Senator Villar: Fisheries management crucial

CEBU, Philippines —  Fisheries management is crucial to ensure that fishing activities are done in a way that minimizes detrimental impact on fish stocks and ecosystems, this according to Senator Cynthia Villar.

Speaking before the 3rd Fisheries Management Areas (FMA) Summit in Cebu City, Villar, chairwoman of the Senate Agriculture and Food Committee, said it is also a way of making sure we have food sourced from fishing, income for fishermen, and jobs for processors and allied workers.

Villar, principal author of Republic Act 10654 which amended the Fisheries Code of 1990, said that the passage of the law recognized the threat of overfishing to all nations and if left unabated will mean a collapse of the fishing sector as a source of livelihood.

Under the amended law it is now unlawful to fish or take, catch, gather, sell, purchase, possess, transport, export, forward or ship out aquatic species listed by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna.

The law also ensures that management of fishery and aquatic resources is anchored on eco-system based approach in fishing and the traceability of all the catch of Philippine-flagged fishing vessels through a monitoring, control, and surveillance system.

Villar called on the 12 FMA’s to report on their scorecards and share their strategies on sustainability.

“We need to do this as fishing is one of our primary sources of food and livelihood,” she said.

She added that the productivity of our marine fisheries resources has been declining because of environmental degradation and ineffective natural resources management.

Atty. Gloria Estenzo Ramos, vice president of international marine conservation organization Oceana, said that the government, fisherfolks, scientists, experts, and civil society organizations in this summit are united to ensure that policies establishing FMA’s are implemented.

It has been five years since the FMA system’s adoption on January 28, 2019. The FMA Summit is an annual activity to report the state of its implementation from the scorecard crafted by various civil society organizations, including Oceana.

BFAR national director Atty. Demosthenes Escoto acknowledged that the impact of the FMA’s on fishing communities has been significant, especially in improving their socio-economic status.

He highlighted the crucial role of sustainability plans being developed by BFAR and other implementing agencies to further the participatory implementation of the FMA system. (CEBU NEWS)