Fish Forever in the Philippines: Campaign for managed access and sanctuaries
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Coastal zoning workshop in Looc and Lubang
Rare
A social marketing and behavior change campaign is being implemented to encourage community support for the set-up of Managed Access Areas + Sanctuaries, a fishery management approach that designates exclusive fishing areas for certain groups of fishers in exchange for compliance with more sustainable fishery practices. This is paired with a household resiliency strategy to help build financial assets for houselholds supporting the program.
Last update: 30 Sep 2020
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Context
Challenges addressed
Environmental: Fishing grounds around Looc have been overfished, and sizes of fish caught have been declining in the past few years.
Social: Fishers know that their waters are overfished, but are wary of new management approaches that might restrict their fishing even more. Setting up managed access areas around no-take zones or sanctuaries requires strong community buy-in, agreement around areas to be delineated, trust, and constant cooperation between the local government, local village leaders, and groups of fishers.
Economic: There is high dependence on fishing as the main source of livelihood in Looc. Shifting to more sustainable practices and limiting access to certain fishing areas will require viable alternative or supplementary livelihood options.
Location
Looc, Occidental Mindoro, the Philippines
Southeast Asia
Process
Summary of the process
The process goes through several stages, including Understanding the People and Context, Design Process and Implementation, and Building Household Financial Resiliency, but it is all underpinned throughout by the building blocks of Community Engagement and Behavior Change, as well Organizational Development and Capacity-Building. These two critical building blocks must accompany all the steps in the process in order to make them effective and long-lasting.
Building Blocks
Understanding People and Context
Qualitative and quantitative research is conducted to produce profiles of both the fisheries and the fishers, so that current fishing grounds, gears and practices are documented. Current knowledge, attitudes and sources of information are also measured.
Enabling factors
Participatry processes ensured that community validated the information and accepted it as a basis for future decisions
• A partner academic institution provided technical expertise and credibility with the community.
• Previous projects in the area also yielded valuable scientific information.
Lesson learned
The amount of time needed to educate the fishers and the community on basic coastal resource and fisheries management should not be underestimated. Multiple listening sessions and discussions are important to build understanding and support.
Participatory Managed Access Design & Implementation
Using the data from profiling, fishers and community leaders are engaged in a series of workshops that guides them through a) defining their community goals for fisheries and conservation, b) zoning and marking off their municipal waters, c) evaluating their reserves, d) delineating areas for managed access, and e) agreeing on the rules within their managed access areas. When these have been agreed on, they are codified in policy and institutional arrangements for ongoing implementation.
Enabling factors
Buy-in of the mayor and local legislative council helped drive process in communities, and previously designated management areas served as starting points for further spatial planning.
Lesson learned
Inputs from first stage were critical for building trust for this stage. It was important that all discussions and agreements during the workshops would be shared with communities in feedback and consultation sessions before proceeding to the next stage of the design process.
Community Engagement & Behavior Change
The campaign team at each municipality uses a mix of creative materials and community mobilization activities to inspire and educate fishers and their families about the benefits of working together to manage their fisheries better. In the ‘Readiness’ phase, the messages are focused on getting the fishers to become registered fishers, comply with basic fishing laws, and participate in meetings. In the second phase after the managed access areas are legalized, the messages focus on building compliance for the rules of the MAA+S and continued monitoring of their catch.
Enabling factors
Strong sense of place and identity among fishers on the island; Active support of municipal and village leaders; Motivated and efficient staff.
Lesson learned
Many commonalities exist between sites, so the campaign was able to use materials adopted from the other municipalities that have also pushed for basic fisheries management. Local adaptation, especially of mobilization activities, helped to make the campaigns more site-specific and ‘ownable’ by the community.
Organizational Development and Capacity-building
There are several critical organizations within the community that need to be developed or strengthened. The campaign must ensure that the fishery councils, the management bodies, and the fisher associations are organized and well-functioning. They are trained on topics like Adaptive Fisheries Management, Management Essentials, Volunteer Management, and Team Building.
Enabling factors
Openness for cooperation and learning.
Lesson learned
The functioning and support of fishery councils, the management bodies and the fisher associations is necessary for the success of the fish forever campaign.
Financial literacy and resiliency
To shift to more sustainable fishing, fishers needed to build up their savings to cushion their households against crises and shocks. Savings clubs were organized across the municipalitiy using the Village Savings and Loan Association model. After 9 months, 4 clubs with 95 members had been formed and clubs had an average of Php 3200 saved per member.
Enabling factors
VSLA approach has strong safeguards to promote accountaibility among members; Word of mouth encouraged other fishing households to join.
Lesson learned
Wives of the fishermen are critical to building household savings and must be reached out to. It is also important to share stories of what the savings have been used for, such as medical emergencies, or tiding family over during days when weather is bad for fishing, to inspire each other to continue.
Impacts
1,144 hecatares of municipal waters have been legally declared as a Managed Access Area + Sanctuary, which will support protection of critical habitats and allocation of exclusive access to fishers that comply with more sustainable practices.
More than 800 fishers have been reached by awareness campaigns about sustainable fishing practices, and have participated in knowledge-building and decision making sessions.
Beneficiaries
Fishers, fisher associations, the Municipal Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Management Council, the local municipal government, including members of the Agriculture office, legislative council and mayor’s office.
Story
Jose Ambrocio
Jose Ambrocio
“As an islander, life was harsh, having difficulty in accessing potable water and electricity. Means of living in our town mostly come from fishing. During my childhood and teenage days, I was engaged in blast fishing and joined as a crew member of a commercial trawl fishing vessel.
However, after so many years of engaging in illegal fishing activities, I got interested in public service, serving in our local village youth council. I was elected as the youth village chairperson and got employed in our municipality under the Municipal Agriculture Office.
From there, I got elected as Municipal Councilor and chosen as chairperson on agriculture and environment committee. As a Municipal Councilor, I got involved in coastal fisheries resource management programs supported by Non-Government Organizations and National Government Agencies. First, with the help of Conservation International, I led the team in establishing Marine Protected Areas. And now, with the Fish Forever campaign of Rare, we are working to balance the economic needs of the people and the need to conserve the resources for the future generation. Fishers now come to me to tell me that they understand better what we are all trying to do."
Connect with contributors
Other contributors
Jose Ambrocio
Municipality of Looc, Occidental Mindoro / Rare
Rocky Sanchez Tirona
Rare
Fel Cesar Cadiz
Rare
Isaac Abello
Rare
Art Faburada
Rare
