Bohol fishermen slaughter Thresher Shark in Balicasag protected area

[rob1967]

Glliagan, you are quite right, the lack of big fish in the Philippines is quite depressing. I have also seen the boatmen and locals in certain areas fishing after ever-smaller fish because all the big stuff is gone. But, there is some hope, because certain sanctuaries are well protected. Apo Island was the first, and served as a model for the rest. I would encourage you all to read the following site: Marine Sanctuary: Restoring a Coral-Reef Fishery (Apo Island, Philippines) | The EcoTipping Points Project

Hydreliox, I agree, I have seen the same thing in Dauin as you. Although not perfect, the marine sanctuaries do provide some protection, at least for the small stuff. Anilao is also very well-protected, and their macro is even better than Dauin, plus they are also having schooling jacks starting to come back. Puerto Galera has been fairly well-protected for a while.

Bohol, I guess not so much. Cabilao, when I was there a few years ago, was kind of depressing. The hammerheads were long gone, and I saw the locals going after all kinds of small stuff with small mesh nets. I even saw spear-fishermen on snorkel who would observe us from above while we were diving, to see what frogfish we were looking at. The local DM said there were incidents of these guys spearing the frogfish for dinner after the dive party had checked it out. Very sad!

But the bottom line is, protection can and does work. It is just a matter of getting the locals on board. Once they see the benefits, they can and will participate in the protection of their reefs.

 

[Hank49]

Let me toss this into the mix on the education aspect:

Drugs are used to collect untold number of aquarium size fish in the Philippines. No doubt those collectors are paid by the fish and if so numbers matter. Those fish are then shipped to developed countries to people who can afford to spend upwards of hundreds of dollars on a single fish. One can only guess how many of those fish die in transit from shipper to wholesaler to retailer. Quite often they perish on the consumer from the drugs used to collect them. How about educating the hobbyist on that? Do they already know how these fish are collected? Do they really care? Maybe it's sort of like blaming the countries that grow drugs rather than the wealthier countries that use them?

I watched the near-shore reefs on Maui become near depleted of Yellow Tang fish as a result of collection for shipping to mainland hobbyists. And that was done by "educated" people.

I remember reading somewhere that about 10% or less of the fish caught on the reefs actually arrive live in someone's aquarium.
But it's not all exported. When I worked and lived in Iloilo I had a co worker who had a condo in Makati. He had a "contract" aquarium where he...or the owner, I'm not sure, paid for an aquarium service where every week someone would come in a collect the dead fish...of which there were usually two or more, and replace them with live fish. There was no regard to balancing the bio mass so as not to overload the biofilter. Pretty sad. The only fish I saw last for over a couple months was a small moray eel.

 

[supergaijin]

For sure sanctuaries work as long as they are indeed sanctuaries. They do need to be policed and that takes organisation, money and some officials who aren't corrupt and are not intimidated by men with large cane knives.

In the documentary Sharkwater the local longliners apparently threatened to go to the island and wipe out every last Galapagos Tortoise if the authorities didn't let them fish.

 

[Gilligan]

I would encourage you all to read the following site: Marine Sanctuary: Restoring a Coral-Reef Fishery (Apo Island, Philippines) | The EcoTipping Points Project

But the bottom line is, protection can and does work. It is just a matter of getting the locals on board. Once they see the benefits, they can and will participate in the protection of their reefs.

The article is excellent. Keep in mind it was done on a very small scale on a very small island with a very small population. That made it that much easier to accomplish. I especially took note of the part about controlling their own population with family planning via contraceptives. That in and of itself is amazing. For the Philippines in general that translates to doing battle with the Catholic Church :blessing: and that is the reason the Health Reproductive Bill has likely not been passed. I won't go there :focus:.