Fish sanctuary offers food for generations

LYDIA Cantos will not allow anyone to do away with the law, especially that related to fisheries. “I love this job. The sea employed my father and my brothers. It literally nurtured us. Imagine rice on the table without fish?” she says.

Cantos, the coastal resource management (CRM) coordinator of Gloria, a serene seaside town of Oriental Mindoro province, is this year’s outstanding employee of the municipal government and the key person behind the multiawarded Agsalin Fish Sanctuary.

Two new marine protected areas (MPAs) are likewise reaping recognition: the 14-hectare fish sanctuary in Barangay Santa Teresa (with two women members of the Bantay Dagat, or Sea Patrol) and the 80.4-ha one in Barangay Tambong.

Gloria is 88 kilometers or about 2 hours’ drive from the City of Calapan, named after former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who spent her childhood days there while her father, Diosdado Macapagal, was serving as President of the country in Manila.

Verde Island Passage

The 11-year-old widely praised sanctuary in the town’s Barangay Agsalin is at the boundary of the Verde Island Passage (VIP) Marine Conservation Corridor and the Tablas Strait. The VIP is internationally known as “the center of the center” of marine biodiversity because of the presence of highly diverse marine population.

Covering 80 ha, it has shoal reefs, 700 to 800 meters from the nearest coastline of black sandy beach of pebbles and gravel, and with a depth of 50 to 60 feet and over a 10-ha field, according to the municipality’s website.

Illegal fishers used to exploit the rich resources of the sea.

Jonathan Fajilagot, 38, a member of the Bantay Dagat and a certified diver, was once engaged in muro ami (reef hunting). “With the fishery seminars, I realized the sea has limits that it would get back at us,” he says.

With the conservation program in place, the sanctuary now has a thriving fish population of groupers, fusiliers, snappers, surgeonfish, sweet lips, rabbitfish, jacks, parrotfish, butterfly and angel fish, giant clams, sea cucumbers and lobsters. Schools of barracudas and sea turtles have also been sighted.

“Agsalin has fish spillover and it’s good to see that young people join the harvest, with their fathers, unlike in many other places where the youths, the second liners, turn their back on fishing,” said Fajilagot, who is now chair of the Fishery Management Council.

The Malampaya Foundation Inc. has initiated the payao project, which installed an artificial floating raft for fish to congregate. It had earlier identified Agsalin as a priority site in its marine conservation program in the VIP, Fajilagot says.

Provincial support

Marilyn Alcanesis, chief of the fisheries coastal resources management division of the provincial agriculture office, says her agency supports the villagers’ efforts to achieve marine self-sufficiency. “We don’t dictate, we support them to achieve their vision,” she says. “First is the community that cares and initiates for the sea.”

In 2004, barangay officials passed an ordinance declaring the area a fish sanctuary. Originally, the site covered 36.5 ha, but it was expanded to 80.13 ha in 2010, or a 120-percent increase.

“It was difficult (in the beginning) because the locals depended on the sea for their livelihood. It took several meetings and public hearings for them to accept the need for a sanctuary,” Cantos recalls.

A no-take zone has been imposed, and only hook-and-line fishing is allowed in the 100-meter buffer zone to significantly reduce fishing effort.

“The people told their municipality they wanted to declare an MPA, which in turn contacted us for technical assistance,” says Rhodora Emilia Ramiento, MPA coordinator from the provincial government.

To come up with a sanctuary plan, the stakeholders go through a workshop to profile the place, the resources and governance, and identify the features of the ordinance, as well as their roles and responsibilities, issues and concerns, vision-mission-goal, action plan and finances.

The plan was approved by the Sangguniang Barangay (village council) and adopted by the Sangguaniang Panlalawigan (municipal council).

The provincial government helped provide the initial funding. “Through the years, with a clear plan and good performance, we are able to secure more funds from the municipality,” Cantos says.

From a P24,000 annual CRM budget in 2007, the amount was increased to P839,339.43 in 2011, and P780,000 in 2015, through the provincial government’s Annual Investment Plan.

The Bantay Dagat was provided with communication equipment, patrol boats, honorariums, and other logistical needs for regular patrolling and monitoring of the sanctuary. Its members were given Red Cross Accident Insurance and PhilHealth cards.

A bottoms-up-budgeting project has alse been extended for the fisherfolk and CRM projects.

The MPA management body was formed, with committees on legislation, law enforcement, monitoring, information-education-communication (like in schools) and financial management. Members underwent training on global positioning system (GPS), sea grass management, advance fishery law enforcement, paralegal, livelihood and financial management.

Livelihood projects were put up for residents, such as aquasilviculture, facility and soft loan for fish processing, tilapia farming, payao and goat raising.

“Some fisherfolk are even better off than I am and earn more,” Cantos says, with a smile.

She can lose her job anytime, she says. “Like I experienced being assigned to the mountain with a change in administration. But after three months, I was reinstalled in my post. I hope that politicians would really listen to and learn from seminars and not just to show off.”

Agsalin is a finalist in the search for the Most Outstanding MPA Award hosted by the Marine Protected Areas Support Network, which is composed of government, nongovernment and academic institutions that seeks to promote and support the protection of the seas in the Philippines.

The awards and recognition event will be held to coincide with the 13th National Symposium in Marine Science in General Santos City on Oct. 22-24.