The Ticao-Burias Pass in the Philippines is home to lawlaw and high-grade fish species. Many Filipinos depend on fish not only for food but also for livelihood, making this one of the most important resources in achieving food security in the country.
Citing data from the Philippine Statistics Authority, Joyce Siera, Oceana communications manager, said that the usual catch of sardines locally called tamban declined from 442,045.75 metric tons in 2010 to 325,226.20 metric tons or a 26.4 percent decline in 2019.
Oceana, an international nonprofit advocacy organization focused solely on ocean conservation, was founded in 2001.
Siera said GPS trackers were installed on fishing vessels operating in the Fisheries Management Area (FMA) 7 covering Bicol to Visayan seas and allowed the team to monitor fishing activities in the area over time.
This method has led the research team to discover that 60 percent of the total 60,000 metric tons caught in FMA-7 were from Bulan station along the Ticao-Burias Pass.
It said that fish caught in Bulan fall below the size of the first maturity. Many juveniles are caught in this area and there’s a need to implement measures to reduce by regulating the fishing — the number of vessels, the frequency of catches, and when they are allowed to operate, Oceana said.
Oceana urged the government’s fisheries agency and stakeholders to conduct a participatory process to address the challenges in managing its sardine stocks in the Bicol Region, part of the country’s sardine-rich fisheries management area, in response to the incident of sardine spoilage in Bulan, Sorsogon.