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Saturday, April 08, 2006
Roperos: Our depleted seas
By Godofredo M. Roperos
Politics Also
When the proposal to close the Visayan Sea to fishing came out in various media outlets recently, I received feedbacks from friends who are concerned with the rising prices of sea products in the market, and the complaint of small fishermen about their vanishing catch.
Friends from fishing villages in our part of the province said that there has been felt a decreasing amount of catch from the Visayan Sea because of uncontrolled commercial fishing activities for years now.
It was pointed out to me that such kind of fishing, called zipper, is not only illegal because these are not licensed but also the most destructive, even worse than the infamous muro ami.
Of course, there are still other kinds of unlicensed or illegal fishing such as those using dynamites and poison like cyanide that definitely destroys the productivity of our seas. But licensed commercial fishing such as the sensoro or kubkub and trawl fishing could be also as deadly as the illegal ones, which necessitates the ban.
It seems that a good number of people agree with the idea to close the Visayan Sea to commercial fishing for a while to restore productivity. In fact, one fisherman suggests that all the seas in the Visayan regions should be temporarily closed to commercial fishing to protect the depletion of their products.
A Boholano friend who is concerned with the “health” of our seas said, however, that the ban should only be imposed on commercial fishing, not on small fishermen who fish for a living.
Small fishermen who use small nets and fishing lines do not destroy our seas, but the sea offers them their source of survival. They are the ones that the ban on commercial fishing actually protects.
Basnig is a kind of fishing that the average small time fishermen practice. But they should also be closely monitored since they use, too, destructive ways of fishing like using cyanide and dynamite. The latter, of course, has been a bane of shallow water fish since I could remember.
My Boholano friend, Albert Reformina, said that since I chose to write about our almost depleted seas, I might as well include the danggit fish that has made Cebu famous to Manila tourists.
He said that the catch could be increased if danggit fishermen would not be allowed to use gill nets during the first four or five days of the New Moon every month, since it is the time when danggit come to the shallows to lay their eggs. And also to ban the catching of the danggit fry that they salt and sell, called tagom-tagom.
Another suggestion is that for the duration of the commercial fishing ban in the Visayan Sea, small fishermen using basing and other forms of fishing may not be allowed to use the brighter electric lights but just the traditional ones, such as the famous Petromax or Primus.
If what I learned from concerned and willful informants have a good measure of truth in it, I think our government environmentalists and fisheries bureau officials should take heed immediately before we find ourselves unable anymore to order sashimi in our favorite restaurants at prices within our reach, or have fish kinilaw at will at home.
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (April 8, 2006 issue)
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