Status, trends and challenges in the sustainability of small-scale fisheries in the Philippines: Insights from FISHDA (Fishing Industries' Support in Handling Decisions Application) model

Spatio-Temporal Declines in Philippine Fisheries and its Implications to Coastal Municipal Fishers' Catch and Income

“…After conversion to daily estimates, we found that the average Filipino fisher earns only about 12.4 US$ from fishing per day (with a mean of 7.3 ± 0.2 fishing hours per day, based on interviews). By factoring-in their daily fuel cost of about 2.9 US$ after 7.3 h of fishing, it becomes apparent that most fishers are left with less than 10.0 US$/day, a value comparable to that found by Muallil et al (2014b). This amount is hardly enough to pay for a fisher's daily expenses, especially considering that interviewed fishers had an average of 3.3 ± 1.5 dependents to support, in addition to their own personal expenses (n = 160 respondents with dependents).…”

“…Fish catch may not always be an accurate reflection of fish stock status, particularly under conditions of effective management, wherein declines in fish catch records are due to the effectiveness of policies that limit fishing (e.g., enforcement of Total Allowable Catch quotas (TACs) and Marine Reserves (MRs)). However, given the lack of enforced fisheries management and the high exploitation rate in many Philippine reefs and coastal areas Muallil et al, 2014b), we doubt that the decrease in fish catch recorded in Philippine waters is due to effective fish catch restrictions and management (with the exception of a few wellenforced MRs in the country). Instead, we highly suspect that the decrease in fish catch perhaps reflects the depleted and overexploited status of many Philippine fish species, particularly commercially-important, large-bodied reef fish species (Go et al, 2015).…”

“…Previous studies have lamented the un-sustainability of most Philippine fisheries (Sadovy, 2005;Stobutzki et al, 2006;Muallil et al, 2014b). Once exploitation rate exceeds a certain threshold, the number of collapsed species increase, and declines in total fish catch, fish stock biomass, and mean fish body size follow (Worm et al, 2009).…”

“…While local communities have the responsibility to comply with these management measures, governing bodies have the responsibility to provide adequate incentives toward effective management (Beddington et al, 2007), so regression back to unsustainable practices is prevented. In the Philippines, capacity-building and alternative livelihood programs are implemented by various government and nongovernment institutions, which include stock provision for farming and livestock, technical skills development to increase employment opportunities in other fields, and micro-financing from small business as implemented by the local government and various line agencies (Muallil et al, 2014b). Thus, platforms for encouraging reductions in fishing effort through alternative livelihood programs are taking shape in the country, but need further assessment and improvement, considering the great spatial scale and increasing number of marginalized fishers that rely upon the dwindling fish stocks in most Philippine coastal waters.…”

I-C-SEA Change: A participatory tool for rapid assessment of vulnerability of tropical coastal communities to climate change impacts

“…The basis for the categories is the range of fisher density estimate of fishing communities (barangay) from the 40 municipalities in the fisheries database of COMECO (Muallil et al 2014 …”