The Davao area is set to get millions of investments with the establishment of a mariculture park in Matina Aplaya and in Malalag, Davao del Sur. However, these investments will depend on the maintenance of the Davao Gulf’s clean and unpolluted water resources.
There are existing mariculture parks in Panabo City, Davao del Norte with 1.075 hectares, Samal Island in Davao del Norte with 224 hectares, Mati, Davao Oriental and Pantukan in Compostela Valley.
“A mariculture park is an area in the sea that covers 500 hectares or more,” Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Assistant Director Gil Adora said during the 8th Davao Region Business Conference held at the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas last Saturday, September 19, 2009.
A mariculture park is divided into individual farm plots for various marine aquaculture activities like seaweed farming and fish cage operation.
Adora said an investment in mariculture park will be beneficial for the Davao area because it will lead to several other investments. Among the possible investments that will ensue from the establishment of a mariculture park include investments in hatcheries for high vale species like Abalone and Seabass, investments in fish processing plants for fillet and ready to cook products, post harvest facilities like ice plants and cold storages, investments in feed mills, investments in the fabrication of sea cages and other equipments, investments in sea cage farming and investments in aqua tourism.
“The establishment of mariculture parks follows an integrated approach to sustainable mariculture and BFAR has been promoting their establishment since the year 2000 for the management of mariculture activities,” he said. BFAR is regularly monitoring the impact of mariculture parks to the environment. Even the number and sizes of the cages are regulated by the government so as to control the stocking densities based on the carrying capacity of an area he added.
Without mariculture parks, he said the sustainability of the industry is at stake since mariculture operators will respond to market forces alone and will tend to establish cages anywhere.
He said aquaculture and mariculture production has been on the rise since 1976, leading the country’s total fish production rate by 48.47% at 2,407,697.92 metric tons. This is followed by municipal fish production by 26.83% at 1,332,986.38 metric tons and commercial fish production by 24.68% at 1,226,204.88 metric tons during the same period.
“The continued rise of over all fisheries production from 1990s to the present is the result of continued increased in annual aquaculture production,” he said.
Why mariculture parks are attractive to investors
Mariculture parks are attractive to investors for a lot of reasons including the high return of investments. Adora said investors only have to pay for the annual lease, the amount of which is less than the cost to acquire and develop raw areas for its needs.
This investment follows the holistic concept, he said, where all concerns are being addressed to include infrastructure, capability building, marketing and othr ancillary industries.
Under the industrial estate concept, mariculture parks promote sea farming as a major livelihood of coastal fishermen, accelerate socio-economic growth and food security and provide the appropriate structure, equipment and support services to operate.
Aside from possessing one of the country’s if not the world’s cleanest water resources, the Davao Gulf is blessed with a continued advocacy to include several organizations led by the Save Davao Gulf Foundation which is celebrating the Davao Gulf week through a series of seminars, cleanups and trainings to protect the Davao Gulf and to avert if not minimize the effects of climate change.
As city council committee on environment chair Leo Avila said, the city’s environmental advocates are a blessing to the world considering that “we have the most number of volunteers when it comes to cleaning the Davao Gulf.” [Lovely A. Carillo]
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