TAGUM City is expanding the artificial coral reef within its 22-hectare marine-protected area (MPA), which it considers a big boost to the local fishermen’s productivity. Over the last decade, Tagum City has allocated over P10-million budget for its marine-conservation project.
In a statement, Tagum City Mayor Allan L. Rellon said its artificial reef has expanded from 2 hectares to 3 hectares to boost its positive impact in sustaining marine life in the area.
“Like many other cities and municipalities in the Davao Gulf, the limited marine ecosystem of Tagum City is under considerable pressure from industrial development, growing population and pollution. We see the need to prioritize marine-conservation initiatives in order to reduce the threats to our marine ecosystem,” Rellon said.
The City Agriculture Office of Tagum started the Artificial Coral Reef (ACR) Project in 2007.
In 2013 the management of ACR was transferred to the City Environment and Natural Resources Office (Cenro). The artificial reef cover is one of the factors that contributed to the increase in fish stock within the city’s 15-kilometer municipal fishing ground.
In 2007 the recorded fish stock was estimated at 2,487 per 1000 square meters.
It dwindled to 1,411 per 1,000 sq m in 2014, after strong typhoons battered Mindanao in consecutive years. Siltation from the rivers and strong waves destroyed the reefs, including several installed artificial coral reefs. The Cenro doubled its efforts in installing reef balls to expand the coverage of the artificial coral reef.
In 2016 the fish stock increased by more than 100 percent. The ACR also helped improve the coral reef condition by 19 percent from 2007 to 2016. This benefited the local fishermen since the fish catch increased.
Currently, the area is enclosed with around 50 mooring buoys to prevent encroachment by erring fishermen from neighboring towns. There were 200 reef balls put into place in 2016. As of this year, the ACR covers 3 hectares of the MPA. The coral recruitment, a process where tiny larvae of corals attached themselves to the reef balls and start a new coral-reef community, takes about three months before branching can be visible.
The city government received technical assistance from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Davao region.
“We installed reef balls during the Amihan [northeast monsoon] season. We do it every week. We learned during our assessment in 2014 that if the reef balls were placed beyond 30 feet, the coral recruitment is slower than those in the range of 20 feet to 30 feet,” said Rodel Chua, focal person for Coastal Management Unit.
Destructive methods of fishing, including the use of dynamite, were rampant from the early 1980s to 1990s.
The illegal and unregulated fishing continued until 2005, when Tagum City established an MPA in Barangay Liboganon.
Through a city ordinance passed in 2007, a 22-hectare offshore MPA was declared, in order to restore its once beautiful reef.
While there are no commercial fishers in Tagum, encroachment in the MPA and municipal waters of Tagum by small fishermen from neighboring towns remains a problem. Tagum’s Bantay Dagat (sea patrollers) now monitors the area, at least, three hours during daytime and six hours at night. Only the registered small fishermen are allowed to fish, with the use of hook-and-line and mesh net.
Tagum City has two patrol boats, and it subsidized all the necessary expenses for the law enforcement, including fuel and salary of the Bantay Dagat, Chua said. Tagum is also part of the marine-conservation project called SMARTSeas PH, a nationwide marine-conservation project by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, United Nations Development Program and Global Environment Facility being implemented by the WWF-Philippines.
Based on the connectivity study conducted by the University of the Philippines Marine Science Institute, under the project the municipal waters of Tagum, is one of the “sinks” of fish eggs in the Davao Gulf area. This is one of the reasons there are lots of fish in the area, despite the condition of the coral reef. SMARTSeas is a multistakeholder marine-conservation project, which includes Tagum as one of its priority sites.
“In the Davao Gulf we aim to network the protected areas and create an ecological linkage of the cities and municipalities, so we can harmonize their efforts in managing the gulf sustainably.
Tagum is one of the cities that we assist in improving their MPA management plan, creating a sustainable alternative source of livelihood for communities in the coastal areas, and increasing their capacity on fishery law enforcement,” SMARTSeas Project Manager Ricky Biyo said.
Mayor Rellon supports the MPA networking in the Davao Gulf, saying Tagum will maximize its available resources and logistics to further intensify their fishery law enforcement and MPA patrolling, and support neighboring cities and municipalities, as well.
The Davao Gulf is one of the country’s 10 major fishing grounds, and is the second top corridor of marine mammals.