The two-month moratorium on catching the diminishing tawilis population will not severely affect the income and livelihood of fishermen and other stakeholders of Taal Lake in Luzon.
This was underscored by Jose Elmer C. Bascos, the Provincial Environment and Natural Resources officer of Batangas, saying Taal Lake, the country’s third largest lake after Laguna de Bay in Luzon and Lanao Lake in Mindanao, is home to other commercially viable fish like carp, tilapia and bangus.
Starting on March 1 until the end of April this year, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), Department of Agriculture (DA) through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) and concerned local government units (LGUs) will ban the fishing of tawilis to allow the rare freshwater sardine to reproduce and replenish the lake with new stocks.
“It is just for two months. They [fishermen] can still go fishing in the lake and there are other fish that are more commercially viable than tawilis,” Bascos told the BusinessMirror in a telephone interview.
He added that for the fishermen’s personal consumption, catching tawilis will still be allowed.
“What is not allowed is fishing by huge volume,” he stressed in Filipino.
The official who also acts as the Protected Area Superintendent (PASu) of the Taal Lake Protected Landscape (TLPL) said fishermen will greatly benefit from the positive impact of the measure. “This will be very beneficial not only for the health of the lake but of the [tawilis] fish stock,” he said.
Bascos confirmed that the management of San Marino, the maker of the canned and bottled tawilis, have pulled out their orders from small fishermen since the government issued the public announcement about the fishing ban last month.
It was learned that San Marino is a major buyer of tawilis, which is sold by fishermen at a very low price.
“In Talisay, a kilo of tawilis is sold at P30 per kilo. So fishermen will not be severely affected by the two-month fishing moratorium,” he said.
Image credits: Arvel Malubag