Sanchez: Fishing ban as a blessing

WE HAVE to stockpile on our canned fish, and uga (dried fish). The three-month closed fishing season at the Visayan Sea started on November 15. But Negrenses still have fresh water fish such as bangus for consumption.

The three-month closed fishing season until February 15, 2019 is the state’s conservation policy to enable sardines, herrings, and mackerels to spawn and regenerate in the Visayan Sea.

This is mandated by the Fisheries Administrative Order 167-3. It prohibits the catching, killing, selling or possession of sexually-mature sardines, herrings, and mackerels or their larvae, fry or young known locally as “lupoy,” “silinyasi,” linatsay” or “manansi” in the portion of the Visayan Sea and adjoining waters enclosed by line drawn through following points and coastlines.

Through the closed fishing season, fish production at the Visayan Sea will increase by at least 20 percent.

For Western Visayas alone, its annual production is pegged at almost 400,000 metric tons.

Fish conservation helps to maintain the balance of certain ecosystems. Fish are important to the planet and fish conservation can help maintain nature's balance.

Fishing bans don’t have to hurt fishing communities, according to a new study led by Stanford researchers. The group tracked vessels during a short-lived trawling moratorium in the Adriatic Sea and found that fishers maintained their catch levels by fishing elsewhere. The findings suggest that such bans can protect overfished regions without hurting people’s livelihoods and could influence efforts to protect other sensitive regions.

The Visayan Sea stretches from the mouth of Danac River on the northeastern tip of the Bantayan Island to Madridejos, to the lighthouse in Gigantes Island, to Clutaya Island, to Culasi Point in Capiz province, eastward along the northern coast of Capiz to Bulacaue Point in Carles, Iloilo, southward along the eastern coast of Iloilo to the mouth of Talisay River, westward across the Guimaras Strait to Tomonton Point in Occidental Negros, eastward along the northern Coast of the Island of Negros, and back to the mouth of Danao River in Escalante, Negros Occidental.

American journalist Paul Greenberg wrote in his book “Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food” that “humans seem to have an innate drive to master other creatures.”

Wild fish were once everywhere. As Greenberg puts it, “a crop, harvested from the sea,that magically grew itself back every year. A crop that never required planting.” Now we know that’s fiction. That’s why it’s imperative to have these fishing bans.

The Bible said, “It will come about that every living creature which swarms in every place where the river goes, will live. And there will be very many fish, for these waters go there and the others become fresh; so everything will live where the river goes.” (Ezekiel 47:9)

(bqsanc@yahoomail.com)

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