Four years ago, villagers in the town of Labason in the southern Philippines’ Zamboanga Peninsula woke up to a spectacle they never thought could happen in these modern times: the sight of tons of wriggling sardines washed ashore.
Ecstatic residents, young and old alike, rushed to the shoreline with all kinds of containers and filled them with these tamban (Sardinella lemuru) that they scooped up with their bare hands. The extraordinary event of the heyday fish harvest was caught on video that went viral on social media.
For most Filipinos, sardines are a cheap source of protein. A can of sardines, which costs about 20 pesos (40 U.S. cents) at mom-and-pop stores, is a must-have pantry item in poor Philippine households.
Robert “Dodoy” Ballon, president of the Coalition of Municipal Fisherfolk Association in Zamboanga Sibugay (COMFAZS), says the “sardine galore” event occurred not just in Labason but also in nearby Pagadian City and Tukuran municipality. Ballon, a two-time national winner of the Gawad Saka ng Pangulo Award (Presidential Excellence Award for Agriculture), attributes the unusual beaching of tamban to an annual, three-month-long ban on commercial sardine fishing.
The fishing ban extends from Dec. 1 to Mar. 1, the peak of the sardine spawning season, and covers commercial operators in a conservation area spanning 22,260 square kilometers (8,600 square miles) in portions of the East Sulu Sea, Basilan Strait and Zamboanga Sibugay province. Under Philippine law, violators of the fishing ban can face imprisonment of six months to six years, as well as fines ranging from 40,000 to 1 million pesos ($830 to $20,700), confiscation of their catch and gear, and loss of fishing licenses.
The closure was introduced in 2011 by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) after studies conducted in the Zamboanga Peninsula, the heart of the country’s sardine production, concluded that the sardine catch was dwindling and individual sardines were getting smaller, apparently due to overfishing.
In addition to commercial fishing and canning, the species has spawned a cottage industry involving the production of bottled Spanish-style sardines. The combined value of all of these ventures is around 20 billion pesos ($413 million), according to data from the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA).
The ban was supported by major players in the sardine industry, and has also gained support from small fishers. The big stakeholders, including the canned sardine manufacturers and commercial fishing operators, feared that without conservation measures, the species would dwindle to a point where catches would no longer be feasible for commercial operations, which would result in industry-wide shutdowns that would displace tens of thousands of workers.
Municipal fishers also welcomed the conservation initiative, which imposes no additional restrictions on small operators. The fishing ban does not apply to fishing in the zone designated for marginal fishers, called municipal waters, which extend up to 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the shoreline. Also, because commercial fishing operations further offshore are restricted during the closed season, high-value fish such as tuna can stray into municipal waters, to the benefit of the small-scale fishers.
“With fewer efforts, municipal fishers catch more sardines and other fish species during the closed fishing season because commercial operations are not allowed. It’s a blessing to the marginal fisherfolk,” Ballon says.
During the fishing ban, Ballon told Mongabay, a municipal fisher can catch 50 to 100 kilograms (110 to 220 pounds) of sardines even without venturing far from the shoreline, because schools of the fish swarm close to shore to feed on plankton.
Records from the BFAR show a steady rise in the volume of sardines landed by both commercial and municipal fishers. From 141,658 tons in 2015, the catch rose to 208,000 tons in 2019.
A study by experts at the University of the Philippines Los Baños from 2016 to 2018 recommended the continuation of the closed fishing season, noting that the results of the ban showed not only an increase in sardine catches but also a rise in the landed catch of high-value non-sardine species such as tuna. “There was a positive impact to society overall,” the authors said.
Nevertheless, workers in the sardine canning plants and commercial fishing companies were displaced during the closed fishing season in the Zamboanga Peninsula, which produces 70% of sardines in the Philippines. There are at least 26 commercial fishing companies and 11 canning firms operating in the peninsula, providing jobs for 50,000 people, industry data show.
During the closed fishing season, many displaced sardine cannery workers look for other work to sustain themselves and their families, such as working in the rubber plantations that thrive in the region, or engaging in talaba (oyster) harvesting. Others find work in the bottled sardine industry. The government, through the Department of Agriculture, also offers easy access to small loans for workers affected by the closed season.
The sardine canneries and commercial fishing companies, meanwhile, use the downtime to conduct repair and maintenance operations on their facilities and vessels.
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