In this island town, sea turtles are not welcome

Twice a week, Roming Andajer, 49, a resident of the coastal village of Tondol in the island town of Anda in Pangasinan province, goes out to sea but not to fish.

During these trips, Andajer spends his time tending a “sea garden”—a quarter of a hectare of seaweed farm teeming with eucheuma, kappaphycus and other varieties sought for their industrial and food uses.

Andajer would remove the grasses that cling to the seaweeds, as well as mud and other debris that can hamper their growth. He would also shoo away sea turtles that come to graze on the seaweeds.

“Sea turtles here are not welcome,” Andajer says, noting that they also shoo away fish, like malaga, that feed on seaweeds.

For Andajer, who maintains the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources’ (BFAR) farm in Anda, and the other seaweed farmers in coastal towns in Pangasinan, sea turtles bring them headaches.

“They can finish off an entire farm in just a few days,” Andajer says.

“We would scare them away, but it is like a hide-and-seek game. In a minute they are in front of you, the next minute they are behind you with only their head above water. If we are able to shoo them away, they would be gone for two to three days, then they are back again. We have to be patient,” he says.

Rommel Valenzuela, 24, whose parents are seaweed farm operators in Dasol town, says sea turtles graze in their seaweed farm and in the farms in other villages.

Seaweed farmers know that catching or killing sea turtles is illegal so they thought of doing something to keep the sea creatures at bay, without endangering them.

Most seaweed farmers have caged their farms, says Amanda Galang, coordinator of BFAR’s seaweed farming program in the Ilocos region.

Through this method, seaweed farmers enclose their farms in bamboo poles and nets while others resort to culturing seaweeds in baskets tied to ropes.

“What is good about caging or basketing seaweeds is that, even if there is a typhoon and the planting materials are untangled from the ropes, they are not carried away by the current. They just fall into the floor of the cage or basket,” says Efren Monterola, who maintains BFAR’s nursery at the Hundred Islands National Park in Alaminos City.

Seaweed farming is fast becoming a secondary income earner for fishermen in the Ilocos region. There are now 20 fishermen-cooperatives in coastal towns in the region which are involved in seaweed production.