GUAGUA, Pampanga – Small fisherfolk under the Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) decried plans of the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) to declare 15 major fishing grounds as Fisheries Management Areas (FMA) to “revive the dwindling fish catch and lessen imports.”
In a statement, Pamalakaya said the 15 fishing grounds have been “exploited by the rampant operations of large-scale commercial fishing fleets, as well as by government and private sectors’ destructive projects such as reclamation and eco-tourism zones.”
“There is no chance that the FMA could revive the deteriorating waters and depleting fish stocks when big-fish firms continue to exploit and monopolize the municipal fishing waters,” Pamalakaya said.
The group however did not identify the 15 areas nor could the list be found in websites.
Pamalakaya likened FMA to Marine Protected Areas (MPA) which is supposed to rehabilitate degraded marine resources. “In reality, MPAs pave the way for big businesses to massively convert communal fishing grounds into private eco-tourism zones that off er recreational tourism activities such as diving sites, boat riding, and sports fishing at the expense of the fishing rights of small municipal fisherfolk.”
“We recognize the depleting fish catch in our waters as we ourselves experience that on a daily fishing basis. But the government’s solution to declare our major fishing grounds as FMA deserves a nationwide resistance by the municipal fishers. FMA will only further deprive municipal fishers of their traditional fishing grounds,” Pamalakaya said.
Pamalakaya noted that “while the BFAR plans a massive rehabilitation- drive of fishing waters through FMA, its director is encouraging a harmonization between municipal fishers and commercial fishing vessels that incessantly exploit and destroy the resources in the municipal waters.”
“This is not revival but furthering the exploitation and monopolization in disguise. We urge director Eduardo Gongona not to use the issue of fish importation to justify the declaration of FMAs because it was them who chose the path of this liberalization policy when we can actually strengthen our local production by capacitating and supporting the livelihood of small fisherfolk,” Pamalakaya chairman Fernando Hicap said in a statement.
Pamalakaya said it is “pushing for genuine rehabilitation of aquatic and marine waters not through massive fishing bans that affect the livelihood of small fishers, but by restoring mangrove areas and putting an end to all destructive projects such as reclamation, conversion, and strict restriction of commercial fishing vessels weighing three gross tons and above within the 15-kilometer municipal waters from shores.”
