how to do it,” noted Dr. Mike Hirschfield, chief scientist at Oceana, one of the convenors of the summit.
And the presence of whales and dolphins in the area, Dr. Hirschfield explained, should be welcomed. In fact, these species are bio indicators that the marine diversity supports good production to support the life of both humans and marine animals. They also offer additional livelihood from ecotourism.
Sustainable practices
“The reason to protect marine areas is easy: think of the fish as savings in a bank (sea). Don’t catch more than you can replenish, or you go broke easily,” explained Dr. Hirschfield.
“The Visayan community has the opportunity to do marine protection and conservation right in Tañon Strait. Whether it goes bankrupt or sustains itself, we will see in the plan and its implementation,” concluded Dr. Hirschfield. — TJD, GMA News
