Where have all our fish gone? (First of Three Parts)

by Henrylito D. Tacio
In the past, Bago Aplaya used to be a haven of fish in Davao City. “When I was still younger,” 53-year-old Ronnie Estrera recalled, “we used to catch a lot of fish. But it’s the case anymore today.”
As he was talking, his son Dondon came home with one ice box full of fish. The 19-year-old lad, however, lamented that the fish were getting smaller and fewer. In some instances, they were forced to fish farther south into the waters of Sta. Cruz in Davao del Sur. “Fishers are already scarce in Bago Aplaya,” he said.
Bago Aplaya is part of Davao Gulf. With an area of 308,000 hectares, the gulf cuts into the island of Mindanao from Philippine Sea. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) considers Davao Gulf as one of the most diverse marine ecosystems in the world. Diverse coral reefs, different mangrove species, cetaceans and a host of invertebrates contribute to the natural diversity of the gulf.
Unknowingly, Davao Gulf is Southern Mindanao’s fishing ground. In fact, it is the 10th major fishing ground in the country. As such, “Davao Gulf is a critical resource supporting the economies of six coastal cities and 18 coastal municipalities,” says the Davao Gulf Management Council (DGMC), composed of all the local government units surrounding the gulf.
But since 2000, the volume and quality of the fish in the Davao Gulf have been found to be in constant decline, according to a study conducted by the Kuala Lumpur-based World Fish Center. A collaborative effort of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), local government units (LGUs) and the regional office of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), the decade-study looked at the volume and quality of the harvests of 10 commonly fished species in the gulf: matambaka, tamban, moro-moro, caraballas, bilong-bilong, lapu-lapu, danggit, molmol, talakitok, and maya-maya.
Except for maya-maya, the harvest numbers for the species have been falling. At the current rate of decline, the caraballas, bilong-bilong, molmol, and danggit may all disappear completely from Davao Gulf within a decade, said the study entitled, “Strengthening Governance and Sustainability of Small-scale Fisheries Management in the Philippines: An Ecosystem-based Fisheries Management Approach in Davao Region.”
The matambaka, tamban and moro-moro are more resilient, but even they may disappear within a generation, it added.
But it’s not only in Davao Gulf where fish catch is dwindling. InterAksyon.com, the online news portal of TV5, reported that in the newly-established Negros Island Region is also running out of fish. This was based from a study conducted by Remelyn I. de Ramos, a researcher from the Marine Sciences Institute of University of Philippines-Diliman.
Business Mirror, on the other hand, revealed that Filipino fishermen these days are catching smaller, lesser fish. “It is unfortunate that the country’s small and commercial fishermen are fishing themselves out of business,” Atty. Gloria Estenzo Ramos, vice president for Oceana Philippines, was quoted as saying.
In the 1950s, the average fish catch was “more than 10 kilograms a day.” It went down to “less than 5 kilograms a day” in the 1990s due to decades of overfishing, catching of juvenile fish, and use of illegal fishing methods, according to Jimely Flores, Oceana’s senior marine scientist.
Currently, the Philippines is home to more than 100 million people, as per record from the Washington, D.C.-based Population Reference Bureau. “About 62% of the population lives in the coastal zone,” says the Philippine Environment Monitor published by the World Bank.
The Philippines has one of the highest population growth rates in the world, with an average annual rate of increase of 2.75 percent during the last century. Estimates show that if the present rapid population growth and declining trend in fish production continue, only a few kilograms of fish will be available per Filipino per year in the coming years, as opposed to 28.5 kilograms per year in 2003.
Fish provides more than half of the protein requirement of Filipinos. This makes the people in this planet one of the world’s biggest fish consumers.
“Without any change in fish consumption and no active human population management program,” the World Bank report warns, “domestic demand for fish will reach 3.2 billion kilograms by 2020, given the projected population growth rate of the country.”
“We are running out of fish and running out of time. For a country known for marine biodiversity, there are very few fish left to catch,” deplored Vince Cinches, Oceans Campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
“Our fishery resources are beset with problems,” says the BFAR, a line agency of the Department of Agriculture. Fishery resources refer to inland (lakes, rivers, freshwater swamps and fishponds), coastal and offshore waters.
Aside from population, the BFAR has identified several other factors which contribute to the dwindling fish catch. Oceans, which most of the fish come from, are global common property resources, open and with few limitations to all takers.
“Overfishing is the primary cause of dwindling fish population,” writes Peter Weber in his report, Net Loss: Fish, Jobs and the Marine Environment, published by Washington, D.C.-based Worldwatch Institute.
According to a study conducted by Remelyn I. de Ramos of the Marine Sciences Institute of the University of the Philippines at Diliman, the “fish stocks in major fishing grounds (in the Philippines) have been reduced to less than 10 percent of the levels in the 1950s.”
De Ramos believed “the average catch today is less than 50 percent of the catch in the 1970s.”
A report published in Rappler said that Filipino fisherfolk would catch 20 kilograms of fish a day in the 1970s. Now, they catch only around 4.76 kilograms a day – barely a fourth of the amount during the good old days.
Meanwhile, the BFAR regional office implements a 3-month fishing ban in Davao Gulf. “Given the decline of fishery resources, there has to be a closed season in Davao Gulf,” pointed out Councilor Leonardo Avila III when he was still alive. (To be continued)