Sustainable Fisheries and Behavior Change Early Results from the Fish Forever Program in the Philippines
The Challenge of Coastal Overfishing Within the nearshore waters surrounding the country s 36,289 kilometers of coastline, critical habitats such as coral reefs and seagrass beds support the life cycle of many fish species. The home range for a wealth of marine species includes the mangrove forests hugging the sandy and rocky shoreline, which also provide protection against tropical storms and other extreme climate events. Across the archipelago, majority of the country s population of 15 million live in coastal cities and municipalities. The Philippines consistently ranks among the top 1 fish-producing nations in the world, with most of the seafood consumed domestically. According to the 218 State of World Fisheries report from the Food and Agriculture Organization, the country s production is projected to go higher in the next decade. However, growing local demand from more Filipinos would require more imports to meet the increased consumption of fish. Commercial and aquaculture fisheries account for much of the production, although Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) figures showed a decline as of 216. Municipal fisheries was also on a downward trend, creating more hardships for a long-suffering sector: PSA records show that municipal fishers are among the poorest sectors in society, with one in three fishers considered poor. Municipal fishers generate about one-fourth of production, but they constitute the bulk of employment in the fisheries sector. The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) recorded more than 1.9 million registered fishers as of July 218. Despite efforts to regulate the fishing industry, open access to marine resources has remained the norm, leading to unsustainable levels of fishing in coastal waters. Overfishing reduces the abundance, diversity, and size of fish. Such exploitation gives less room for regeneration and can lead to potentially catastrophic consequences for the health of marine habitats, the coastal food chain, and ultimately, basic ocean functions. Unchecked, overfishing often triggers a race for the last fish where an escalating cycle of ever more destructive gear, greater effort, and more boats drive a spiral of diminishing returns. Thus, solving the threat posed by coastal fisheries collapse is an urgent priority. 2
Barriers in fisheries management In 212, Rare launched a series of global partnerships to design and broadly prototype a solution, which was launched first in the Philippines. However, many of the constraints were daunting: National Integrated Protected Area System, and locally managed Marine Protected Areas. Since the 199s, more than 1,6 MPAs have been established all over the country, but there is a wide disparity in their sizes and management effectiveness. Slow and non-linear recovery Daunting scale Marine systems tend to recover, even from severe pressure, if coastal habitats are not irreversibly destroyed. However, full recovery can require a decade or more. Marine systems are also highly dynamic: recovery tends to be uneven, subject to temporary setbacks, and difficult to attribute to specific causes or triggers. Given this time frame and the lack of consistent feedback, it is difficult to design and maintain a new system of steadily improving management effectiveness. Coastal fishing is highly distributed, with 928 coastal cities and municipalities in the Philippines alone, according to the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority. Piloting a new approach at single sites in the hope that it will be widely replicated rarely works, even if the early results are promising. Outcomes at the scale needed, therefore, require designing and testing a replicable mass prototype from the outset. Uneven effectiveness of governance Data holes While the 1991 Local Government Code (Republic Act 716) gave coastal cities and municipalities jurisdiction of the waters within 15 kilometers from their shoreline, and the Revised National Fisheries Code (Republic Act 1654) of 215 bolstered this mandate by giving preferential rights to their registered and licensed fishers to fish in these municipal waters, there is still confusion around the roles and accountabilities of different government agencies. The situation gets even more complicated in areas with overlapping policies, such as marine parks or sanctuaries under the Globally, basic numbers behind fishing effort, fish mortality, and stock status are often unknown. The data which are fundamental to any systematic improvement of management, such as baselines, timelines for fishing effort, and catch profiles must be created from scratch. If there is data available, they often do not match the borders of the local communities with which Rare needs to work. On the socioeconomic front, systematic monitoring and evaluation efforts similarly need to start from scratch, with very little baseline data available. 3
The Solution: Rights-based Management & Community Behavior Change fishers from coastal communities the opportunity to exclusively access local waters in exchange for the responsibility to sustain these resources. This transition from open access to managed access helps engender a sense of responsibility, ownership, and pride. In the Philippines, this approach was called Managed Access with Sanctuaries (MA+S). Faced with such a complex problem to improve the management of coastal ecosystems, Rare assembled a network of experts and institutions to identify and address the problem s drivers. They included the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) Sustainable Fisheries Group, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Bloomberg Philanthropies (and Vibrant Oceans Initiative partners Oceana and Encourage Capital), Waitt Foundation, and The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. A clear pathway to scale The solution had to be developed through mass prototypes of sufficient scale that would be capable of winning over the government and private sector, as well as fishing communities. Over time, once sufficient evidence for the model is in place, widespread adoption may be facilitated by government support through legislation and sustained financial investment, and creative financial mechanisms that blend philanthropy, public finance, and private capital to strengthen the capacities of both government and local communities. From the beginning, it was clear to Rare that the solution would need to be based on three fundamental principles: Community behavior change The simplest way to envision a solution to overfishing is to focus on the behavior of fishers and the community around them. What are the legal, economic, social, cultural, biological, and structural drivers of this unsustainable behavior? How can sustainable fishing become a new norm? In addition to economic and legal drivers, what are the social incentives for change? How can sustainable fishing be made easier, more attractive, and more profitable? Why might fishers cooperate to manage a common-pool resource? Following these principles, the group s work quickly focused on empowering fishing communities specifically, their ability to sustainably manage their own fisheries for significant local gain. The principal mechanism of control the (re)assertion of communities rights to manage local fishing grounds is exerted in terms of relatively simple, locally-applied measures, such as highly managed access to local fisheries, designation of no-take reserves, and basic restrictions on destructive gear and overharvesting. Rights-based management Ending the tragedy of the commons requires a transformational shift in behavior, best served by giving 4
Designing managed access for fisheries In 214, Rare started implementing Fish Forever in the Philippines, building off the existing network of no-take zones or sanctuaries that most municipalities already had. Rare s founding partners, EDF and UCSB, were closely involved in the initial planning stages and in developing management tools. Fisheries co-management programs have been implemented in some areas in previous decades, but legally establishing Managed Access with Sanctuaries had never been done in the Philippines prior to the Fish Forever program. Through a series of consultations, legal and policy experts determined that establishing MA+S through a local ordinance is possible based on the Philippine Constitution, the Revised Fisheries Code, and the Local Government Code. Municipal or city government units, which have the mandate to manage municipal waters, are the primary implementing partners of Fish Forever. They designate a Conservation Fellow or a Site Coordinator to lead the local project team, and link up with fishing communities through the Municipal Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Councils (MFARMCs). Municipal fishers defined by the government as fishers, gleaners, vendors, and processors are the main target group for the program, both as beneficiaries and as the primary audience of behavior adoption campaigns. Selection of Fish Forever sites followed these criteria: With existing and functional MPAs (reserves or no-take zones) Local Government Unit, especially the Mayor, demonstrates high interest, commitment, and good environmental governance Ideally, the site would have been part of previous fisheries programs, at a more advanced stage of MPA management, and with higher capacity for coastal law enforcement Examples of Fish Forever toolkits Participatory Coastal Fishery Resource Assessment (PCFRA) Management Effectiveness Assessment Tool (MEAT) Fisheries Management Assessment and Rating Kit (FishMARK) Fish Game (to introduce MPA, harvest controls, and managed access) Coastal Zoning Maps (for geo-tagging and ground-truthing) Managed Access Areas + Sanctuaries Design Workshop Templates for Ordinance, Implementing Rules and Regulations, and Management Plan 5
More fish, stronger communities Out of 22 sites, 2 local government partners have completed the managed access + sanctuaries design process, right up to an approved or updated local ordinance that provides the policy and governance structure for community rights-based fisheries management. Each site has created a Technical Working Group (TWG) with members from fishers associations, the local legislative council, and the MFARMCs. Following the passage of their rights-based fisheries ordinance, the TWG is slated to evolve into the MA+S management board that will implement the provisions of the law and the management plan. Fish Forever sites in the Philippines Gender participation in fisheries management Women played a major role during the MA+S design process, participating actively in focused group discussions and workshops. During habitat assessments, they acted as guides, note-takers, and data gathering assistants. In a series of two- to three-day workshops, women and men reviewed fishery-related challenges and correspondingly crafted their goals, identified commonly caught marine species and their seasonality, plotted fishing gear and activities on community resource maps, analyzed species home ranges against the sizes of their existing sanctuaries, determined their fishing boundaries, and agreed on fishing rules and access requirements. Community savings clubs are often cited as the biggest tangible output of the program, especially for women who are usually the ones that secure loans from informal sources at usurious rates. As of March 218, a total of 12 savings clubs had pooled more than PhP14.5 million in locally generated funds. It is worthwhile to note that 76% of the 2,237 members in these savings clubs are female. Similarly, fishery conservation enterprises are dominated by women, as they seek to increase the value of the fish catch through processing and marketing to high-end consumers. 6
Results in Water With a research partner, the University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute Marine Environment Resources Foundation, Rare collected extensive underwater data inside and outside focal MPAs across 2 sites to determine ecosystem health and fish abundance, diversity, and size. For some of Rare s earlier partners, data covers the period from 21 to 217. For others, it only covers 3-4 years. Fish Biomass Preliminary findings show that fish biomass of target species were maintained or had increased at all sites inside the reserve, and in the areas surrounding it. There were no statistically significant decreases in target fish biomass in any of the sites. When measured over a longer period of time, the results are even more promising. After three years, there is no significant change in fish biomass at most sites. After five years, significant increases at two of the five sites are evident. However, in all four sites with seven years of in-water survey data, the data suggests that recovery and spillover occur, with an average increase of 39% inside no-take zones and 111% increase outside of the reserves. 57
Further analysis indicates that herbivorous fishes (rabbitfish, parrotfish, and surgeonfish) are largely driving these changes. This is consistent with literature that shows smaller fish with shorter life cycles recover more quickly than larger fish. Herbivore biomass increases have been observed both inside and outside the sanctuaries, and this has positive implications on both ecological and fisheries benefits. Fish catch Fishers were encouraged to take responsibility in reporting their catch as part of Fish Forever s drive towards behavior change. There was enough data in four sites to analyse trends over a three-year period, and this showed an increase in average catch. 8
AYUNGON BINDOY_ CANTILAN CORTES 4---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- 3 2 *..,_(:i..,_(:i 4 DAPA LIBERTAD LOOC MASINLOC 3 W 2..,_(:i..,_(:i 4 MERCEDES TINAMBAC 3 2 In ten sites, the mean Catch per Unit Effort (CPUE) is showing positive trends, although there is not enough data yet to make definitive conclusions...,_(:i..,_(:i There was a huge variation in catch data due to several factors. In Lubang island for example, enumerators are unable to maintain accurate records as most of the fish caught within municipal waters is brought directly to fish landing centers in the mainland. Also, each site has different target species for fisheries small pelagic species such as tuna and mackerel in Libertad, Culasi, and Sagnay for example, compared to reef fishes in others. More work needs to be done to address barriers to adoption, consistency, and accuracy in reporting fish catch. But for many sites, their preliminary catch data was the first insight fishers ever got on their fishing activity. They are starting to recognize the importance of having data available to recognize patterns, show successes and failures, and adjust their decision-making process in managing their fisheries. 9
Coral Cover Two critical factors greatly affected the measurement of changes in coral cover: the incidence of coral bleaching and effectiveness of habitat protection. In areas that were not heavily affected by coral bleaching and warmer waters, increasing coral cover was observed. Project sites within the inner seas of the country, such as the Visayas, also showed increases by up to 15 per cent. However, coastal municipalities facing the Pacific Ocean and the West Philippines Sea showed a decrease that was attributed to the effect of the changing climate, and for the sites found in Surigao in Mindanao, heavy siltation caused by mining. Overall, six of the 21 sites reported a net decrease in coral cover ranging from less than 35% to over 54% change over a three- to seven-year period. Cortes Cantilan Tinambac Ayungon 5 5 * 4 6 4 3 3 3 4 2 2 2 1 2 1 1 "" " <o "'1,, " "" <o " <o "'1,, " <o Bindoy lnabanga Del Carmen Sagnay 6 6 2 5 * 15 4 4 4 3 1 2 2 2 5 1 "'1,, " "" <o " <o "'1,, " " <o Culasi Dapa Gubat Libertad 5-4 3 3 4.._ 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 ro.._ (.) " " "" " Looc Lubang Manjuyod Masinloc 4 5 4 4 3 3 4 3 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 " " " " Mercedes San Carlos Tayasan lpil 8 6 4 4 6 4 4 2 2 2 2 " " " "'1,, " <o 1
Social Results To measure the perception of fishing communities on the social and economic impact of the project, surveys were done over a three-year period in six project sites: Ayungon, Bindoy, and Manjuyod in Negros Oriental; Culasi in Antique; Gubat in Sorsogon; and Dapa in Surigao del Norte. Desired fishing behaviors 1. Fishers are registered and licensed 2. Fishers fish in the right place with the right gear 3. Fishers participate in meetings and fishery-related discussions 4. Fishers report their catch Surveys were also conducted in 12 sites to measure changes in knowledge, attitudes, and practices among fishers around four desired fishing behaviors. Pre- and post-survey results show significant improvements in 8% of the social metrics. The most notable changes revolved around improved attitudes towards sanctuaries and sustainable fishing practices, increased communication among fishers, and improved compliance with catch reporting, registration, and no-take zones. Another critical highlight is social equity, or the fishers perception that they are on the same footing, which is vital to their ability to collectively decide on the use of their resources in the future. Overall well-being and food security are also worthy of attention. Given the long timelines for ecological recovery of fisheries, the fishers perception of improvements in their quality of life will be critical to their commitment to sustained management. 11
Scaling Up With the modest success of the first batch of Fish Forever partners, Rare is looking at replicating the model in more coastal local government units. The next phase of Fish Forever will see the incorporation of climatesmart reserve design at broader ecological scales, digital catch monitoring to ensure data for decision-making, and mainstreaming of financial and market inclusion strategies like savings clubs across all sites. Rare will be working with more partners at provincial, regional, and national levels to encourage wider adoption of community-based management, ensure priority and preference for coastal fisheries, and create more pathways to sustainable financing. For a start, Rare has entered into partnership agreements with the provincial governments of Cebu, Negros Oriental, and Negros Occidental as part of its engagement in the Tañon Strait Protected Seascape (TSPS). The collaboration involves the joint implementation of Fish Forever as a sustainable fisheries management intervention that will benefit all municipal governments within their jurisdiction. Rare has also entered into agreements with regional offices of BFAR and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to provide training on managed access, behavior change, and financial inclusion approaches. At the national level, we have seen the inclusion of preferential rights and managed access, as well as behavior change and social marketing, as critical strategies for sustainable conservation in the Philippines Development Plan. Rare continues to be tapped by the DENR S Biodiversity Management Bureau as its main partner for building capacity among protected area managers in behavior change under the Coastal and Marine Ecosystems Management Project. Rare is also working with the DENR and the Climate Change Commission to help build the resilience of coastal communities and the marine environment through strategies such as Ecosystem-Based Adaptation. Together with local and national government partners, Rare is continuing to pursue innovative ways to unlock funding for coastal fisheries using blended finance from public, development network, private sector, and philanthropic sources. The Fish Forever program has amplified the voices and dreams of coastal communities, and their aspirations for a better life. Their access privileges come with responsibilities, allowing fishers to work with the local government unit in controlling their own fisheries through a system of rights, rewards, and obligations. Thus, the right to fish becomes contingent on good governance and good stewardship. The process has proven that win-win solutions in addressing livelihood and conservation challenges are possible. If more people and sectors work together, the dream of Fish Forever can turn into reality. 2