Ornamental
and live food-fish collection as a livelihood conservation strategy in the
Turtle Island, Tawi-Tawi, Philippines
Filemon G. Romero[1] and
Romeo B. Trono[2]
The use of sodium cyanide in the capture of ornamental and live
food-fishes has been identified as one of the causes of coral reef degradation
in the Philippines. Lately, while the
export of ornamental fishes declined, the export of live food-fishes,
especially the panther grouper, Cromileptes altivelis, humphead wrasse, Cheilinus
undulatus, and leopard grouper, Plectropomus leopardus, has
increased tremendously. The high demand
for live food-fishes in Hong Kong and Singapore brought about this shift. The high prices that these target species
command encouraged the use of this highly efficient but destructive
practice. Though efforts of governmental
and non-governmental organizations to curb this destructive practice have gained
limited success, remote and isolated islands with extensive reefal system, like
the Turtle Islands, have become vulnerable alternative destinations for this
illegal fishing practice. Destruction
of the coral reef and seagrass ecosystems in these islands would affect
adversely the nesting turtle population that these islands support. As a community-based approach to this
problem, the Kabang Kalikasan ng Pilipinas, a non-governmental associate
of the World Wildlife Fund in the Philippines, launched the Turtle Island
Integrated Conservation and Development Project (TIICDP), in cooperation
with the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau of the Department of Environment
and Natural Resources. This is in
consonance with the establishment of the Turtle Island Heritage Protected
Areas, created by virtue of the Memorandum of Agreement between the
Government of the Philippines and the Federal Republic of Malaysia. One of the components of the TIICDP is the
Ornamental and Live-fish Collection as a Livelihood-Conservation Strategy with
the aim of introducing alternative, environmentally-friendly, and sustainable
techniques of live-fish collection and evaluating their socio-economic and
ecological impacts. The project hopes to
develop a model to address the problem of destructive fishing practices,
employing site-specific community-based approach and to generate field data and
experience, which could be used, when this project is replicated in other parts
of the country or region.
[1] Mindanao State University, Tawi-Tawi, Philippines and Kabang Kalikasan ng Pilipinas (WWF-Philippines)
[2] Kabang Kalikasan ng Pilipinas, 23-A Maalindog Street, U. P. Village, Diliman, Quezon City 1101, Philippines, e-mail address: [email protected]