fishing: a dying tradition on the
philippine islands
friends of the earth united states and
friends of the earth philippines
On the Philippine islands, fish stocks
and the artisanal fishing industry have
already fared extremely poorly in the face
of trade liberalization. The Filipino
fishing sector employs 1.6 million
subsistence artisanal fishers, and
approximately 6 million people depend upon
the industry for their livelihoods.
Over the past decade, the Philippines
has liberalized its economy by slashing
tariffs in the fish sector from 30 percent
to 5 percent. These tariff reductions have
paved the way for foreign fishing fleets to
increasingly operate off the coast and
bring imports into port. As a result, both
the supply of fish and the income of
fishers have declined due to resource
depletion and lowered productivity.
The government attempted to limit the
dumping of fish imports with its Fisheries
Code of 1998, which banned the sale of
imported fish on wet markets, only allowing
imports for canneries and processing.
Unfortunately this law is rarely enforced
and smuggling is common, especially of
cheap frozen fish from China and
Taiwan.
In addition, the legal yet unsustainable
activities of Japanese trawlers fishing in
Filipino waters, combined with polluted
waters and the spread of aquaculture
(leading to further pollution and loss of
access to both the sea and the productive
waters of mangrove forests), has caused
artisanal fish catches to shrink
significantly over the years.
As a result of trade liberalization, an
estimated 20% of small and mediumscale
commercial fishers have lost their
livelihoods in the Philippines . Poverty
rates among fishers are higher than among
the total population, and the majority of
the poorest provinces are coastal ones.
